Eyder Peralta

Saying the practice is "inconsistent and unequal," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced he was issuing a moratorium on the death penalty in his state.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Inslee said there were too many doubts raised about capital punishment and too many flaws in the system. With so ...

During a joint press conference with French President François Hollande on Tuesday, President Obama said he had accepted an invitation to travel to France to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Both Obama and Hollande spent a good deal of time talking about the historic bonds between the two countries ...

Representatives from China and Taiwan held face-to-face meetings in Nanjing on Tuesday.

This was a historic development; the two sides haven't held direct talks since the country split after a civil war in 1949.

Reuters reports that Taiwan was represented by Mainland Affairs Minister Wang Yu-chi and China sent ...

Congress seems poised to avoid another dramatic and potentially costly confrontation over the debt ceiling.

In a private meeting with Republican lawmakers, Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, said he would bring a bill that raises the debt ceiling without any strings attached. That means that a coalition of ...

General Motors took the unusual step of releasing full details of their new CEO's pay package.

All told, Mary Barra could make $14.4 million this year, or about 60 percent more than her male predecessor.

As Bloomberg reports, last week the automaker was criticized for paying Barra too little. ...

A Mexican national has been sentenced to 30 years in prison over the shooting death of border patrol agent Brian Terry.

If you remember, Terry's death resulted in the uncovering of a botched gun-walking scheme known as "Fast and Furious." Weapons, which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ...

Baseball super star Alex Rodriguez dropped a federal lawsuit against Major League Baseball and its players union that challenged a 162-game suspension.

The federal lawsuit was the Yankees third baseman's last chance at trying to overturn the unprecedented punishment handed down by the league over allegations that Rodriguez used performance-enhancing ...

As if Victoria Nuland's leaked phone call wasn't enough, here's a diplomatic embarrassment that hasn't made as many headlines: President Obama's nominee for ambassador to Argentina made a fairly stunning admission before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, asked Noah Bryson Mamet: ...

Police in St. Petersburg, Russia, arrested four gay activists who unfurled a banner quoting the Olympic Charter's ban on discrimination, the Associated Press is reporting.

The protesters, reports the wire service, "gathered on St. Petersburg's Vasilyevsky Island, [and] were quickly rounded up by police, according to Natalia Tsymbalova, a ...

A Taliban spokesman tells the British Telegraph that a Western military dog captured by militants is being well cared for.

As we reported, the rather sad-looking Malinois is seen in a video with Taliban militants, who claim they captured the "American military" dog during a firefight. It seems ...

The Transportation Security Administration is temporarily banning liquids, gels and aerosols from the carry-on luggage of U.S. travelers headed to or traveling from Russia.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports that this follows Wednesday's warning from U.S. officials about increased security concerns as the Sochi Winter Olympics get underway.

Brian filed ...

For a second time, the Senate has failed to advance a bill that would restore unemployment benefits for an estimated 1.7 million Americans, who have been out of work for the long term.

The bill is essentially dead, because Senate Democrats could not cobble up the 60 votes needed to ...

Speaker of the House John Boehner seemed to throw cold water on bipartisan hopes for a law overhauling the country's immigration system this year.

"This is an important issue in our country," Boehner acknowledged in a press conference on Thursday. "It's been kicked around forever, and it needs to be ...

It may be the first time a canine is used in a prisoner of war video.

As The Washington Post reports, a Twitter account from a user who normally distributes Taliban propaganda posted a video this week that allegedly shows a sad-looking American military dog chained by a group ...

The struggling electronics and entertainment company Sony announced it had suffered an annual loss of $1 billion and that it was selling its PC business and shedding 5,000 more jobs globally.

The Associated Press adds:

"The Japanese electronics and entertainment maker, battered by stiff competition from Samsung Electronics ...

Following a classified briefing on Wednesday, the chairman and the vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said the "majority" of the classified information taken by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had "nothing to do with the NSA," or its collection of bulk data.

"Instead [his leaks] specifically [work] ...

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security say they are warning airlines that terrorists traveling on Russian-bound planes could try to pack explosives into toothpaste tubes.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports the warning comes just as the Winter Olympics are set to kick off in Sochi. He filed this report for ...

Part of an antitrust agreement with the European Union regulators, Google has agreed to tweak its search results in Europe.

The search giant has agreed that when a user searches for a product, for example, the search results of its rivals — Amazon, let's say — will be displayed along ...

A day after S&P downgraded Puerto Rico's credit rating to junk status, the White House said it was not contemplating a bailout for the island.

Reuters reports:

"A White House spokeswoman declined to comment about the S&P move specifically but said the administration's position had not changed since ...

The annals of faking it on stage have a new chapter: After Internet sleuths pointed out that the guitarist and bassist for The Red Hot Chili Peppers did not have their instruments plugged in during their performance at the Super Bowl half time show last Sunday, Flea, the bassist, ...