Pirates have hijacked two European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia in the past 24 hours, the European Union Maritime Security Center said Thursday. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will represent the United States at the United Nations meeting Tuesday in The Hague, the State Department said earlier. It is not clear who Iran will send to the conference. Obama made an overture to Iran last week in a video address marking the Persian new year holiday of Nowruz. ...

Iran will send an envoy to a U.S.-backed international conference on Afghanistan, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported Thursday. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will represent the United States at the United Nations meeting Tuesday in The Hague, the State Department said earlier. It is not clear who Iran will send to the conference. Obama made an overture to Iran last week in a video address marking the Persian new year holiday of Nowruz. "My administration is now committed to ...

The Mexican army has arrested a top drug cartel chief and four of his bodyguards, the government announced Wednesday. Hector Huerta Rios, also known as "La Burra" or "El Junior," was arrested Tuesday in the city of San Pedro Garza Garcia in Nuevo Leon state, along Mexico's border with the United States. The state-run Notimex news agency reported the announcement, citing a news conference held by the secretary of national defense and the attorney general's office. Huerta was flown to ...

More than 1,000 volunteers rushed to fill sandbags early Wednesday as many in North Dakota tried to protect themselves from historic floods that are expected to swamp the area. At 3:30 a.m., hundreds of volunteers were packed into individual sandbagging centers, an organizer said. "There have been so many volunteers that we had to turn people away," said Ryan McEwan, a supervisor at one volunteer coordinating center. "It is very busy. They are filling sandbags as fast as they can." ...

If it's not the biggest scandal in American legal history, many are calling it at least the darkest day for the country's troubled juvenile-justice system. For more than four years earlier this decade, two senior county juvenile-court judges in northeastern Pennsylvania took kickbacks of $2.6 million in exchange for packing thousands of kids off to privately owned detention centers. Many of the kids had committed minor offenses and didn't have the benefit of a lawyer. A 14-year-old from Wilkes-Barre, ...

The Vermont Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to legalize same-sex marriage, potentially setting the stage for a high-profile legislative showdown and breaking a new political barrier in the state that made history in 2000 by becoming the first to approve civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. If the bill becomes law, Vermont will become the first state to legalize same-sex marriage without being forced to do so by the courts. The bill, which passed the 30-member chamber by a 26-4 ...

The Indian army has found an officer and two troopers accountable for "lapses" in the killing of two youths in Indian administered Kashmir. "The high level army inquiry headed by a brigadier has been completed. The inquiry has held the junior commissioned officer (JCO) and two soldiers who were involved in the Bomai incident accountable for various lapses," Indian defense spokesman Lt. Col. J.S.Brar told CNN. "The charges besides the failure to exercise desired command and control by the JCO ...

Viewers have learned that television's no-nonsense Judge Judy cuts through the bull and gets to the heart of the matter. On Monday night's "Larry King Live," Judge Judy turned her sharp legal mind to matters of the economy, sharing why she thinks Americans have what it takes to navigate the hard months ahead. And she also has some advice for President Obama and sharp-worded assessments of Bernie Madoff and AIG bonuses. The following transcript has been edited for brevity ...

Iran's moderate former president will not challenge President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the upcoming presidential election, the state-run Fars news agency said Monday. Mohammad Khatami said last month that he would run in June, ending weeks of speculation, the state-run IRNA news agency reported February 8. But he now says he will instead support moderate candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, Fars reported Monday. Moussavi is a former prime minister. Before Khatami declared his candidacy last month, he had said either he ...

When a Jewish boy turns 13, he heads to a temple for a deeply meaningful rite of passage, his bar mitzvah. When a Catholic girl reaches about the same age, she stands in front of the local bishop, who touches her forehead with holy oil as she is confirmed into a 2,000-year-old faith tradition. But missing altogether in each of those cases — and in countless others of equal religious importance — is any role at all for government. There ...