It has taken President Obama three months to reach the decision on Afghanistan that he'll share with the nation Tuesday night, because there are no easy solutions. His chosen path will win applause from some quarters but boos from others. Here's a scorecard outlining the key questions the speech will address, to determine what proposals Obama has embraced and the risks he's willing to accept — and who's likely to be pleased or ticked off as ...

No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us. It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 4 storm with wind bursts that reached 125 m.p.h.--exploded through northeastern Australia. It ...

Colombia and the United States signed an agreement Friday that allows U.S. personnel to be stationed at seven military bases in the South American nation.

One of Kenya's most famous white aristocrats was released from prison Friday, a federal official said, after serving time in a killing that sparked racial tensions in the east African nation.

For the fourth time in less than 11 hours, a major earthquake rocked the South Pacific Ocean near the island nation of Vanuatu on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

Ten-man Germany scored the winning goal in the second minute of injury time to defeat Nigeria 3-2 and secure a quarterfinal showdown with Brazil at the under-20 World Cup in Egypt -- the official FIFA Web site has reported. Nigeria took the lead in the 51st minute in Suez when Lewis Holtby misplaced pass fell straight to King Osanga, who crossed for Danny Uchechi to head home. However, Germany levelled straight from kick-off when Bjorn Kopplin's burst through on ...

Five days after a deadly earthquake and tsunami slammed into the Samoan Islands, burying parts of the islands under a sea of mud and debris, U.S. agencies continued Saturday helping residents dig out and providing relief to disaster victims. About 300 responders are on the ground in American Samoa, including personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the American Red Cross, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Health and Human Services, according to those agencies. The ...

President Obama's decision to head to Copenhagen, Denmark, later this week to make a push to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago is not without political controversy. Critics say Obama is making a risky move, since key issues -- ranging from Iran's nuclear ambitions and health care reform in Congress to deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan -- are pressing on the administration. "I think it's baffling that the president has time to travel to Copenhagen," said Sen. Kit Bond, ...

Top U.S. officials say the underground nuclear facility that Iran revealed last week is illegal and likely intended for military purposes. "I think that certainly the intelligence people have no doubt that ... this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only ... because the Iranians kept it a secret," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so ...

A terror suspect accused of plotting the bombing of a skyscraper in Dallas, Texas, drew authorities' scrutiny because of his violent posts on an extremist chat site, court papers indicate. The suspect, a 19-year-old Jordanian, was arrested Thursday in a sting operation, the FBI said. Federal officials said Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, who entered the United States illegally and lived in Texas, tried to set off an explosive attached to a vehicle at the base of the 60-story Fountain Place ...