Scott Neuman

When Pope Francis arrives in Brazil on Monday, he'll begin a trip of firsts.

He's the first Latin American pope, and it will be his first trip abroad as pontiff. And he'll be visiting a country with more Catholics than any other.

Francis, who is gaining a reputation for his ...

Police in Ohio have discovered three bodies wrapped in plastic in a Cleveland suburb.

East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton said late Saturday that the bodies had been discovered about 100 to 200 yards apart and that a 35-year-old man – a registered sex offender who served prison time — had ...

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition has won a decisive election victory, extending its control to the upper house of parliament and setting the stage for the country's first stable government in years.

Based on exit polls, national broadcaster NHK predicts that Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition ...

Belgium's Crown Prince Philippe has been sworn in as the country's seventh monarch, succeeding his father, Albert II, who abdicated on Sunday after a 20-year reign.

Albert, 79, resigned the throne on Sunday, citing ill health. He officially signed away his rights to the largely ceremonial post in the presence ...

An Indian court has sentenced six men to life in prison in connection with the gang rape of a Swiss tourist in March.

The 39-year-old woman was raped as she and her husband were camping in India's central state of Madhya Pradesh.

As we reported back in March, police ...

One year ago, a hail of gunfire interrupted a midnight screening of the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colo., sending theatergoers scrambling for cover. Twelve people were killed and 70 others wounded in the mass shooting.

The city of Aurora on Saturday was holding a day of ...

(This story last updated at 3:00 p.m. EDT)

Hundreds of people across the country attended "Justice For Trayvon" rallies calling for civil rights charges against George Zimmerman in the wake of his acquittal a week ago in the fatal shooting of black teen Trayvon Martin.

The Rev. Al Sharpton's National ...

Long-time White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who covered every president from Eisenhower to Obama, has died at age 92, according to The Gridiron Club & Foundation.

Thomas, who spent much of her career at United Press International before switching in her last decade in journalism to Hearst Newspapers as a ...

Israel said Saturday that it's prepared to release a number of Palestinian prisoners following a breakthrough in talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Yuval Steiniz, Israel's intelligence and strategic affairs minister, said the release would involve "heavyweight prisoners in jail for decades". He said the prisoners would be ...

(This story was last updated at 9:10 a.m. EDT)

A man in a wheelchair detonated a homemade bomb at Beijing International Airport, injuring himself but no one else, China's state media says.

The explosion occurred at about 6:24 p.m. Beijing time on Saturday. State-run China Central Television says the wounded ...

A court in Italy has convicted five people on charges of manslaughter and negligence for the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia off Tuscany last year that left 32 passengers and crew dead.

The court at Grosseto, the city nearest the spot where the Costa Concordia ran aground in January ...

The SEC on Friday filed civil charges against Steven A. Cohen, the founder of hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, accusing the billionaire of failing to prevent insider trading.

The Securities and Exchange Commission in a statement Friday afternoon said:

"Cohen received highly suspicious information that should have caused ...

A circuit court judge has ruled that Detroit's bankruptcy filing violates the state's constitution and laws, and must be withdrawn; Michigan's attorney general has already appealed the decision.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina made the ruling on Friday, a day after the city became the largest municipality in history to declare ...

Police say four men were found captive in a north Houston house — some apparently for years — in what authorities describe as "deplorable conditions."

Police Sgt. Steven Murdock tells The Associated Press that a neighbor called authorities Friday morning expressing concern about men in the house.

Houston's ...

The Washington Post reports that a former CIA operative detained in Panama at the request of Italian authorities was on a plane headed to the U.S. Friday.

Robert Seldon Lady, the former CIA station chief in Milan, Italy, was arrested Thursday in Panama in connection with an extraordinary rendition ...

More than a century after the invention of powered flight, birds are still teaching us something about how to fly airplanes, with the Air Force studying the V-shaped formation of airborne geese as a way to save fuel.

The technical term is "vortex surfing" and it's already well-known — NASCAR ...

Thomas Edison famously said that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration — words that could well apply to a new machine promoted by UNICEF that turns human sweat into drinking water.

The Sweat Machine extracts moisture from worn clothes by spinning and heating them, then filters the ...

Federal furloughs caused by sequestration could ground "Hurricane Hunter" aircraft, depriving forecasters of real-time measurements of storms during what's expected to be an especially active Atlantic hurricane season.

While NOAA operates some of the Hurricane Hunters, most of the modified C-130s transports that fly into storms to gather vital ...

(This story last updated at 6:45 p.m. ET)

The city of Detroit has filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, seeking Chapter 9 protection from creditors and unions owed some $18.5 billion in debt and liabilities.

In a news conference on Thursday, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said he ...

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have some long awaited test results: After 69 years, they have captured on video a drop of pitch, also known as bitumen or asphalt.

With a camera trained on a glass funnel containing a generous dollop of the substance, so thick that it appears as ...