Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war.
With its ranks deeply divided, the Boy Scouts of America is asking its local leaders from across the country to decide whether its contentious membership policy should be overhauled so that openly gay boys can participate in Scout units.
A Houston-area high school senior has bagged a 14-foot, 800 pound alligator _ the heaviest ever certified in Texas _ on his first alligator hunt.
Pope Francis lamented that investment losses by banks trigger more alarm in the economic crisis than the struggle of people to feed their families, as he led a huge rally Saturday to invigorate the church's moral conscience, hours after he held talks at the Vatican about the economic crisis with Germany's leader.
France will see its first gay weddings within days, after French President Francois Hollande signed a law Saturday authorizing marriage and adoption by same-sex couples and ending months of nationwide protests and wrenching debate.
North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions.
A string of attacks killed at least 16 people in Iraq on Saturday, while gunmen abducted eight policemen guarding a post on the country's main highway to Jordan and Syria, the latest in a wave of violence to grip the country.
Nigeria's military declared a 24-hour curfew Saturday on neighborhoods in a northeastern city that's the spiritual home of an Islamic extremist network as soldiers continued the government's emergency campaign in the region, with authorities saying they killed 10 suspected insurgents.
Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked legislation on Saturday aimed at strengthening provisions for women's freedoms, arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles and encourage disobedience.
If you're American and want to do business in Myanmar, there's a list of people and companies you have to steer clear of by law. But it leaves off a former minister's son U.S. officials suspected of brokering arms deals with North Korea, and high-rolling relatives of the man who led the repressive military government for 19 years.
It was just about a day after Argentine strongman Jorge Rafael Videla had seized power in March of 1976, and the bloodletting was already beginning.
Inmates at jails in Indianapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis and Philadelphia face the nation's highest levels of sexual abuse at the hands of guards, according to a new federal report based on surveys of inmates at U.S. jails and prisons.
Alaska's remote Pavlof Volcano was shooting lava hundreds of feet into the air, but its ash plume was thinning Saturday and no longer making it dangerous for airplanes to fly nearby.
Venezuelan authorities have released a dissent ex-general who was jailed on charges of inciting unrest after the country's disputed presidential election.
An airline official says a US Airways Express flight with 34 people aboard was forced to make a belly landing at Newark International Airport after experiencing landing gear trouble. No injuries were reported.
Boston's police department and mayor's office will conduct twin reviews of the response to last month's bombing of the Boston Marathon, police commissioner Ed Davis said Saturday.
Venezuelan authorities have released a dissent ex-general who was jailed on charges of inciting unrest after the country's disputed presidential election.
Oxbow put D. Wayne Lukas in the record books again with an upset of Orb in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, giving the Hall of Fame trainer his 14th win in a Triple Crown race.
Denmark's Emmelie de Forest won this year's Eurovision Song Contest Saturday with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune "Only Teardrops," despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
A pair of persistent wildfires continued to burn in the hills and mountains around Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles on Saturday, although authorities were slowly getting the upper hand.
