Mark Memmott

That "bombogenesis" we warned about on Tuesday (a big word for harsh winter weather) did what it was expected to do across much of the eastern U.S.

Here's how The Associated Press describes what happened:

"A swirling storm clobbered parts of the mid-Atlantic and the ...

Update at 1:20 p.m. ET. No Peace As Long As Assad Remains, Kerry Says:

After what appeared to be a difficult start to talks aimed at eventually ending the civil war in Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry repeated the U.S. position that President Bashar Assad must give up his ...

His nation's annual dolphin hunt "is a form of traditional fishing in our country," Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga says in response to criticism of the practice from Caroline Kennedy, the new U.S. ambassador in Tokyo.

"We will explain Japan's position to the American side," the chief Cabinet secretary adds, ...

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, who easily won re-election in 2010 after seeing his career put in jeopardy by a prostitution scandal just three years before, confirmed Tuesday that he will run for governor in his state in 2015.

He tweets that "after ...

Thousands of pages of what were once secret church documents related to the way the Archdiocese of Chicago dealt with 30 priests who it believes abused children in the '70s, '80s and '90s are now online.

They give "an unprecedented and gut-wrenching look at how the Archdiocese of Chicago for ...

Three-time defending champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia is out Down Under after losing in five sets at the Australian Open to Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka.

Tuesday night's set-by-set score in Melbourne: 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 9-7.

"Epic" seems to be the word headline writers have settled on to describe the match. ...

Is there already one or more "black widow" in or near Sochi, Russia, who might be determined to set off a suicide bomb at the site of next month's Winter Olympics?

NPR's Corey Flintoff reports from Moscow that Russian security forces are said to be looking for "Ruzanna Ibragimova, the ...

Just as we're getting used to hearing about the polar vortex, there's another cool-sounding weather term being thrown around that we've had to look up:

Bombogenesis

This post by Philadelphia meteorologist John Bolaris caught our eye: "Old Man Winter to drop bombogenesis."

It led us to ...

The do-not-use advisory has been lifted for nearly all water users in the nine counties of West Virginia where a chemical spill last week left about 300,000 people unable to use what was coming out of their taps.

At midday Friday, West Virginia American Water turned its online ...

(This post was most recently updated at 1:30 p.m. ET.)

Saying that "critics are right to point out that without proper safeguards, this type of program could be used to yield more information about our private lives," President Obama said Friday that he wants the National Security Agency to stop ...

After balking for years, Major League Baseball is dramatically expanding its use of instant replay in the hope that blown calls will be corrected by umpires in a New York City studio who will be able to review them from multiple angles.

MLB.com writes that:

"Until now, ...

Ruling that "voting laws are designed to assure a free and fair election" and that Pennsylvania's "Voter ID Law does not further this goal," a state judge on Friday struck down that controversial statute.

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley's ruling is posted here.

The Associated Press writes ...

Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese intelligence officer who for 29 years after the end of World War II continued to hide, fight and kill in the jungles of the Philippines because he did not believe the war was over, has died.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun says Onoda died Thursday in ...

President Obama is expected to announce Friday morning that he is "ordering a transition that will significantly change the handling of what is known as the telephone 'metadata' " that the National Security Agency collects, officials are telling Reuters and NPR.

The wire service, which broke the story, ...

The state of Ohio on Thursday conducted its first execution since running out of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital.

Reporter Alan Johnson from The Columbus Dispatch was among those who watched as convicted killer and rapist Dennis McGuire was put to death. Here is some of ...

On Jan. 17, 1961, President Eisenhower used his farewell address to warn Americans that:

"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

As Slate has said, "with the ...

The U.S. Marine Corps "is attempting to determine the authenticity of photos published by TMZ.com that the entertainment website says show Marines appearing to burn bodies of dead Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah in 2004," The Associated Press reports.

If a small group of Marines did pour gasoline on ...

There were 326,000 first-time claims for jobless benefits filed last week, the Employment and Training Administration said Thursday.

While down only 2,000 from the previous week, claims did hold steady around the level where they were typically running before December 2007, when the economy slipped into ...

Let the arguments begin over who and which film should have been nominated but weren't.

This year's nominees for Oscars from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were just announced and they include:

Best Picture

-- American Hustle

-- Captain Phillips

-- Dallas Buyers Club

-- ...

The post-holidays hard news continues for employees of some major retailers.

One week after discount retailer Loehmann's started liquidating its inventory and Macy's announced it is eliminating 2,500 jobs, there's word that J.C. Penney is cutting 2,000 jobs and closing 33 stores.

The retailer ...