CK Pep

AP – Amid new warnings and fresh signs of strain, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders are entering a perilous debt-limit endgame. The president, declaring “enough is enough,” is demanding that budget negotiators find common ground by week’s end even as the Senate’s top Republican gained followers for his own last-ditch scheme to avoid a government default.

AP – Republican presidential candidates are all but silent on Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s proposal to sidestep a potentially disastrous government default on loan obligations.

AP – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Wednesday the Fed is ready to act if the economy gets weaker. He warned them that allowing the nation to default on its debt would send “shock waves through the entire financial system.”

AP – Indian police are looking into “every possible hostile group” in their search for the culprits behind the triple bombing in the heart of Mumbai that killed 17 people and wounded 131 others, the country’s top security official said Thursday.

AP – Newly released videos recorded by the Northern California couple who held Jaycee Lee Dugard captive for 18 years provide chilling details about the kidnappers, most notably stealthily shot images from a playground that show young girls frolicking on a tire swing at a park.

AP – Rupert Murdoch’s dream of controlling a British broadcasting behemoth has evaporated with the withdrawal of his bid for BSkyB — the latest, biggest casualty of what Prime Minister David Cameron called the hacking “firestorm” sweeping through British politics, media and police.

AP – Walking home alone from day camp for the first time, 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky disappeared.

AP – Business owners touted promotions Wednesday aimed at cashing in on the upcoming closure of part of heavily traveled Interstate 405, while city officials sought to assure the public that they were ready for the effects of a possible traffic nightmare during what’s being dubbed “Carmageddon” in freeway-dependent Southern California.

AP – A Las Vegas nightclub owned by “Desperate Housewives” co-star Eva Longoria is temporary closing its doors amid financial troubles.

AP – Francisco Rodriguez is gone, and Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran could be next. It all depends on the next couple of weeks for the New York Mets.