Scott Neuman

Mexican authorities says drug gang members have confessed to killing 43 students from a teachers college in the country's south and described a grisly disposal of the bodies — burning them on a pyre and then pulverizing teeth and bones to prevent the remains from being identified.

Attorney General Jesus ...

President Obama met with congressional leaders at the White House today for the first time since Democrats took a drubbing at the polls on Tuesday. He renewed a pledge for bipartisanship to end legislative gridlock.

The president, who met with 13 leaders from both parties and both chambers, said he ...

In an unprecedented move, a Saudi advisory council says it approves of lifting a ban on female drivers. The Shura Council proposes that certain restrictions be applied, however: Women must be at least 30, have permission from their male guardian, not wear makeup and drive only in daylight hours, The ...

Updated at 4:35 p.m. ET

Police in San Bernardino County today announced their arrest of a suspect in the murder of Joseph McStay, his wife and two young sons, whose bodies were found in shallow graves in the California desert in 2013, four years after their mysterious disappearance.

Charles "Chase" ...

Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET

A federal judge today gave the OK to a bankruptcy exit strategy proposed by Detroit nearly 16 months after the city asked for protection from its creditors.

At a 1 p.m. ET hearing, Judge Steven Rhodes found that the plan was fair and feasible. ...

Updated at 4:25 p.m. ET

A federal judge in Missouri has ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, adding to an already confusing mix of contradictory decisions that is sure to propel the issue to the Supreme Court.

The ...

Beijing and Tokyo have jointly acknowledged their competing claims over the sovereignty of an uninhabited island chain, effectively setting aside a contentious dispute and paving the way to renew high-level contacts two years after China unilaterally froze relations.

The Associated Press reports that China's Foreign Ministry said the two sides ...

Astronomers have long theorized that planetary systems, including our own, are formed by spinning discs of dust and gas that slowly coalesce. Now, by combining input from an array of radio telescopes located in the Chilean desert, they have sharp images showing what they believe to be just such ...

House Speaker John Boehner said approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline and the repeal of key parts of Obamacare are among Republicans' top priorities now that the GOP has won control of both houses of Congress.

"Obamacare is hurting our economy, it's hurting middle-class workers, and it's ...

1st Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing, whose defense of a key ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg helped turn the tide of the Civil War and end slavery, was today posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by the country's first black president.

At the ceremony, President Obama said the award ...

Move over, Shark Week: In the latest anything-for-ratings move, Discovery Channel plans to air a show called Eaten Alive that it says features a man in a special protective suit being swallowed whole by a giant anaconda.

The teaser for the program (above, sans the money shot) sums up ...

This hasn't been the best of days for the Washington Redskins.

First, one of the team buses crashed en route to Minnesota, where the Redskins were to play the Vikings.

ESPN says:

"Minnesota State Patrol Lt. Eric Roeske said one of the Minneapolis police squads escorting two ...

A new United Nations report is warning that fossil fuels must be entirely phased out by the end of the century in order to avoid dangerous and irreversible damage to the Earth's climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the world faces "severe, pervasive and irreversible" consequences if ...

Two Kenyans have taken the men's and women's titles at the New York City Marathon: Wilson Kipsang with an unofficial time of 2 hours, 10 minutes, 59 seconds, and Mary Keitany finishing 2 hours, 25 minutes, 7 seconds after the start.

Kipsang, a former world-record holder, has now won ...

Updated at 3 p.m. ET

The breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine have defied Kiev by holding elections today aimed at legitimizing their self-declared republics. They say exit polls show militia leader Alexander Zakharchenko winning 80 percent of the vote for prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk ...

Updated at 12:50 p.m. ET

A suspected suicide bomb attack on the Pakistani side of a tense border post with India has killed at least 45 people and wounded another 100, a senior official says.

"According to initial information it was a suicide attack," Inspector General of Punjab Police, Mushtaq ...

Electricity has been restored in Bangladesh a day after the impoverished South Asian country was thrust into darkness by a nationwide outage.

The country's energy grid was fully restored, and any further problems that may arise would be for "local reasons," Junior Power Minister Nasrul Hamid told reporters, according to ...

Michael Alsbury, the co-pilot killed during a test flight of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is being described as an expert pilot and engineer who had 15 years of flying experience, much of it on experimental aircraft.

Alsbury, 39, was killed Friday when the prototype of the reusable space plane, designed ...

Updated at 12:55 p.m. ET

A judge in Maine has turned down a request by state officials seeking authority to compel nurse Kaci Hickox to remain in her home for the duration of a 21-day incubation for Ebola. Since returning from West Africa, where she treated Ebola patients, Hickox has ...