Alexandra Starr

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told reporters Monday that the government will move to more rigorously regulate prepaid debit cards, which he said were used in preparation for the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. He said the changes were necessary to restrict terrorists' ability to transfer and access money ...

When Henry Gomez was 12 years old, four gang members stormed his house in El Salvador, seeking revenge on a cousin of his who had refused to join them.

"They came into the house," Gomez says. "My cousin was sitting down and they shot him three times in the back. ...

While dozens of governors have announced their opposition to Syrian refugees settling in their states, some senators are focusing their attention on a program they say poses a bigger threat of allowing terrorists into the country: the visa waiver program.

And while some lawmakers have been discussing changes ...

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the French Senate that the death toll from last week's massacre in Paris had risen by one, to 130 people. Hundreds were also wounded.

The count does not include any of the attackers who died. Earlier today, the prosecutor's office in Paris confirmed ...

Refugee advocates don't seem particularly concerned that governors will be able to make good on their calls to ban Syrian refugees from their states.

Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, a major refugee resettlement organization, says, "A [U.S.] state cannot shut its doors to refugees, let alone refugees of ...

The Mormon church — or The Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) — has been under fire for declaring earlier this month that members who enter into same-sex marriages will be deemed apostates and their children barred from baptism. The church tweaked that position late last week, explaining ...

Earlier in the week, Juvenile Court Judge Scott Johansen had directed married foster parents Rebecca A. Peirce, 34, and April M. Hoagland, 38, to give up the baby girl they had raised for three of her nine months. According to the women, he said studies (which he did ...

A Pennsylvania court has ruled that the state must restore the pension of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach imprisoned for sexually abusing 10 boys.

The State Employees' Retirement Board revoked Sandusky's pension in October 2012, when he was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in ...

SeaWorld has been deluged by negative publicity over how its parks treat killer whales, or orcas. The 2013 documentary Blackfish — which delved into the death of marine-mammal trainer Dawn Brancheau — highlighted the alleged toll years of captivity can take on the animals.

The company's market value ...

Updated 3 a.m. ET Tuesday:

Jordanian government officials say at least five people — two Americans, two Jordanians and a South African — were shot and killed by a Jordanian police officer at a training center near Amman. Seven other people — including two Americans — were wounded in Monday's ...

Rashad Owens was intoxicated when he drove his car through a crowd at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin last year. He killed four people and injured at least 20. Today, an Austin jury found him guilty of capital murder. The verdict means he will ...

Daniel Fleetwood, a 32-year-old Texan suffering from terminal cancer, is a dedicated Star Wars fan. Earlier this week, he told People magazine that he had viewed the films over and over since he was first introduced to them as an eight year old, "analyz[ing] every little detail."

Fleetwood, who ...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has introduced new policies that classify members in same-sex marriages as apostates. Their children will not be permitted to be blessed or baptized until they turn 18 and get permission from church leaders.

To obtain that permission, they must disavow the ...

A rare cyclone battered the isolated Yemeni island of Socotra on Monday and then headed for the mainland. According to The Weather Channel, Cyclone Chapala could dump three to four times the average yearly rainfall in parts of Yemen in just one or two days.

Chapala was expected ...

Virunga National Park, home to roughly a quarter of the world's remaining 880 mountain gorillas, was featured in Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist.

This week, the Alexander Soros Foundation gave its annual Extraordinary Achievement in Environmental and Human Rights award to two activists from the Democratic Republic of ...

Polish and Guatemalan voters have decisively rejected their current leadership, while Argentina heads for a runoff.

Polish voters went with the right-wing opposition party Law and Justice on Sunday. The party leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is a former prime minister and Eurosceptic who has publicly opposed a European Union plan to ...

The University of Mississippi took down the state flag at the Oxford campus on Monday, days after students and faculty called for removal of the banner — which displays the Confederate battle emblem.

Several cities and counties and three historically black colleges in the state also do not fly it.

Argentines go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president, after a dozen years of being led first by Nestor Kirchner and later by his widow, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. There are three candidates in the race: Daniel Scioli, governor of Buenos Aires province; the mayor of Buenos ...

Today is the deadline for the federal government to begin releasing hundreds of immigrant children and their parents from detention. Advocates believe a recent decision by the Department of Human Services in Pennsylvania to potentially revoke the license for one of the facilities holding the immigrant families could speed up ...

The Wall Street Journal says federal investigators have turned up little to support the argument that Wal-Mart engaged in major bribery as it expanded in Mexico.

The New York Times' 2012 account of how the corporate retail behemoth may have paid more than $24 million in bribes in Mexico ...