GRENOBLE, France -- Four Caterpillar executives "bossnapped" by workers were to be freed after French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to save the plant, union leaders said. A spokesman for the Confederation Generale du Travail union told The Times of London that the executives, taken Tuesday and held overnight at the Caterpillar plant in Grenoble, France, would be released as soon as company officials, at the behest of Sarkozy, agreed to renegotiate severance packages for laid-off workers. In ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The corruption case against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has been dropped by the U.S. Justice Department, a statement issued by the department said. The 85-year-old Republican lawmaker was convicted last October on seven counts of lying on federal financial disclosure forms about free services he received, many for the renovation of his Alaska home. Sentencing of Stevens had been delayed amid charges by an FBI agent of prosecutorial misconduct in the case. Throughout the ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army is investigating allegations soldiers medically unfit for duty were deployed to Iraq from Alaska's Fort Wainwright, an army spokeswoman says. The inquiry is the result of complaints that commanders deployed some soldiers before they completed tests for health problems, underwent necessary surgeries or recuperated from operations, USA Today reported Wednesday. One of those soldiers, profiled by USA Today, was deployed despite a doctor's recommendation that he wear a heart monitor because of ... [full story]

ANKARA, Turkey -- The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan met in Turkey Wednesday to discuss a regional approach to battling terrorism and militant insurgencies, officials said. In a meeting hosted by Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met to discuss greater cooperation on security and intelligence sharing, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported. The meeting at the Presidential Palace followed an encounter between Zardari and Turkish ... [full story]

WARSAW, Poland -- A twin-turboprop plane crashed in northern Poland killing all four Polish naval officers aboard, a navy spokesman said Wednesday. The Bryza aircraft was on a training flight Tuesday afternoon when it crashed while making a landing approach at the Babie Doly military airport near Gdynia, 180 miles north of Warsaw, Polish Radio reported. Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich ordered a special commission to investigate the cause of the crash. All similar planes have been ... [full story]

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Legal decisions made behind closed doors are serving to greatly reduce the number of open-court trials being held in the United States, a scholar says. The number of U.S. legal cases that go to trial has declined at an alarming rate over the last couple of decades, Northwestern University School of Law professor Robert Burns argues in a new book, the university said in a release from Evanston, Ill. Burns argues in "The ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- Fears that the computer worm Conficker.c would cause widespread April Fools' Day chaos were proving unfounded Wednesday, U.S. experts said. Computer security experts warily watching infected systems said that while the malicious code activated itself as expected Wednesday, no reports of major problems had surfaced, CNN reported. "As long as you've patched or at least brought your antivirus software up to speed, you should be fine," Chris Pirillo, a CNN tech expert, told the broadcaster, ... [full story]

LONDON -- U.S. President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed Wednesday to enhance U.S.-China relations and strengthen economic and financial cooperation. Obama accepted Hu's invitation to visit China this year during a meeting of the two world leaders in London, a day before the Group of 20 financial summit begins. "The two sides agreed to work together to build a positive, cooperative and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century and to maintain and strengthen exchanges ... [full story]

BOSTON -- Lawyers declined to discuss their strategy Wednesday as they headed for a Boston federal court hearing on the planned deportation of President Obama's aunt. Attorneys representing Zeituni Onyango met behind closed doors with U.S. Immigration Judge Leonard Shapiro to discuss the case, which the Boston Globe says is being closely watched as a test of the new president's commitment to immigration laws. Onyango is the half-sister of Obama's late Kenyan father. She lost a bid ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The recession may make it easier to gain admission to some private colleges in the United States this year, college officials say. A drop in the number of applications is prompting many private schools to send out more letters of acceptance, create bigger waiting lists and pump more money into financial aid, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. At Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, applications were down by as much as 35 percent last fall, giving those ... [full story]