The man jailed for trying to kill British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a hotel bombing in 1984 appeared in Parliament Tuesday with the daughter of one of his victims. Patrick Magee, a former Irish Republican Army activist, held a public discussion with Jo Berry, whose father died in the bombing in Brighton, southern England 25 years ago Monday. Magee told members of Parliament it is "always a challenge to share a platform with Jo. ... The challenge is, I'm ...

As campaigning was closing for the German presidential election Sunday, attention was already turning to what coalition will rule the country. Few doubt that Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, CDU, will win most votes. So, will Merkel continue the current center right-center left 'grand coalition' with the Social Democrats or will the votes suffice for a coalition with the business liberal but centrist Liberal Democrats or the FDP, a constellation Germans refer to as 'Black-Yellow.' At a press conference ostensibly ...

ACORN filed suit Wednesday in Baltimore, Maryland, against two filmmakers who secretly recorded videos embarrassing to the agency, claiming the pair violated state law by recording their conversations without permission of the employees involved. The lawsuit seeks an injunction preventing the further distribution of the videos. The recordings represented "clear violations of Maryland law that were intended to inflict maximum damage to the reputation of ACORN," the community organizer's attorney, Arthur Schwartz, said. "Unfortunately, they succeeded." Defendants James O'Keefe and ...

President Obama says that despite signs of economic recovery, the country will not see large-scale job growth until next year. In a wide-ranging interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," Obama said reversing job losses from the recession will come at the end of the recovery period, not the start. "I want to be clear, that probably the jobs picture is not going to improve considerably -- and it could even get a little bit worse -- over ...

Jewish officials in Israel and abroad are outraged that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to lift the excommunication of a British bishop who denies that Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers. The pope's decree, issued Saturday, brings back into the Catholic Church's fold Bishop Richard Williamson and three other bishops who belong to the Society of Saint Pius X. The liaison for Vatican-Jewish relations -- Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity -- said ...

Amid conservative opposition, a bill that would designate a day of "significance" in California for slain gay politician Harvey Milk is heading to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk. The legislation would denote May 22 -- Milk's birthday -- as a day of significance across the state. The governor's office said Tuesday it had received more than 100,000 constituent phone calls about the bill, although it was not immediately clear if most were in favor of it or opposed. The governor's ...

Vice President Joe Biden promised Thursday that President Obama will delve into specifics when he tackles health-care reform in a highly anticipated speech to a joint session of Congress next week. The president will be "laying out in understandable, clear terms" what the administration wants for health care when he addresses Congress on September 9, Biden told an audience at the Brookings Institution. Biden also promised success on the administration's top domestic legislative priority. "I think the prospects for success ...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's race to save automaker Opel — and the jobs of its 25,000 employees in Germany — is beginning to look like a high-speed pileup that could cost her at the polls. To get talks with Opel owners General Motors back on track, Merkel is reportedly ready to abandon her previous plan to force GM to sell a controlling stake in its European business to a consortium of Canadian-Austrian car-parts maker Magna International and Russia's Sberbank. ...

The White House sought to reassure jittery supporters Monday that President Obama is not abandoning the fight for a public health insurance option. The assurance came amid a media firestorm ignited over the weekend by administration officials seeming to indicate a willingness to drop such an option in order to secure congressional approval of a health care reform bill. The verbal maneuvering reflected the steep political challenge facing an administration trying to balance the competing priorities of the more conservative ...

To be a young person and a conservative is such a rare combination these days it approaches an act of defiance. Voters in their teens and 20s backed President Obama by a 2-to-1 ratio over John McCain last year, amid a flood of support from musicians, movie stars and other youth icons. Late-night TV hosts lampoon Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney as punchlines while MTV throws support to left-leaning causes such as gay marriage. But hundreds of young people ...