On the evening of Wednesday, June 13, Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, retreated to his room at the Conrad Hilton hotel in Brussels and wrestled with an unfamiliar feeling — one of impending defeat. Just eight months before, he had, it seemed, pulled off a stunning coup. Welch had always coveted Honeywell International, whose business making advanced electronics for the aviation industry, he thought, made a perfect fit with GE, one of three leading global manufacturers ...

Both inside and outside the U.S. Supreme Court last week, the endless argument over abortion came to a critical confrontation. Outside there was a | raucous standoff on the courthouse steps and plaza, where some 200 demonstrators, pro and con, sang, chanted and shouted. Inside, where the noise could not penetrate, the nine Justices were assembled to hear arguments in William L. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, a case that could leave in tatters the pivotal Roe v. Wade decision ...

It is not every day that the military chief of the world's emerging superpower stops by a tiny Himalayan nation. So when General Chen Bingde, Chief of General Staff of China's People's Liberation Army, touched down in Kathmandu on March 23, all of Nepal was watching. Chen didn't disappoint: he signed a military-aid deal worth $20 million and promised that there was more to come. He also took the chance to comment on Chinese-Nepali relations, saying that ...

So here's what free speech has come to on campus: "Name the freshman sluts!" an anonymous post demands on the Indiana University page of a multischool gossip site. So-and-so "has herpes!" proclaims an unsigned post on Texas Christian University's page. Among the profundities on the University of Alabama page: "Frats=fags." Horny guys, lowbrow debates and run-of-the-mill spam all seem to be in abundant supply on CollegeACB.com . But what sets this site--and others like it--apart from the coarse ...

California, you may have heard, is an apocalyptic mess of raging wildfires, soaring unemployment, mass foreclosures and political paralysis. It's dysfunctional. It's ungovernable. Its bond rating is barely above junk. It's so broke, it had to hand out IOUs while its leaders debated how many prisoners to release and parks to close. Nevada aired ads mocking California's business climate to lure its entrepreneurs. The media portray California as a noir fantasyland of overcrowded schools, perpetual droughts, celebrity breakdowns, illegal ...

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is calling for additional security for U.N. staff in Afghanistan, citing a "dramatically escalated threat" due to the world body's support for that nation's electoral process.Ban also said the U.N. is "exploring the feasibility of bringing in additional security units to guard U.N. facilities." The U.N. currently has hundreds of staff in Afghanistan offering technical and operational support for Afghanistan's elections. Various other U.N. agencies are involved in humanitarian work in the war-torn nation.

International officials arrived in Iran on Sunday to inspect a newly disclosed nuclear facility near the city of Qom, state media reported. Tehran is studying the draft proposal and will have an answer next week, Iranian diplomat Ali Asghar Soltanieh said on state-run Press TV. Iran informed IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei that it is "considering the proposal in depth and in a favorable light, but it needs until the middle of next week to provide a response," according to ...

A $5 million prize to reward good leadership in Africa was dramatically awarded Monday to ... nobody. It was the first time in the three-year history of the Mo Ibrahim Prize that the committee did not name a winner. "The Prize Committee has considered some credible candidates. However, after in-depth review, the Prize Committee could not select a winner," the committee said in a statement. Democratically elected African presidents and prime ministers who have left office within the ...

Just weeks after trumpeting the results of a military offensive in the Swat Valley, the Pakistan army suddenly finds itself under attack on multiple fronts. A day after an elite unit of army commandos secured the release of 39 hostages, bringing to an end a 22-hour siege of its military headquarters that left 25 people dead over the weekend, the Taliban struck again. In the fourth major attack in eight days, a suicide bomber killed 41 people in a ...

Mexican federal police have arrested a fugitive on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, Mexican authorities said. Jorge Alberto Lopez Orozco is wanted in Elmore County, Idaho, on charges that he shot and killed three people, the FBI said. The charred remains of a woman and her sons, ages 2 and 4, were found inside a burned-out vehicle on August 11, 2002, it said. Each victim had been shot in the head or chest. The FBI was still working Friday ...