Damascus, it seems, does not care for Barack Obama's advice. In a much anticipated policy speech on Thursday, May 19, the U.S. President urged Syria's President Bashar Assad to take steps toward political transition or else "get out of the way." Said Obama: "The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests." It wasn't as if no one was listening. That evening, people in Damascus sat in shops and cafs drinking mint tea and smoking ...

There are so many things that make the killing of Osama bin Laden absolutely delicious: the hypocrisy of his being nabbed in a million-dollar, suburban compound even as he sent others to their deaths; the fear he must have felt as his bedroom door burst open and he found himself staring down the barrel of an American weapon held by an American soldier; the ignominious end his remains met — dumped overboard into the Arabian Sea like ...

One day in 1941, Vasile Enache was tending his cows in the forest of Vulturi, near the city of Iasi, 260 miles northeast of Bucharest, when he heard people sobbing. He went to investigate and saw hundreds of civilians being marched through the forest by Romanian army soldiers. Enache didn't know it at the time, but he was witnessing part of Romania's "Iasi pogrom," which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 14,000 Jews. For almost ...

Correction Appended: Friday, March 18, 2011It may soon become much harder to get your hands on the wheel of a Prius. The earthquake and tsunami that have caused over 10,000 deaths, swept away whole towns and plunged Japan into a nuclear crisis will have an impact, albeit a much less dire one, on U.S. car buyers as well: the best-selling hybrid car in America could soon be out of stock. Toyota's Prius, unlike most other vehicles by ...

More than 60 years after the end of World War II, an 89-year-old retired auto worker from Ohio went on trial in Germany on Monday in what many are calling the country's last Nazi war crimes proceeding. That's not the only reason the world is watching the trial closely: John Demjanjuk is also No. 1 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted war criminals, accused of being an accessory to the deaths of at least 27,900 people. Then there's the added drama of his ...

Broadening the number of health care professionals who can administer vaccine, New York Gov. David Paterson issued a sweeping executive order Thursday officially declaring a state of emergency due to the increase in H1N1 cases, including 75 H1N1-related deaths in New York state.

Ten people have been killed in a shooting at a drug rehabilitation center in a Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, state-run news agency Notimex reported. Three others were injured when unidentified gunmen opened fire Tuesday night, the agency said. It was the third such incident at a drug rehab clinic this year in the Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. The attackers entered the Vida Rehabilitation Center about 10:30 p.m., Notimex reported. Seven victims were patients at the clinic. The ...

A coroner's report says that a man arrested in the violent aftermath of Iran's presidential elections died from beatings, Iranian media reported Monday in what appeared to be the first official confirmation of a detainee's death from mistreatment. The death of Mohsen Rouhol-Amini was the result of "repeated blows and severe physical injuries" and other mistreatment at Tehran's Kahrizak prison, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported, citing an informed source. Officials initially had said Rouhol-Amini had died from illness. Kahrizak ...

Authorities believe at least one person not in custody may have information about the deaths of eight people in a Georgia mobile home, Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering said Sunday. "I'm confident to say that there's somebody, at least an individual, that we would like to know about that's not at the scene," whether or not they were directly involved in the case, Doering said. Seven people were found dead Saturday at a residence in the New Hope mobile ...

Authorities have fired and arrested the chief of an Iranian jail that was closed amid allegations of mistreatment of detainees held for protesting June's disputed election, Iranian media reported Sunday. "One security official at the prison, who was responsible for reporting irregularities at the prison, as well as the prison warden have been sacked and are under arrest," Gen. Esmaeel Ahmadi Moghadam, commander of Iran's security forces, told the semi-official Iran Student's News Agency. Iran's Press TV said the move ...