Krishnadev Calamur

Soul Singer Ben E. King, best known for his hit "Stand By Me," has died, his publicist says. He was 76.

Phil Brown, the publicist, says King died Thursday of natural causes.

Born Sept. 28, 1938, in Henderson, N.C., King moved to Harlem, N.Y., at age 9, his biography

Updated at 12:24 p.m.

David Wildstein, a former official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, pleaded guilty today to two counts of conspiracy in connection with lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in 2013. The case could have implications for his former friend New Jersey ...

French President Francois Hollande says there will be grave consequences if allegations that French soldiers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic are true.

"There should be no stain on our French forces wherever they're serving," he said. "I will be implacable if any soldiers are shown to have ...

The French cartoonist who drew the Charlie Hebdo cover featuring Islam's Prophet Muhammad after the deadly attack on the magazine in January by Islamist militants says he will no longer draw the figure.

"He no longer interests me," Luz, as Renald Luzier is professionally known, told Les Inrockuptibles, ...

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 today to propose a rule to link the pay of top corporate executives to their companies' financial performance.

NPR's Jim Zarroli, reporting on All Things Considered, says: "The rule grew out of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill. And it simply says ...

The FBI helped the family of Warren Weinstein vet a Pakistani middleman who could transport $250,000 to his captors to secure the release of the kidnapped aid worker, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. Weinstein, as we reported last week, was inadvertently killed in a U.S. military operation ...

Pope Francis called the gender pay gap a "pure scandal" in remarks Wednesday on marriage and family.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports that Francis' remarks, at his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, are some of his most forceful yet in favor of women.

Francis raised his voice as he ...

Lumber Liquidators says the U.S. Department of Justice is seeking criminal charges against it in an investigation over imported products.

The revelation in a regulatory filing on Wednesday follows a 60 Minutes report last month that said the company's Chinese-made laminate flooring products have unsafe levels ...

Russia's space agency is trying to save an unmanned cargo ship that spun out of control on its way to the International Space Station.

The capsule, dubbed Progress M-27M, was launched Tuesday from Kazakhstan and scheduled to dock at the International Space Station six hours later to deliver 2.5 tons ...

Nigeria's military said today it rescued 200 girls and 93 women in an operation against Boko Haram militants in the Sambisa Forest.

The Nigerian Armed Forces said it could not confirm if the girls were the same as those kidnapped in Chibok last year, but The Associated Press ...

Twitter's release Tuesday of its disappointing earnings in the first quarter was pre-empted by four tweets from a financial services company.

The tweets from Selerity caused Twitter's share price to slide; trading in its shares was halted.

Selerity, in a subsequent tweet, said:

As NPR's Laura ...

The National Football League says it's ending its tax-exempt status, calling it a "distraction."

"The income generated by football has always been earned by the 32 clubs and taxable there," Houston Texans owner Robert McNair, the chairman of the NFL's finance committee, said in a statement cited by The ...

David Simon, creator of The Wire, the HBO show that chronicled the story of Baltimore's police department and its gangs, has appealed for calm in the wake of violence following the funeral Monday of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man who died April 19 after he suffered ...

President Obama is condemning the unrest in Baltimore, saying that a handful of "criminals" are taking advantage of the situation following the April 19 death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a serious spine injury while in police custody.

As we have been reporting, hundreds of ...

Updated at 8:22 p.m. ET

Australia is withdrawing its ambassador from Jakarta following Indonesia's execution of two Australians convicted of drug smuggling.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, at a news conference today, called the executions of Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, two of the so-called Bali 9, "cruel" and "unnecessary." ...

More than 4,000 people are believed dead in the earthquake that hit Nepal on Saturday. The scale of the devastation is likely to have an economic impact on the country, one of the poorest in the world.

IHS Global Insight estimates the cost of reconstruction at more than $5 ...

More than 4,000 people are dead in Nepal after a devastating earthquake over the weekend.

The human toll of the quake is extensive, but the temblor also damaged some of Kathmandu's historic structures.

Here are some before-and-after images of some of those sites.

Durbar Square

Kathmandu's Durbar Square is ...

Updated at 11:41 a.m. ET

Loretta Lynch is the new U.S. attorney general.

Lynch was sworn in today by Vice President Joe Biden, who said the daughter of a Baptist minister who preached during the sit-ins in Greensboro, N.C., will now be "leading the march to a more perfect union."

Six writers have withdrawn from the PEN American Center's annual gala on May 5 in protest against the free-speech organization's decision to give the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo its annual Freedom of Expression Courage Award.

The writers who have withdrawn from the event are Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, ...

Sabeen Mahmud, a Pakistani social activist who ran Karachi's Second Floor café, was shot dead today by unknown gunmen in the port city.

The Dawn newspaper reports that Mahmud and her mother were on their way home from the café, known locally as T2F, at 9 p.m. local time ...