WASHINGTON — Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican in Congress to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ dismissal, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in his embattled Cabinet officer.

NEW ORLEANS  — Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at the Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday for installing defective pumps at three major drainage canals just before the start of last summer’s hurricane season.

SAN DIEGO — What would have been the first court hearing about the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha has been delayed more than two months, an attorney said Wednesday.

OAKLAND — California regulators accused a Rohnert Park funeral home operator with trying to bribe an embalmer into signing statements that five bodies were chemically preserved before they were sent to Mexico for burial.

U.S.-Mexico

WASHINGTON — Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday it has agreed to a $25 million fine after admitting it paid a Colombian terrorist group for protection in a volatile farming region.

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney is buying $800,000 in television air time. Candidates are purchasing voter lists in the early states — $100,000 for the Iowa Democratic Party’s list and $60,000 for the South Carolina version. And the entire presidential field is buying jet fuel by the planeload.

NEW YORK — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is working on his memoirs, to be published in the spring 2008 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

TRENTON, N.J.— Heart attack patients have a slightly higher risk of death if they go to the hospital on the weekend, when they are more likely to miss or wait longer for crucial treatments, one of the largest studies of the issue finds.

WASHINGTON — All prescription sleeping pills may sometimes cause sleep-driving, federal health officials warned Wednesday, almost a year after the bizarre side effect first made headlines when Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car after taking Ambien.

MIAMI — A jury decided Wednesday that a convicted sex offender should get the death penalty for the kidnapping, rape and murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, who was buried alive in trash bags just yards from her home.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Doctors warn that a few obesity surgery patients have developed a serious neurological condition, with symptoms of confusion and poor coordination, linked to a lack of vitamin B1.

12 p.m. SACRAMENTO -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Thursday moved the presidential primary of the nation's most populous state to February, shaking up the 2008 race and making a one-day, mega-primary increasingly likely.

WASHINGTON — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a chilling string of other terror plots during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

DENVER — Carrie Ann Lucas is confined to a wheelchair. She breathes with the aid of a ventilator. She cannot hear and can see only at close range.