Today's news

--> U.S.: Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is dropping out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, two sources inside his campaign said Wednesday.

Edwards has told top advisers about his decision. It is expected he will announce it in a speech at 1 p.m. ET Wednesday in New Orleans, Louisiana.

--> Florida: With 99 percent of Republican precincts reporting from Florida after Tuesday's voting, Senator John McCain held a five-point lead, 36 percent to 31 percent, over Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. The win gives McCain all 57 Florida delegates at stake.

On the Democratic side, with about 99 percent of Democratic precincts reporting, Sen. Hillary Clinton had 50 percent of the vote. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois placed second with 33 percent, and former Sen. John Edwards was in third with 14 percent.

--> U.S.: The United States economy expanded by a disappointingly weak 0.6 percent during the last three months of 2007, the government reported Wednesday, offering the latest indication that the United States is already suffering a substantial slowdown, and perhaps a recession.

The growth from October to December came in at half the rate forecast by most economists, and it was down strikingly from the 4.9 percent clip registered last fall. Over all, the economy expanded by 2.2 percent in inflation-adjusted terms for all of 2007, the slowest rate of growth in five years.

“We lost a lot of momentum and stalled in the fourth quarter,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. “This reinforces the odds for a recession.”

--> Cape Canaveral, FL: The space station's two American astronauts went out on a riskier-than-usual spacewalk Wednesday and fixed one of two equipment failures that crippled their power system and threatened to stall construction at the orbiting outpost.

Commander Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani replaced a motor needed to tilt a solar wing toward the sun, taking extra precautions to avoid being shocked. Once the new motor was hooked up, electricity began flowing through the unit and provided a power boost.