Scott Neuman

Straight from Russian President Vladimir Putin's mouth: "I would like to say — there's no need to be afraid of Russia."

Putin's comments to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera follow months of fighting in Ukraine between Kiev's forces and Russian-backed separatists that have reminded many of the Cold War, ...

A court in Egypt has overturned a ruling that named Hamas a terrorist organization. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has welcomed the move.

The decision by the Urgent Matters Appeals Court said the lower court had lacked jurisdiction.

The Associated Press quotes Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas ...

Updated at 12:35 p.m. ET

Beau Biden, the eldest son of the vice president, a former Delaware attorney general and an Iraq War veteran, is being laid to rest today following his death a week ago from brain cancer. President Obama called him "an original" and talked of the ...

Saudi Arabia shot down a Scud missile fired by Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen that was targeted at one of the kingdom's largest air bases.

NPR's Deborah Amos, reporting from Riyadh, said the Cold War-era Scud was taken down by the U.S.-supplied Patriot missile defense system.

The thwarted rebel attack ...

The death toll in the capsizing of a cruise ship in China's Yangtze River has risen to just under 400, making it the deadliest maritime disaster in seven decades in the country.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency says hundreds more bodies have been recovered since the overturned Eastern Star ...

The Archdiocese of St. Paul has been criminally charged with allegedly turning a "blind eye" to sexual abuse against minor boys by former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who pleaded guilty in 2012.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said he was holding the archdiocese to account as a corporation on ...

Updated Saturday 1:45 a.m. ET:

A total of 11 bodies have been recovered after an earthquake triggered an avalanche on Borneo's highest peak. Guides have helped 167 stranded climbers to safety, and eight more are still missing, according to news reports.

The 137 climbers, including an unknown number of foreign ...

Tariq Aziz, the man who became the public face of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein's regime, has died in custody 12 years after surrendering as Baghdad fell to invading U.S. troops, an Iraqi government official has confirmed. Aziz was 79.

The Associated Press reports the former foreign minister and deputy prime ...

Not lost, just misplaced. That's the word from the Boston Library after it found two missing prints — a Dürer and Rembrandt worth a combined $630,000.

But their presumed loss had already set in motion a chain of events, including an FBI criminal probe and the resignation of the library's ...

In April we quoted Pakistani officials as saying that 10 men arrested in the near-fatal shooting of Pakistani youth activist Malala Yousafzai had been convicted in a secret trial and sent to prison for 25-year jail terms. Authorities now say that's not true — all but two of the ...

The U.S. economy got 280,000 new jobs in May, comfortably beating economists' expectations. Even so, the unemployment rate ticked up to 5.5 percent, according to the latest Labor Department report.

Economists had expected 226,000 new jobs, and they thought the unemployment rate would hold steady at 5.4 percent. ...

The Army has pushed back the date for a preliminary hearing for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier released in a prisoner exchange with the Taliban last year after spending five years in captivity in Afghanistan.

The so-called Article 32 hearing for Bergdahl, who has been charged with desertion and misbehavior ...

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko warned the country's military to be ready for a "full-scale invasion" by Russian forces amid stepped up fighting near the border that has occurred despite a cease-fire agreement.

Poroshenko said 9,000 Russian troops were in Ukrainian territory already, a charge Moscow has denied. On Wednesday, west ...

Updated at 2:15 p.m. ET

There's a new species of dinosaur, and they call him "Hellboy."

At first glance, the untrained eye is likely to see the childhood favorite Triceratops — and to be sure, Regaliceratops peterhewsi is a close relative. But there are some important differences, scientists say.

The ...

Updated at 1:00 p.m. ET

Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas and 2012 Republican candidate for president, formally announced a second bid for the White House.

At a rally in Addison, Texas, this afternoon, Perry told a group of supporters: "Today I am announcing that I'm running for the ...

Updated at 4:40 p.m. ET

A knife-wielding man who was fatally shot by terrorism investigators in Boston earlier this week had been plotting to "go after ... boys in blue," according to the FBI.

Usaama Rahim, 26, was killed Tuesday after he was confronted by members of an FBI antiterrorism ...

According to an analysis done by The Washington Post, police across the country have fatally shot at least 385 people so far this year –- a rate that comes to more than two a day and is twice the number counted by federal authorities.

The newspaper says it used ...

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders sought to put behind him a strange episode concerning a bizarre piece of fiction he authored four decades ago, likening the work to Fifty Shades of Grey during his appearance on NBC's Meet the Press.

Answering a question from the show's host, Chuck Todd, ...

For several years now, couples in Paris have been saying je t'aime by placing a padlock on the city's famed Pont des Arts bridge. And it has begun to weigh on the famous span — to the tune of some 45 tons.

Lovers (mostly tourists, Parisians say) have placed nearly ...

The Planetary Society says it has regained contact with its LightSail satellite. Last week fears arose that the organization had permanently lost touch with the tiny spacecraft, which launched earlier this month to lay the groundwork for testing a solar sail in Earth orbit.

The private organization, headed by Bill ...