Scott Neuman

Australian authorities have approved a controversial plan to dump dredged sediment in the Great Barrier Reef marine park, potentially upsetting one of the world's most fragile ecosystems.

The massive dredging operation would make way for deep-draft ships to enter the Abbot Point coal port in northern Queensland. About 106 million ...

Panama says it will release most of the crew of a North Korean ship that was seized six months ago after it was found to be carrying Soviet-era jet planes and weapons from Cuba in violation of U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang.

Panama says it will release 32 crew members, ...

Yahoo has become the latest target of hackers, with usernames and passwords stolen from some of its estimated 273 million email customers.

"Recently, we identified a coordinated effort to gain unauthorized access to Yahoo Mail accounts," the company said in a blog post Thursday. "Upon discovery, we took immediate ...

An Italian court has reinstated the original guilty verdict against U.S. student Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the 2007 murder of her British roommate.

In 2009, Knox was found guilty of murdering 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, but the verdict was overturned two years later. Last year, Italy's Court ...

Maine highest court has ruled in favor of a transgender student who sued her former school district after being required to use a staff bathroom instead of the bathroom of her choice.

Nicole Maines is a biologically a boy, but identifies as a girl.

The Associated Press reports:

"[Her] ...

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says the U.S. is "concerned" that Syria is behind schedule in removing its chemical stockpiles.

Hagel, speaking during a visit to Poland, says Syria "is behind in delivering these chemical weapons precursor materials on time with the schedule that was agreed to."

White House spokesman ...

It was a record-setting voyage, but not one that Royal Caribbean's public relations team is likely to be bragging about: The cruise line's MS Explorer of the Seas now has the distinction of more sick passengers (630) and crew (54) than any cruise ship since the CDC starting ...

A Fort Worth, Texas, woman who was 14 weeks pregnant when she was found unconscious and brain-dead after suffering a pulmonary embolism, has been taken off life support after a weeks-long court battle by the hospital to keep the ventilator on.

A ventilator that had kept Marlise Munoz's heart and ...

Syrian peace talks in Geneva have produced their first tangible result — an agreement to allow women and children to escape the city of Homs, which has been under government siege for more than a year.

"What we have been told by the government side is that women and children ...

Anti-government protesters in Thailand who are demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have moved to block, and in some cases padlock, polling stations in an effort to disrupt early voting for the Feb. 2 elections.

The protesters oppose elections because, they charge, Yingluck's political allies will engage in ...

Arizona Sen. John McCain has gone soft when it comes to conservative principles. That's according to his state's Republican Party, who sent the former presidential candidate a message on Saturday by voting to censure him for his 'liberal' voting record.

The Associated Press says the resolution was approved on ...

Police have identified the gunman who killed two people at a Maryland shopping mall before taking his own life, but officials say they still don't know why he did it or whether the assailant had any relationship with the victims.

As we reported, the shooting occurred at about 11 ...

Anti-government protesters clashed with security forces overnight in the Ukraine capital, Kiev. The latest violence comes a day after embattled President Viktor Yanukovych tried unsuccessfully to quell unrest by offering top political posts to the opposition.

Yanukovych offered on Saturday to hand over two key posts to opposition leaders, ...

Stanislas Wawrinka beat an injured Rafael Nadal to win his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, with a 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 upset on Sunday.

Wawrinka becomes only the second Swiss man to win a Grand Slam singles title. Of course, 17-time champion Roger Federer was the first.

The 56th annual Grammy Awards will air Sunday on CBS beginning at 8 p.m. ET. The Los Angeles Times says:

"[The] Grammy Awards show is chock-full of star-studded performances. And like every year, the performances are all about the collaborations.

"Case in point: French electronica duo Daft ...

U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi has acknowledged that the first day of face-to-face talks between representatives of Syria's government and the opposition coalition failed to yield anything in the way of results.

"We haven't achieved much," Brahimi said following the day's discussions. "But, we are continuing."

"The situation is very difficult ...

Thousands of Egyptians poured onto the streets to celebrate the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising that brought an end to President Hosni Mubarak's regime, but the festivities were marred by violence as security forces crushed counter-demonstrations aimed at the military.

At least 29 protesters were killed, according to health ...

Updated 9 p.m. ET

Three people are dead after an assailant armed with a shotgun entered a suburban Baltimore shopping mall on Saturday and shot two store employees before killing himself, police said.

"We were able to identify three victims at an upper level store," Howard County Police Chief Bill ...

The Toronto Sun reports Saturday that an employee at the Residence du Havre retirement home that caught fire on Thursday, killing at least eight people and leaving about a dozen unaccounted for, says he's "95 percent sure" that the cause of the blaze was a cigarette.

The newspaper ...

Anti-government protesters in Ukraine seized city hall in the capital, Kiev, as the country's interior minister said two months of efforts to resolve the unrest had been "futile."

Police warned that they might storm the administration building to free two officers they say were captured by demonstrators. Russia Today ...