AP - A military panel took evidence Wednesday in a hearing aimed at determining whether two U.S. soldiers should face a court-martial in the deaths of four Iraqi men last year.

Reuters - KBR Inc and its Jordanian contractor are being sued for human trafficking by a Nepalese survivor and the families of 12 other employees who were killed while being transported, allegedly against their will, to work in a U.S. military base in Iraq.

AP - A federal jury on Wednesday began deliberating whether a former Marine squad leader committed manslaughter in Iraq, marking the first time in which civilians will decide whether the actions of a military service member during combat were criminal.

AP - Conditions in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, where a brutal insurgency once ruled, have improved so dramatically that the United States is handing over responsibility for security in the Sunni stronghold to Iraq within days. Troops freed up in Iraq could shift to Afghanistan.

AP - A column of people three blocks long, led by members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, streamed from the Denver Coliseum on Wednesday in an anti-war protest march to the Pepsi Center, where the Democratic National Convention is being staged.

AP - As of Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008, at least 4,148 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Reuters - The top U.S. Marine officer said on Wednesday he could reduce his 25,000-strong force in the former al Qaeda stronghold of Iraq's Anbar province to reinforce military operations against a growing Taliban threat in Afghanistan.

AFP - US forces will hand over control of Anbar province to Iraqi troops in the coming days, military officials said Wednesday, touting improved security in the region.

Bloomberg - Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Talks with Iran would help Senator Barack Obama make good on a pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office as president, Obama's national security adviser said.

AP - The U.S. military says it has captured a suspected senior Shiite militant believed to be behind a June bombing in Baghdad that killed four Americans and six Iraqis.

AP - The city's first airport is weeks away from opening, but already a bigger one is talked about. Land prices are soaring. Merchants say they don't remember business ever being so good.

AP - Iraq is calling on companies to submit designs to build a giant Ferris wheel in Baghdad — the latest in a string of lavish proposals painting the capital as a leisure friendly city.

AFP - US soldiers shot and killed four Iraqi prisoners execution-style last year to avenge the deaths of two army comrades, according testimony cited Wednesday by the New York Times.

Reuters - The United States asked Iraq for permission to keep troops there to 2015 but compromised with Iraqi negotiators on 2011, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said.

Reuters - Three U.S. soldiers killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots on the bank of a Baghdad canal last year, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Reuters - The United States asked Iraq for permission to maintain a troop presence there to 2015, but U.S. and Iraqi negotiators agreed to limit their authorization to 2011, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said.

AP - A university president and a top local official in a restive province north of Baghdad are suspected of giving weapons and government cars to al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents, according to arrest reports obtained Wednesday.

AFP - Revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on Wednesday urged Iraqis to register so they can vote in provincial elections planned to be held by early next year.

AFP - An American soldier has died of wounds received in a bomb attack in Baghdad, the US military in Iraq said on Wednesday.

AFP - Iraq is negotiating a multi-million-dollar loan from Japan to fund water and sewage projects in Baghdad and in the northern Kurdish region, the government said on Wednesday.