Eyder Peralta

The chief of Syria's air defense has been killed during an attack by rebel fighters on Sunday, news outlets, including The Associated Press and The Guardian, are reporting.

The AP reports that Lt. Gen. Hussein Ishaq is one of the few high ranking officials to have been ...

Turkish authorities arrested more than a dozen people in connection with the country's worst mining disaster.

According to the Times of India, the arrests include mining company executives.

The BBC reports that after the rescue operation concluded on Saturday, the death toll stood at 301.

The BBC adds:

China says it plans to send five more ships in an effort to evacuate its citizens from Vietnam, where anti-Chinese protests have turned violent.

Reporting from Shanghai, NPR's Frank Langfitt tells our Newscast unit that Vietnamese authorities broke up another protest planned for today. He filed this report:

"At ...

New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. defended the sacking of executive editor Jill Abramson in a statement on Saturday.

After her firing, the Times has come under heavy scrutiny after reports arose that just before her firing Abramson complained that she was not being paid as much ...

President Obama is said to be considering appointing San Antonio Mayor Julían Castro as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and moving the agency's current chief, Shaun Donvan, to the Office of Management and Budget, the San Antonio Express News, the AP, The New York ...

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus appears to have jumped from one human to another for the first time in United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a press release that an Illinois man has preliminarily tested positive for the MERS antibodies after he had ...

Miss Beazley, the Scottish Terrier who graced the White House with her presence while her owner, George W. Bush, was president, has died after a battle with lymphoma.

Bush and his wife Laura made the announcement on his Facebook page.

"She was a source of joy during our time ...

Narendra Modi, India's prime minister-elect, received a hero's welcome in Delhi on Saturday.

The Guardian reports that a brass band, drummers and bagpipes "played while hundreds of supporters waving BJP flags met Modi at the capital's airport on Saturday."

As we've reported, Modi's win is historic because it ...

During separate commencement addresses, Attorney General Eric Holder and first lady Michelle Obama delivered a similar message: On this 60th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated schools, we should acknowledge that progress has been made, but in many ways systematic racism ...

In the first ruling of its kind, District Judge Gladys Kessler has halted the force-feeding of a Syrian man being detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

In a brief order, Kessler said the U.S. should not force-feed Jihad Ahmed Mujstafa Dhiab until after a hearing set for May 21. Kessler ...

By the time a bright-eyed secretary named Peggy Olson walked through the fictional doors of the Madison Avenue advertising agency Sterling Cooper in 1960, one very real female pioneer was already hard at work down the street.

Like her Mad Men counterpart, the 84-year-old broadcasting legend Barbara Walters, who retired ...

The board of directors for the NAACP announced it has selected Cornell William Brooks as its new president and CEO.

"Mr. Brooks is a pioneering lawyer and civil rights leader, who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Association," Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the NAACP Board of ...

If someone is outraged these days, they often blog about it, or post a tweet in righteous indignation. Parents urge children to use their words, and in the news business, we certainly believe in the power of words and information.

But you may wonder these days if some people confuse ...

Oregon Public Broadcasting brings us an epic tale: OR-7, a long-wandering wolf who ventured from northeast Oregon all the way to California in search of new territory and a chance for a mate, may have finally found one.

Biologists with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they imaged ...

An international aviation organization is taking a first step toward implementing a system that would track aircraft globally.

The Globe and Mail reports that after a two-day meeting in Montreal, the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization said that the tracking system would be "pursued as a matter of ...

Ukraine says six of its soldiers were killed during an ambush by militants on Tuesday.

CNN reports the Ukrainian Defense Ministry called it a "terrorist attack." The network adds:

"The incident took place in the village of Oktyabrski in the Slovyansk region, about 20 kilometers from Kramatorsk, during ...

Without making any progress toward ending Syria's civil war, Lakhdar Brahimi will step down as the international envoy to Syria.

Brahimi's nearly two years in the post ends in much the same way that it did for his predecessor Kofi Annan, who stepped down in the summer of 2012 ...

Update at 4:57 p.m. ET. Federal Court Halts Execution:

With just hours to go, a federal court has halted the execution of Texas inmate Robert Campbell.

The execution would have been the first since Oklahoma botched one in April.

The ruling has nothing to do with the drug shortage ...

In 1963, Alabama was culturally closer to Brooklyn than it is now. The Great Migration of African-Americans out of the South created enclaves in cities all over the country, and the Civil Rights movement trained the eyes of the North on cities like Birmingham. Alabama native Naomi Shelton came to ...

Human Rights Watch says evidence "strongly suggests" the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against his own people in mid-April.

The group, which investigates allegations of human rights abuses, says the rebels do not have the helicopters used to drop the barrel bombs used on three northern ...