For Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, winning the vote of confidence in Parliament was the easy part. His ruling Socialists hold a slim majority, and last week's cabinet reshuffle elevated party hardliners to keep rogue deputies in line. The vote, held just after midnight on Wednesday morning, passed 155 to 143. Now, back to the hard part: Papandreou's embattled government resumes the deeply unpopular austerity program that's supposed to save Greece from defaulting on its massive national debt. ...

On Wednesday morning, residents of Joplin are as uncertain about the fate of their loved ones as officials are about just how many people are dead after the 8th deadliest tornado in U.S. history ripped through this Missouri town. In the media, the record of the missing and dead in this town of roughly 50,000 has been shifting by the hour. In a Tuesday morning press conference, Joplin fire chief Mitch Randles announced that 116 had been ...

As bright spring days gradually turn hot and muggy, the consensus in Damascus is that the protest movement has been badly burnt. The activist Facebook group Syrian Revolution 2011 put out an order for a general strike across Syria on Wednesday calling for "mass protests" and the closure of all schools, universities, shops and restaurants, "not even taxis." But there was no apparent strike on Wednesday morning in central Damascus. The mucky market was bustling with veiled women ...

When the Portland, Maine, School Committee voted 7-2 Wednesday night to make birth control pills available to middle school girls as young as 11, the response provided the latest evidence that adults still have trouble talking about sex with each other, much less with our kids. The debate was passionate, as you'd expect over an issue that touches so deeply our concerns about what our kids know and do — and when — and the messages we send ...

As the sky grew darker and the winds reached furious levels, my family and I huddled in our small laundry room, watching on my laptop a local television station broadcast images of the tornado bearing down on us. By way of a camera on top of the county courthouse, we saw the massive twister cut a path of destruction through the middle of Tuscaloosa, Ala. As I held our dog, Bama, and my wife, Amy, grabbed our ...

A former "enemy combatant" who was held in a South Carolina Naval brig for six years with no charges was sentenced Thursday to eight years and four months in prison, a Justice Department spokesman said.The 73-year-old bridge spans the San Francisco Bay and carries an average of 280,000 vehicles daily, according to the state transportation department. In the wake of the bridge's closing, commuters flocked to the Bay Area's rail system as an alternative. On Wednesday, Bay Area Rapid ...

A former Australian foreign minister said Wednesday he was encouraged by exchanges "across the room" between Israeli and Iranian representatives during a meeting both attended last month.

California police investigating the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl have arrested five people, a police spokesman said Wednesday.Charles Ramsey, a member of the Richmond school board, said the school district bears some responsibility for the attack. School administrators and police apparently weren't watching the area as they should have, Ramsey said. The school said it would hold a safety meeting for parents and students Wednesday evening to address the alleged assault. The victim was found unconscious under a bench ...

The shutdown of a major artery linking the California cities of San Francisco and Oakland sent area officials scrambling overnight to develop plans to ease congestion for Wednesday morning's rush hour.

Taliban militants attacked a private guesthouse in central Kabul on Wednesday morning, killing up to six U.N. staff members and wounding nine more, according to a U.N. spokesman.