Michael Martin, the speaker of the House of Commons, rebuffed calls from lawmakers for his resignation Monday amid widespread public anger about improper expense claims by UK members of parliament. Martin said lawmakers had let the public down "very badly indeed," adding: "To the extent that I have contributed, I am profoundly sorry," said Martin. The Speaker traditionally chairs debates and ensures protocol is followed in the main legislative chamber of the UK parliament. No Speaker has been forced out ...

He arrives in the early morning hours, when the downtown streets here are empty and quiet. An electric gate jerks to life as the black sedan with tinted windows pulls into a parking lot protected by an iron fence. It's five blocks from the local county jail to the U.S. Federal Courthouse of Western Kentucky. Not even a five-minute drive. This is the only freedom Steven Green knows. He's ushered from the car by a contingent of U.S. marshals. It's ...

President Obama will rack up plenty of frequent flyer miles this summer with planned trips in Africa, Russia and Italy. Obama, along with his wife, Michelle, will visit Accra, Ghana, on July 10 and July 11, the White House said Saturday. It will follow Obama's trip to the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, from July 8 to July 10. Obama will address various bilateral and regional issues with Ghanaian President John Atta Mills, the White House said in a news ...

The economy is losing between 600,000 and 750,000 jobs every month by every measure that the government and analysts use. This rate of job losses may go on for a relatively long period. This trend can cause people to believe that trying to find a job is hopeless and that the tidal wave of the recession will overflow the financial mooring of every person who has ever worked or may want to work again. But, job ...

This is not the time to fight with your boss. but after more than a decade as TIME's hockey-beat writer, a job I wrestled from no one, my editor, Josh Tyrangiel, has refused to hear any more of my hockey-story pitches, arguing that the sport is not relevant enough to be in a mass-circulation magazine. "Like most people in America, in my daily life I'm much more likely to kick something or throw something in a basket than I ...

Although President Barack Obama on Wednesday pledged unwavering backing for Pakistan's government in its battle with extremists, his Administration has recognized the potentially crippling political weakness of President Asif Ali Zardari. That's why Washington has been quietly urging the leader of the opposition, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to join his arch-rival Zardari in a unity government to lead the fight against Islamist militancy. The shift is hardly surprising given Zardari's perilously low approval ratings and Sharif's reemergence as ...

President Obama will deliver a speech June 4 in Egypt on America's relationship with the Muslim world, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced Friday. Egypt is "a country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world," Gibbs said. He deflected several questions at his daily briefing about whether Egypt is a wise choice, given President Hosni Mubarak's resistance to making his government more democratic. Obama originally promised to deliver the speech during his first ...

Pig farmers threw rocks at police officers in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday as health workers gathered the farmers' herds for slaughter in what the government says is a precaution against the spread of swine flu, an interior ministry official told CNN. Brig. Gen. Hani Abdel-Latif said 50 to 60 protesters gathered in Cairo's Manshiyet Naser slum because they were upset with the health ministry's decision to slaughter all pigs in the country. But local media reported the number of farmers ...

If the fast spread of swine flu suggests the world is small, the global response to the epidemic reminds us that in many ways it's still light years apart. Swine flu has been making headlines in the Western world, but in places like India and Africa, where "pandemic" is just another part of the daily vocabulary, no one has so much as stifled a sneeze. In Africa, malaria kills more than 3,000 children a day; in South Africa, HIV/AIDS ...

Video of a fresh-faced Susan Boyle confidently singing a Barbra Streisand track to a room full of football fans in 1984 has been unearthed. The "Britain's Got Talent" singing sensation, looking trim and a bit like Abba's Anni-Frid Lyngstad, is invited on to the stage at Motherwell FC's Fir Park Social Club to take part in a singing competition between rival fans by a man wearing a checked coat and bow tie. Boyle, who had to wait 25 more ...