Eyder Peralta

Police in St. Louis have stepped up patrols after six churches in predominantly black neighborhoods were set on fire this month.

As St. Louis Public Radio has reported, the cases, which are being investigated by local and federal authorities, are being treated as arson. St. Louis Public Radio reports ...

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signed off on the country's nuclear deal with world powers on Wednesday.

Reuters reports that Khamenei wrote a letter to President Hassan Rouhani saying Iran should begin implementing the terms of deal and the United States and the European Union should begin dismantling ...

The United States and Russia have come to an agreement that aims to prevent midair mishaps over Syria.

The memorandum of agreement calls for pilots to be "professional," to communicate over a designated frequency if necessary and to maintain a "safe distance" at all times.

Both countries are conducting a ...

The actions of a circuit judge in Marion, Ala., are raising all kinds of questions about the ethics of essentially sentencing someone to have a medical procedure.

In a recording released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Judge Marvin Wiggins told a courtroom full of offenders that if they ...

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán has once again eluded Mexican authorities.

This time, reports NPR's Carrie Kahn, Mexican marines had found Mexico's most wanted drug trafficker in a remote mountainous area, but he got away again, suffering injuries.

Carrie sent this report to our Newscast unit:

"Mexican officials say marines ...

The mess left behind by mudslides in California could take days to clean up.

CBS News reports that strong thunderstorms caused massive mudslides that left vehicles on Highway 58 in up to 6 feet of mud. CBS reports:

"On Friday, rescuers and those stranded in the highway debris ...

Texas can — for now — continue to deny issuing birth certificates to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, a federal judge decided on Friday.

If you remember, a group of undocumented immigrants sued the state because it refused to issue birth certificates saying certain types of identification ...

Violence between Israelis and Palestinians continued unabated on Saturday.

Reporting from Jerusalem, NPR's Emily Harris tells Weekend Edition that three more Palestinians were killed after Israeli Police say they tried to stab Israelis in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

On Friday, four Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers.

During a recent news conference, President Obama said he would not allow the current conflict in Syria to devolve into a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

"That would be bad strategy on our part," he said. "This is a battle between Russia, Iran and [Syrian President ...

Politicians are notorious for using kids as political pawns. Think of all the baby kissing that presidential candidates do.

The Mayor of London, however, apparently didn't get the memo.

Boris Johnson was playing touch rugby while on a trade visit to Japan on Thursday, when he tackled a 10-year-old ...

The Turkish military says it has shot down a drone that crossed into its airspace from Syria.

NPR's Peter Kenyon reports that Turkey did not say what country owns the drone. He filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"The Turkish military says its planes picked up the aircraft ...

In yet another sign of escalating violence in the region, the Israeli military says that Palestinians set fire to Joseph's Tomb in the city of Nablus in the West Bank on Friday morning.

As CNN explains, Nablus is controlled by the Palestinian Authority and the tomb is venerated by ...

Speaking from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, President Obama said on Thursday that slowing down the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is "the right thing to do."

"Afghan forces are still not as strong as they need to be," Obama said, so the United States will leave 9,800 troops ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is accusing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting terrorism with statements that Israeli police killed a 13-year-old boy in Jerusalem.

In his speech, Abbas was referring to a graphic video posted on the Web that shows an injured Palestinian boy being taunted by a ...

Baltimore Police arrested a dozen demonstrators who had remained inside City Hall through the early morning.

The protest began last night during a hearing on the permanent appointment of Baltimore Police Interim Commissioner Kevin Davis. As the AP reports, the activists don't want the city council to move forward ...

The Great Red Spot on Jupiter continues to shrink, spectacular new images from the Hubble Space Telescope show. (See big versions of the pictures here and here.)

But, scientists say, the big storm, which has been swirling around the planet for hundreds of years, will likely put up ...

Israel has started deploying soldiers to cities in an effort to quell escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

NPR's Emily Harris reports that in recent weeks, at least seven Israelis and more than two dozen Palestinians have been killed.

As The Associated Press reports, the deployment comes after a ...

If you missed the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 race Tuesday evening, our friends at It's All Politics have wall-to-wall coverage. If you want a quickie, here's a 100-word recap — and video clip — of what happened:

Bernie Sanders foreshadowed a subdued debate without attacks. ...

Iran showed off a new, precision-guided ballistic missile on state television Sunday.

"The Emad missile is able to strike targets with a high level of precision and completely destroy them ... This greatly increases Iran's strategic deterrence capability," Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said at a televised news conference, according ...

The family of a 12-year-old boy who was killed by a Cleveland police officer say that the prosecutor on the case "has been on an 11-month quest to avoid providing that accountability."

The family of Tamir Rice issued a statement after Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty released two independent reports ...