• BEIRUT (AP) -- Syria's state-run media on Wednesday criticized decisions by the U.S. and other nations to expel the country's diplomats, describing the moves as "unprecedented hysteria" and warning they might deal a fatal blow to an international peace plan.
• The harsh rhetoric came as Syrian forces bombarded rebel-held areas in the same province where a recent assault killed 108 people, activists said.
• Survivors of the Houla massacre blamed pro-regime gunmen for at least some of the carnage as the killings reverberated inside Syria and beyond, further isolating President Bashar Assad and embarrassing his few remaining allies. The Syrian government denied its troops were behind the killings and blamed "armed terrorists."
• Damascus had said it would conclude its own investigation into the Houla deaths by Wednesday but it was not clear if the findings would be made public.
• The Houla killings prompted Western nations to expel Syrian diplomats in a coordinated protest.
• ___

• LONDON (AP) -- Britain's Supreme Court has endorsed the extradition of WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange to Sweden, bringing the secret-spilling Internet activist a big step closer to prosecution in a Scandinavian court.
• Assange, 40, has spent the better part of two years fighting attempts to send him to the Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in sex crime allegations. He has not been charged there.
• The U.K. side of that struggle appeared to come to a messy end Wednesday, with the nation's highest court ruling 5-2 that the warrant seeking his arrest was properly issued -- and Assange's lawyer arguing that the case should be reopened.
• Supreme Court President Nicholas Phillips, speaking for the majority, acknowledged that Assange's case "has not been simple to resolve," but that the court had ultimately concluded that "the request for Mr. Assange's extradition has been law

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