Scott Neuman

This post last updated at 11:30 a.m. EDT

Millions of faithful thronged Brazil's Copacabana Beach to hear Pope Francis deliver Sunday Mass, the culmination of the Latin American pontiff's first papal trip abroad.

Francis, speaking from a massive stage erected on the beach, urged those gathered for World Youth Day's ...

More than 1,000 inmates, many convicted of serious crimes, have escaped from a prison in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi, the country's prime minister confirmed.

According to The Associated Press, it wasn't immediately clear if the jailbreak at Koyfiya prison was part of a larger series of protests taking place ...

Chef Albert Buitenhuis has been declared too fat to live in New Zealand, a country with one of the highest obesity rates in the developed world.

Immigration officials recently informed South African Buitenhuis that his work visa would not be renewed because, at 286 pounds, he falls short of what ...

Sixty years after the armistice that ended hostilities in the Korean War, North Korea was celebrating 'Victory Day' with a show of military force that included goose-stepping soldiers , mobile missile launchers and armored columns.

In South Korea, meanwhile, President Park Geun-hye vowed not to tolerate provocations from ...

Former Rep. Lindy Boggs, the first woman elected to Congress from Louisiana and an ardent civil rights campaigner, has died at age 97.

Boggs went to Congress after a special election to succeed her late husband, Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr., who had died in a plane crash in Alaska. ...

J.J. Cale, whose songs became hits for the likes of Eric Clapton and Lynyrd Skynyrd, has died at age 74 from a heart attack, his management agency's website announced.

Cale died at about 8:00 p.m. Friday at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., the Rosebud agency said Saturday.

Spain's Interior Minister, Jorge Fernandez Diaz, announced Saturday that the driver of a high-speed train that derailed this week, killing at about 80 people near the town Santiago de Compostela, has been detained on suspicion of negligent homicide.

Diaz said Francisco Jose Garzon Amo has been discharged from the hospital ...

A Florida gunman seized hostages and killed six people in an eight-hour standoff at an apartment complex that ended early Saturday when a SWAT team stormed the building and fatally shot the assailant.

The deadly incident occurred in Hialeah, a town just a few miles north of Miami. Police were ...

Hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors has pleaded not guilty to wire and securities fraud, a day after federal prosecutors in New York charged the firm in connection with an alleged insider trading scheme.

Peter Nussbaum, SAC's general counsel, entered the plea on behalf of the firm, one of Wall ...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund who was forced to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct in the U.S., faces charges of "aggravated pimping" before a court in his native France.

A trial date has not been set.

Strauss-Kahn, 64, stepped down as head of the ...

North Korea's most famous museum exhibit, the captured American spy ship USS Pueblo, has been painted and polished for display as part of Saturday's "Victory Day" ceremonies marking the 60^th anniversary of the armistice that ended hostilities in the Korean War.

The Pueblo, captured off the coast of North ...

Egyptian prosecutors have opened an investigation into ousted President Mohammed Morsi, who they suspect of conspiracy and murder, raising tensions as both Islamists and supporters of newly installed military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi turn out for street protests.

The surprise announcement of the investigation against Morsi, who was removed in ...

The French are famous for their insults, but traditionally they haven't taken it well when the target is the president of the republic.

A vote in parliament on Thursday has changed that. For the first time in 130 years, it's now legal to say how you really feel about the ...

Attorney General Eric Holder says the Justice Department will ask a federal court to subject Texas to the same kind of scrutiny that was required of it by a section of the Voting Rights Act struck down last month by the Supreme Court.

In Shelby County v. Holder, the high ...

North Carolina could become the first state to compensate people who were forcibly sterilized in programs across the country that began during the Great Depression and continued for decades, targeting individuals deemed feeble-minded or otherwise unfit.

In a proposed budget, lawmakers have set aside $10 million for one-time payments to ...

All hands from the tall ship Astrid were safe on Thursday after the vessel, with nearly two dozen teenagers aboard, ran aground on the rocky south coast of Ireland.

The Astrid, a 136-foot, two-masted Dutch training ship, issued a "mayday" on Wednesday after it ran up on the rocks ...

The age-old standoff between mail carrier and Canis familiaris could be coming to an end if the latest plan to save the Postal Service goes ahead.

The proposal, approved by a House committee on Wednesday, would end door-to-door delivery by 2022. Instead, postal carriers would limit their deliveries to curbside ...

Federal officials in New York City have charged SAC Capital Advisors with insider trading, the culmination of a protracted investigation into the hedge fund founded by embattled billionaire Steven Cohen.

SAC is charged with one count of wire fraud and four counts of securities fraud in connection with alleged insider ...

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says he's not expecting the federal government to offer a bailout for bankrupt Detroit and doesn't think it would be a good idea anyway.

Speaking on CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, Snyder said of a Washington bailout of the Motor City: "I don't expect ...

The stars are finally aligning for British sport.

Earlier this month, Andy Murray broke a seven-decade lockout for the British, picking up the men's title at Wimbledon in straight sets against six-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic.

NPR's Philip Reeve's described the reaction in the U.K. as a