Scott Neuman

Days after some 300 would-be migrants from North African drowned in the Mediterranean as they were trying to reach Italy, the United Nations is calling on the European Union to establish a broader search-and-rescue effort to avoid future tragedies.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres reiterated a call ...

Two Al-Jazeera English journalists awaiting retrial in Egypt on charges they aided the banned Muslim Brotherhood, have been released on bail amid expectations that one of them, a Canadian, might soon be deported.

The Associated Press reports: "Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy, who recently renounced his Egyptian citizenship, is widely ...

Update 6:10 p.m. ET Launch Scrubbed

At t-minus 2 minutes and 26 seconds to launch, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was scrubbed due to an issue with the system used to track the rocket. The team will review the issue and calculate the next available launch window in order to ...

Future beauty pageant contestants might want to be careful with all that loose talk about "world peace," unless they're willing to put up: after Miss Universe Paulina Vega expressed a desire to help end her native Colombia's 50-year civil war, she received an invitation from FARC rebels to join ...

Egypt says that it will retry two journalists working for Al-Jazeera English who have been jailed for more than a year on charges of "giving a platform" to the banned Muslim Brotherhood. The announcement of the new trial, set to begin on Feb. 12, comes days after the journalists' colleague, ...

Men's basketball coach Dean Smith, who coached the University of North Carolina Tar Heels for more than 35 years taking them to two national titles, has died at age 83.

The Hall of Famer died Saturday night at his home, his family said in a statement released today.

"We are ...

Hoping to salvage something of a widely ignored truce in eastern Ukraine that was forged just months ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders are set for another summit in Minsk this week.

If all goes to plan, Merkel will join Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko ...

An upstart anti-corruption party appeared headed for victory in elections for a new government in the Indian capital, defeating the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

NPR's Julie McCarthy, reporting from New Delhi, tells our Newscast unit that if the exit polls prove correct, "it would be ...

Brian Williams — the NBC Nightly News anchor who apologized earlier this week for misremembering that a military helicopter he was in during the 2003 invasion of Iraq had been fired upon — says he has temporarily taken himself off the air over the controversy.

In a statement ...

The United Arab Emirates, which briefly suspended its participation in Arab airstrikes against the self-declared Islamic State after a Jordanian pilot shot down over Syria was executed by extremists, says it will rejoin the effort.

The UAE has sent a squadron of F-16 jets to Jordan so that its ...

The subject of the popular public radio "Serial" podcast, who was convicted as a teenager 15 years ago in the murder of his ex-girlfriend, has been granted an appeal.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals has granted the request for review from Adnan Syed, whose case has been examined ...

Chinese authorities have seized thousands of rolls of toilet paper featuring a likeness of Hong Kong's unpopular chief executive that were destined for restrooms in the former British colony.

The BBC reports:

"Hong Kong's Democratic Party, which had planned to sell the novelty items at a fair next ...

A work by French painter Paul Gauguin, who died penniless in 1903, has reportedly smashed the record books as the most expensive ever sold. The piece, Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?), is believed to have fetched $300 million.

The oil-on-canvas was produced in 1892 during Gauguin's first visit ...

The issue is this: Should the West arm Kiev against Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says no, and she is joined by French President Francois Hollande. They have the outline of a plan that Hollande says includes "rather strong" autonomy for Ukraine's east. And they are ...

Many Republicans claim that President Obama is among the most polarizing presidents in modern history. If the results of a new Gallup survey measuring his approval rating are any indication, they might be right.

The president's overall approval rating for his just finished sixth year in office stood at 42.6 ...

Updated at 12:55 p.m. ET

Thailand's junta — smarting over U.S. criticism of last year's coup that ousted an elected government — has announced that it will strengthen military ties with China over the next five years.

An agreement with Beijing was announced during a two-day visit to Bangkok by ...

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback says he will cut funding for public schools and universities in a bid to keep the state solvent through June after aggressive tax cuts left gaping budget shortfalls.

Kansas public schools would lose 1.5 percent across-the-board, while the state's regents universities would see budgets trimmed by ...

Updated at 9:50 a.m. ET

Some 257,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in January, continuing a 12-month span of growth that saw at least 200,000 jobs added each month, according to the Department of Labor. Even so, in a separate survey released by the department's Bureau of ...

It turns out that the "let there be light" moment in the early universe occurred much later than scientists previously thought, according to a newly published analysis of data collected from the European Space Agency's Planck telescope.

The time of the first stars, referred to by astronomers and cosmologists ...

President Obama, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast today, condemned the twisting of religion to justify killing innocent people, saying that it always goes against the will of God. He also praised the Dalai Lama, who was in attendance, calling him a good friend.

The audience of 3,600 people gathered ...