In a major speech, the president rejects the idea that the country can fight an opened-ended "global war on terror." In setting his own guidelines, he defines the standards for using drone strikes and again calls for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison.

From NPR's reporters around the globe, our new blog will look to make sense of a big, messy, confusing world.

The Boston bombings rocked the nation, making it hard to remember that the country has been largely terror-free at home for more than a decade. In comparison, Israel endured the equivalent of a Boston Marathon bombing every week in 2002.

Most major terrorist attacks against the U.S. have originated abroad. But as details of the Boston Marathon bombings emerge, reports point to two young men of Chechen origin who were seemingly fully integrated into American society.

The jailed leader of the Kurdish rebels says it's a "new era" and calls for a cease-fire in a war against Turkey that has lasted for nearly three decades.

Forging peace between these two protagonists was long seen as the holy grail of American diplomacy. But as President Obama visits, expectations are low and the conflict feels much less urgent than it used to.

The development comes at a time when the fighting has been intensifying and the rebels appear to be gaining momentum in the battle against President Bashar Assad.

Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi won high praise for brokering the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But protesters in several Egyptian cities denounced him on Friday after he gave himself sweeping powers.

The Arab Spring and its aftermath have radically changed the dynamics in the Middle East, and this makes this round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting different from previous battles.

Back in the 1970s, U.S. drivers faced two separate oil crises that led to long lines at gas stations. Many Americans feared it would be a recurring nightmare, but gas lines have been rare over the past three decades.

The city is divided after months of fighting. In the latest attack, dozens were killed in suicide bombings that appear to be the work of rebels.

Syria gave the Hamas leader shelter for years. Now Syria has denounced him in withering terms, a sign of the changing alliances in the Middle East.

The case has been an embarrassment to the Vatican and the butler faces up to four years in prison on charges he stole documents pointing to corruption.

The violent protests at U.S. embassies this week seemed to catch the new Middle East governments flat-footed. So are these attacks an aberration on the rocky road of nation building, or a harbinger of a region moving toward greater chaos?

The ambassador always wanted to get out of the embassy and experience events firsthand. Stevens spent much of his career in North Africa and was thrilled to be in Libya at this crucial time in its history.

Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his writing and spend decades as a writer for The New York Times, but it's that picture that he's remembered for.

Ban Ki-moon called the killing of 300 Syrians an "appalling and brutal crime."

Wednesday's bombing in Damascus, which killed several senior figures in President Bashar Assad's inner circle, also shattered the notion that he and his government still have firm control of the capital.