Obamacare fight — House Republicans vowed Wednesday to pass legislation that would prevent a partial government shutdown and avoid a historic national default while simultaneously canceling out President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, inaugurating a new round of political brinkmanship as critical deadlines approach. Obama swiftly condemned the effort as attempted political extortion, and the Republican-friendly Chamber of Commerce pointedly called on lawmakers to pass urgent spending and borrowing legislation — unencumbered by debate over “Obamacare.”

Disappearances solved? — When three teenagers from Sayre, Okla., disappeared on their way to a high school football game in 1970, rumors swirled as to what happened to the trio. Now authorities believe they have a key piece to the puzzle: A 1969 Camaro, just like the one the teens were driving, was pulled from a lake with the skeletal remains of three people inside. And that wasn’t the only discovery. A second car containing remains, an early 1950s Chevrolet, was also recovered. Custer County Sheriff Bruce Peoples believes it may solve another case in which two men and a woman disappeared a year before the teens vanished.

WTC name — The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Wednesday called a deal that sold the World Trade Center’s name rights to a nonprofit organization for $10 decades ago “a shameful episode” and vowed to cooperate with an anticipated investigation by New York’s attorney general. A newspaper story this month revealed that the name rights were sold to former Port Authority executive Guy Tozzoli in his role as head of the nonprofit World Trade Centers Association, formed to promote international trade. The Port Authority, which owns the lower Manhattan land where the Twin Towers stood before Sept. 11, 2001, is among more than 300 worldwide members that pay the WTCA a fee to use the words “World Trade Center.”

Facebook free speech — Clicking “Like” on Facebook is constitutionally protected free speech and can be considered the 21st century-equivalent of a campaign yard sign, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond reversed a lower court ruling that said merely “liking” a Facebook page was insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection. Exactly what a “like” means — if anything — played a part in a Virginia case involving six people who say Hampton Sheriff B.J. Roberts fired them for supporting an opponent in his 2009 re-election bid, which he won. The workers sued, saying their First Amendment rights were violated.

Alzheimer’s grant — In the most significant sign yet of a broad shift in the focus of Alzheimer’s research from treating to preventing the disease, the federal government announced Wednesday its largest grant so far to test an Alzheimer’s drug on healthy people at greatest risk for the most common form of the disease. The $33.2 million grant follows years of unsuccessful trials of treatments on people who already have dementia. Those failures have led to the realization that these drugs appear to be ineffective by the time memory and thinking problems have taken hold.

Federal land drilling — The San Rafael Swell has long been a draw for hiking and canyoneering, and has even been considered for designation as a national monument. So last month, when the federal Bureau of Land Management announced its intention to open portions of the 2,000-square-mile stretch of central Utah for drilling by private oil and gas companies, conservation groups reacted with alarm. On Monday, several conservation organizations filed a formal protest with the bureau, asking that it withdraw 55 proposed leases from energy companies. The groups claimed the bureau had not sufficiently weighed the environmental consequences of opening parts of the Swell for drilling.

Benghazi investigation — Senior House Republicans on Wednesday accused the State Department of failing to hold senior officials accountable for security failures that contributed to the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed. “No State Department personnel have been fired or even disciplined,” said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., who leads the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “No one has missed a paycheck.” Royce’s comments opened the first of three hearings this week that the House Republican leadership has scheduled as part of its scrutiny of the administration’s conduct before, during and after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2012.