Scott Neuman

Updated at 4:55 p.m. ET

President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro today moved an important step closer to normalizing relations between their nations after decades of Cold War rival animosity, sitting down for the first substantive meeting in more than 50 years between leaders of the two countries.

Obama ...

Seven named storms, three hurricanes — one of them major.

That's the early prediction for the 2015 Atlantic basin hurricane season by Colorado State University's Department of Atmospheric Sciences. If the forecast pans out, it would be one of the quietest seasons in decades.

"We anticipate a below-average Atlantic ...

Freedonia won't be sending a representative, but delegates from Molossia, Slabovia and Broslavia will all attend the MicroCon 2015 summit in Anaheim, Calif., on Saturday.

If you're thinking that your high school geography has suddenly let you down, there's no need to worry: All of ...

Updated at 11 a.m. ET

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will officially announce her intention to seek the 2016 Democratic nomination for president on Sunday afternoon, ending years of speculation over her plans to pursue the Oval Office, NPR has learned.

People familiar with the campaign plan say that ...

Pakistan's parliament has rejected a proposal to join a Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen's Houthi rebels, a move that could dash Riyadh's hopes of forming a wider Sunni front against the Iranian-allied rebels on its southern flank.

Pakistani lawmakers instead approved a draft resolution calling on all sides in the Arabian ...

Pacific Gas & Electric Co.has been ordered to pay a $1.6 billion penalty — the largest ever levied against a public utility — for a 2010 explosion in a gas pipeline it operated that killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes in a San Francisco suburb.

The five-member ...

There's something amiss on Mischief Reef: Before and after satellite imagery of the disputed coral atoll in the South China Sea taken a few years ago and last month show that the reef is growing. And the telltale presence of a Chinese flotilla is proof of who's been at work ...

A Chinese television star made a public apology after controversial remarks he made that were critical of communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

Bi Fujian, a regular presenter on state-run CCTV and the host of its annual New Year's variety show — the most-watched television program in the world, according to ...

In one of India's largest-ever cases of corporate fraud, the founder and chairman of failed outsourcing giant Satyam Computer Services and nine other defendants have been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of stealing millions from shareholders.

An Indian court in the country's tech hub, Hyderabad, ruled Thursday ...

The Israeli leader, who appeared on CNN and NBC, urged the U.S. and Western powers to seek a better agreement to limit Tehran's nuclear program.

On Coming Forth By Day, one of today's premier jazz singers pays an imaginative tribute to one of her idols, born 100 years ago. As Wilson says, a simple imitation "would be almost insulting."

The giant particle accelerator at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, underwent a number of upgrades, including a doubling of the energy with which it can smash protons together.

Pope Francis, in his annual Urbi et Orbi ("To the City [Rome] and to the World") Easter address at St. Peter's Basilica, praised the framework agreement on Iran's nuclear program and expressed concern about bloodshed in Africa and the Middle East.

"[In] hope we entrust to the merciful Lord the ...

Many Kenyans are spending Easter Sunday mourning the 148 people killed in an attack by al-Shabab gunmen on a university campus last week, amid reports that the son of a senior government official was among the assailants.

The gunman in question – one of four killed during the siege ...

Updated at 5:35 p.m. EDT

Islamic State militants and al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate appear to have worked together earlier this week to seize a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the Syrian capital.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that ISIS and al-Nusra Front gained control of about 90 ...

A man in San Diego who ran a so-called "revenge porn" site that charged hundreds of dollars to remove anonymously posted nude photos has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after his conviction on 21 counts of identity theft and six counts of extortion.

Kevin Bollaert, 28, ran the ...

A coalition of tribal fighters riding in pickup trucks have entered Yemen's coastal city of Mukalla in an effort to displace al-Qaida militiamen who seized the Gulf of Aden town just two days before.

Reuters reports:

"The fighters are part of a tribal alliance in the eastern Hadramawt ...

Rescuers in north and central Kentucky were trying to reach people trapped by a sudden flash flood that followed torrential downpours on Thursday and Friday.

In Lee County, about 50 miles southeast of Lexington, authorities were searching for a mother and daughter swept away as rescue workers were trying to ...

Kenyan officials say that five suspects have been arrested in connection with this week's attack by al-Shabab militants on a university in the country's east, killing 148 people, as the Islamist extremist group warned that more bloodshed is forthcoming.

Kenya's internal security minister says some of the suspects were ...

Early risers (very early on the U.S. West Coast) who had clear skies might have caught a view of today's lunar eclipse — the third in a cycle of four that had its premiere nearly a year ago.

Those of us on the East Coast (this writer included) got to ...