LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday he believed a deal was still possible to prevent a planned British Airways cabin crew strike at the weekend.

LONDON (Reuters) - The Conservatives maintained their lead over Labour in a survey on Wednesday from a pollster which has consistently shown a wide gap between the two parties.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Wednesday defended its use of intelligence obtained by foreign security agencies from terrorism suspects, even when it could not be sure how the informants had been treated.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California Highway Patrol report released on Wednesday in a sensational "runaway" Toyota Prius incident appears to support the version of events given by the driver, which the automaker has called into question.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested three people suspected of exhorting a 110,000-pound ransom for a British boy kidnapped while on holiday in Pakistan and since released.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Red-shirted protesters emptied bottles of their blood outside the home of Thailand's prime minister on Wednesday in a symbolic sacrifice after the government rejected calls for elections.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday Israeli plans to build more homes near East Jerusalem were not helpful for the Middle East peace process, but he said the issue had not led to a crisis with one of the United States' closest allies.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain is pushing the U.N. Security Council to discuss concerns about Myanmar's upcoming election but is facing resistance from the southeast Asian nation's powerful neighbour China, U.N. diplomats said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Hackers have flooded the Internet with virus-tainted spam that targets Facebook's estimated 400 million users in an effort to steal banking passwords and gather other sensitive information.