By Roberta Rampton and Stephen Brown BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama used a speech in Berlin on Wednesday to call on Russia to revive the push for a world without nuclear weapons, offering to cut deployed nuclear arsenals by a third, but Moscow immediately poured scorn on his proposal. Speaking in Berlin where U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan gave rousing Cold-War speeches, Obama urged Russia to help build on the "New START" treaty that requires Moscow and Washington to cut stockpiles of deployed nuclear weapons to 1,550 each by 2018. ...

BOSTON (AP) — A prosecutor says a Boston man found dead in an industrial park about a mile from New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez's home was a homicide victim.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After secretive talks, key senators expressed optimism Wednesday night that they were closing in on a bipartisan agreement to toughen the border security requirements in immigration legislation that also offers a path to citizenship to millions living in the country illegally.

EVERGREEN, Colo. (AP) — A new wildfire in the foothills southwest of Denver forced the evacuation of dozens of homes Wednesday as hot and windy conditions in much of Colorado and elsewhere in the West made it easy for fires to start and spread.

By Hamid Shalizi and Lesley Wroughton KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Revived Afghan peace talks hit their first roadblock on Wednesday, a day after they were announced, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his government would not join U.S. talks with the Taliban and would halt negotiations with Washington on a post-2014 troop pact. The United States and the Taliban had announced on Tuesday that officials from both sides will meet in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in coming days, in a step forward for a stuttering peace process after 12 years of bloody and costly war between U.S. ...

BEIJING (AP) — China's new leader Xi Jinping is commanding wayward Communist Party cadres to purify themselves of corruption, and he's summed it up in a pithy slogan as Mao Zedong might have done: Look in the mirror, take a bath.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Gandolfini, whose portrayal of a brutal, emotionally delicate mob boss in HBO's "The Sopranos" helped create one of TV's greatest drama series and turned the mobster stereotype on its head, died Wednesday in Italy. He was 51.

BOSTON (AP) — They have come to wave flags or meet the players or just appear on the video screen, invariably to a standing ovation, during the Boston Bruins' run to the Stanley Cup finals.

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — Former investigators are pushing to reopen the probe into the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, saying new evidence points to the often-discounted theory that a missile strike may have downed the jumbo jet.

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) — Tropical Storm Barry formed off Mexico's Gulf Coast on Wednesday, prompting Mexican authorities to ready hundreds of shelters.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is planning a major push using executive powers to tackle the pollution blamed for global warming in an effort to make good on promises he made at the start of his second term. "We know we have to do more — and we will do more," Obama said Wednesday in Berlin.

HOUSTON (AP) — The Houston Astrodome, an iconic stadium that's fallen into disrepair since it was shuttered four years ago, could see new life as a giant convention center and exhibition space under a plan recommended by a county board on Wednesday.

FAIRPORT, Mich. (AP) — A wooden beam that has long been the focus of the search for a 17th century shipwreck in northern Lake Michigan was not attached to a buried vessel as searchers had suspected, but still may have come from the elusive Griffin or some other ship, archaeologists said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a move that could send interest rates higher, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke ended weeks of speculation Wednesday by saying the Federal Reserve will likely slow its bond-buying program this year and end it next year because the economy is strengthening.

BOSTON (AP) — A man found dead in an industrial park about a mile from New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez's house was a semi-pro football player with connections to Hernandez, his family said Wednesday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Financial markets shuddered Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it could start scaling back its huge economic stimulus program later this year and end it by the middle of next.

SAO PAULO (AP) — With massive protests by middle-class Brazilians demanding wholesale government reforms, people all over this continent-sized country have reached a verdict on the streets and online: "The giant has awakened."

NEW YORK (AP) — Men's Wearhouse doesn't like the way its founder looks anymore.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Celebrity cook Paula Deen said while being questioned in a discrimination lawsuit that she has used racial slurs in the past but insisted she and her family do not tolerate prejudice.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A cat caring for four newborn kittens is nursing an orphaned week-old pit bull puppy in Cleveland.

MIAMI (AP) — Through heartbreaking losses and hair-raising victories, through Game 7s of the NBA Finals and Game 46s of the regular season, through contract extension after contract extension, what has defined these San Antonio Spurs more than anything else is the simple fact that they stick together.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Best-selling author Vince Flynn, who wrote the Mitch Rapp counterterrorism thriller series and sold more than 15 million books in the U.S. alone, died Wednesday in Minnesota after a more than two-year battle with prostate cancer, according to friends and his publisher. He was 47.

DALLAS (AP) — FedEx Corp.'s fourth-quarter profit fell 45 percent as international customers traded down to less-expensive delivery options and the company spent heavily on restructuring.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Leaders in Brazil's two biggest cities said Wednesday that they reversed an increase in bus and subway fares that ignited anti-government protests that have spread across the nation in the past week.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A mentally disabled mother authorities said was enslaved for two years along with her daughter spent time in jail this year after pleading guilty to beating the girl, but her attorney told a judge that her captors forced her to do it.

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge who heard prostitutes testify that a father-and-son pimp team made them feel like family cleared the two men of sex trafficking charges Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI uses drones for surveillance of stationary subjects, and the privacy implications of such operations are "worthy of debate," FBI Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.