International

In a speech in Wisconsin, US President Barack Obama announced a USD50 billion plan to restore 150,000 miles of roads, lay 4,000 miles of railroad tracks and rebuild 150 miles of airport runways within six years. The speech was given at an annual Labor Day festival in Milwaukee to union workers on Monday afternoon.

By Sabrina Shankman and Tom Jennings of Frontline, Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi of The New Orleans Times-Picayune and A.C. Thompson of ProPublica This story was co-published with The New Orleans Times-Picayune.

 China's economy surpassed Japan's during the second quarter of 2010, and now is the second largest world economic power. China's economy already is larger than Japan's in the fourth quarter of most years, and many expect that the world's most populous country will soon cement its place as the world's second largest economy all year round.

 According to a new study, US girls are reaching puberty earlier than ever, a trend that raises some health concerns. The study, which was conducted in New York's East Harlem, the Cincinnati metropolitan area and the San Francisco Bay area, showed that by age eight, 27% of girls had begun puberty and showed breast development. By age seven, 15% of girls were developing breasts.

The Pakistan Red Crescent Society, which has branches and volunteers across the country, has been helping survivors since the flooding began by delivering food, health services, shelter and relief items (including hygiene kits and cooking equipment).

Actress Mia Farrow and Carole White have testified in former Liberian president Charles Taylor's war crimes trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, The Netherlands. Farrow and White's testimonies contradict supermodel Naomi Campbell's testimony from last week.

 A Gainesville, Florida church named the Dove World Outreach Center has drawn international attention to itself with its planned book burning of the Quran. The church urges people to send them copies of the book for burning at a bonfire event to be held on church property this coming September 11. The date marks the ninth anniversary of the 2001 September 11 attacks on the United States.

By Marian Wang in Propublica

In recent weeks, top officials from the Federal Communications Commission have held closed-door meetings to negotiate with the country’s biggest communications companies and online service providers on how the Internet should be regulated. In a statement today, the FCC said it had called off those talks, saying the effort "has been productive on several fronts, but has not generated a robust framework to preserve the openness and freedom of the Internet."