Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
World Oct 1, 2013
Venezuela expels top U.S. diplomat
President Nicolas Maduro announced Monday the expulsion of the top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela and two other embassy employees for allegedly conspiring with “the extreme right” to sabotage the economy and power grid. The U.S. Embassy said it had not yet received notification, but ...
World Oct 1, 2013
Syria foreign minister likens civil war to 9/11
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem on Monday pledged to cooperate with international inspectors charged with dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons program, but he vowed to crush a rebellion that he said has drawn strength from al-Qaida and other internationalist jihadists. Addressing a gathering of world ...
Politics & Diplomacy | Focus Oct 1, 2013
'Not-so-conservative' Republicans may be key to solving U.S. fiscal drama
The most conservative tea party-backed members of the House GOP have been the center of attention in the ongoing fiscal drama, but the key to a solution in the coming days may be a different Republican bloc altogether. It’s a group of a few ...
World Oct 1, 2013
U.S. Marine generals fired for Afghan security lapses
The commandant of the Marine Corps on Monday took the extraordinary step of firing two generals for not adequately protecting a giant base in southern Afghanistan that Taliban fighters stormed last year, resulting in the deaths of two marines and the destruction of a ...
Crime Oct 1, 2013
Italian court in Knox trial gives OK for new DNA tests
The Florence Appellate Court hearing U.S. student Amanda Knox’s third trial in her roommate’s murder agrees Monday to run additional DNA tests on the presumed weapon, but rejects more than a dozen other defense requests for new testimony or evidence.
Financial Markets Oct 1, 2013
Investors worldwide duck for cover
U.S. stocks sank Monday ahead of the government’s partial shutdown, which could lead to an event far worse for the economy — a failure to raise the nation’s borrowing limit. There is a simple reason why the budget battle — and, more importantly, an ...
Asia Pacific | Focus Sep 30, 2013
Troop command top issue as Hagel visits South Korea
Sixty years after the end of the Korean War, the United States and South Korea still cannot agree on who should take charge if another war breaks out with the communist neighbor to the north. For years, Washington has been trying to persuade the ...
Politics & Diplomacy Sep 30, 2013
Democrats, Republicans in eleventh-hour showdown as shutdown looms
As the U.S. government teeters on the brink of a partial shutdown, congressional Republicans and Democrats traded blame for the failure to reach agreement on a temporary funding bill to keep federal agencies open. Congress was closed for the day Sunday after a post-midnight ...
Social Issues Sep 29, 2013
Nontraditional college students juggle work, kids, bills with coursework
by Jenna Johnson
When President Barack Obama talks about the cost of higher education, his mentions of “college students” might often evoke images of teenagers who spent their senior years of high school searching for the four-year institution that best matched their personalities, then enrolled and moved ...
Politics & Diplomacy Sep 29, 2013
Politics and pride drive Putin's anti-U.S. shift
by Kathy Lally
First, Vladimir Putin accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of inciting protests against him at the end of 2011. The next fall, the Russian president threw the U.S. Agency for International Development out of his country. Then he decided civic groups that get U.S. financing must ...
Social Issues Sep 29, 2013
Tattoos make inroads with 50 and older crowd
by Tara Bahrampour
Thirty years ago, a good girl didn’t walk into an establishment plastered with images of dragons and flames, hike her shirt up over one shoulder and let her body be injected with ink. Especially not if she was, like Darlene Nash, a 57-year-old grandmother. ...
Politics & Diplomacy Sep 29, 2013
Looking to 2016, Rubio and Paul rush to join Cruz
by David Nakamura
Sen. Ted Cruz might have alienated the Republican establishment with his all-night polemic against the Affordable Care Act. But that doesn’t mean the caustic Texan didn’t win any friends in Washington. As Cruz’s 21-hour speech dragged on, GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and ...