Stores fear holiday sales may stick

Shoppers are getting used to those 75 percent off sales, and that's bad news for merchants who worry they will also have to quickly slash prices on spring goods to attract customers.

Walters: Oklahoma can silence Big 12 critics with win

Walters: Oklahoma has an opportunity to validate every verbal bouquet tossed the Big 12's direction this season. The Sooners, losers themselves of four consecutive BCS bowls and no strangers to the "Over-rated!" chant, take on a Florida squad that is as fast and deep as anyone in the nation. And that might as well be playing a home game.

India: Mumbai gunmen directed by phone
"We have three foreigners, including women," the gunman said into the phone.

Mississippi now has highest teen birth rate
Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen birth rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, according to a new federal report.

Gaza Palestinians: ‘Everywhere is dangerous'

Msnbc.com's Kari Huus on Wednesday interviewed two young Palestinians in Gaza by phone to hear their accounts of life in the battle zone.

Melamine found in more U.S. infant formula
The FDA says the industrial chemical melamine and a byproduct cyanuric acid have now been detected in four of 89 containers of infant formula made in the United States.

Israel welcomes cease-fire proposal

Israel tentatively welcomed a proposal for a Gaza cease-fire and briefly halted its offensive to allow aid to reach civilians, but also gave the military a green light to press ahead with its assault on Hamas.

Ice storm in Northeast, floods in South

Storms had people on edge across the U.S. Wednesday, with ice and freezing rain  in the Northeast, flooding and power outages in the South and the Pacific Northwest watching for avalanches.

'God' author faces plagiarism claim

Neale Donald Walsch, best-selling author of "Conversations with God," said that he unwittingly passed off another writer's Christmas anecdote as his own in a recent blog post.