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President Obama is likely to nominate Ashton Carter as his next secretary of defense, CNN, The Associated Press, The Washington Post and The New York Times are reporting.

Carter served as the No. 2 defense official under Leon Panetta, and while he's relatively unknown to the public, ...

For the first time, the captain of the doomed Costa Concordia took the stand to defend himself in an Italian courtroom on Tuesday.

Francesco Schettino said he didn't change the route of the cruise liner to impress a Moldovan dancer he was having an affair with.

Instead, The Associated ...

Militants opened fire on workers at a quarry in northeast Kenya early Tuesday, leaving at least 36 of them dead.

Reuters reports the attack happened near the border with Somalia, where just a week earlier al-Shabab militants hijacked a bus and killed 28 people. The wire service reports:

...

Lebanese officials say they have detained the wife and son of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the so-called Islamic State.

According to the BBC, the two, who were said to be traveling with forged documents, were detained 10 days ago near the Syrian border.

The BBC adds:

...

Elizabeth Lauten, the GOP staffer who criticized President Obama's daughters, has resigned, The Washington Post, NBC News and USA Today are reporting.

Lauten, communications director for Rep. Steve Fincher, R-Tenn., drew the ire of the Internet over the weekend for her comments about Sasha and Malia as ...

The slump of oil prices is continuing to have global economic repercussions.

At home, you may have noticed lower gas prices at the pump, but in other countries more dependent on oil, the effects are serious. Here are five headlines that tell the story:

-- "Iran Minister: Currency Market to ...

Ending what had been a weeks-long peace, protesters in Hong Kong tried to storm a government complex on Sunday, sparking violent clashes with police.

As The New York Times reports, police responded with batons and tear gas to repel the protesters. For weeks now, the government and protesters had ...

After a day spent meeting with his Cabinet, civil rights leaders and other officials about the mistrust of police in communities of color, President Obama will ask Congress for $263 million in part to equip local police with body cameras.

Update at 6:55 p.m. ET: Other Possible Changes

As the ...

Over the past couple of days, we've been reading through the trove of documents released by the prosecutor in the matter of Michael Brown.

We've looked at what Darren Wilson — the police officer who shot and killed the 18-year-old Brown — has to say, at what ...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the leader of the Supreme Court's liberal wing, is "resting comfortably" after a heart procedure, the court said in a statement.

Ginsburg, 81, "experienced discomfort during routine exercise" on Tuesday and was taken to a Washington, D.C., hospital. According to the statement, doctors inserted a stent ...

The University of Virginia publicly apologized on Tuesday to a student who told Rolling Stone magazine that she was gang-raped during a fraternity party in 2012.

As we reported, the magazine's harrowing account led to protests and a university ban on fraternities until January.

Sandy Hausman, of NPR member ...

A big winter storm spinning its way across the East Coast of the United States is expected to wreak havoc on Thanksgiving Day travel plans.

The National Weather Service says that travelers from the Carolinas all the way up to New England could see significant snow, and the entire ...

The prosecuting attorney in St. Louis County has released thousands of pages of documents from the Michael Brown case that offer differing accounts of the 90-second confrontation betw...

We've already touched on Officer Darren Wilson's testimony and that of the dozens of people who testified as witnesses in front of the grand jury in the shooting death of Michael Brown.

Now let's look at some of the physical evidence:

Officer Wilson fired 12 shots in all ...

Leading up to a grand jury's decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, witness testimony has been hotly debated.

The big question has always been whether Wilson felt threatened and whether Michael Brown had his hands up when Wilson opened fire. St. ...

After sitting through hours of testimony and reading through thousands of pages of documents, a grand jury decided that there was not enough probable cause to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old.

Their decision, like the shooting that led up to ...

This post was last updated at 12:03 a.m. ET.

A grand jury did not indict Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson for any crimes related to the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in August.

Wilson, who is white, shot and killed Brown, who was unarmed and black, in an ...

(This post was last updated at 11:41 a.m. ET.)

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the highest-profile Republican on President Obama's Cabinet, will step down, once his successor is confirmed by the Senate.

Calling Hagel an "exemplary defense secretary," Obama made the announcement in the State Dining Room of the White ...

With a long-term deal still elusive, Western and Iranian diplomats have decided to keep negotiating perhaps all the way into next summer.

For the past year, Western powers and Tehran have been trying to hammer out a deal that would curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for an easing of ...

A day after a 12-year-old boy died after being shot by police, the community in Cleveland is trying to understand what happened.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Cleveland police's Use of Deadly Force Investigation Team is combing through the evidence, trying to figure out if police acted appropriately. ...