Boston bombings

Bombing suspects echo home-grown terrorists in Madrid, London

As an eighth-grader in a Cambridge public school, suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was quiet, friendly, spoke good English and seemed at home in his adopted country. While hundreds of police officers pursued the 19-year-old during a nationally-televised rampage across Boston Friday, a former classmate recounted memories of the refugee who, according to counterterror officials, became a U.S. citizen on an ironic date: Sept. 11, 2012.... Read more»1

Obama’s numbers (quarterly update)

There are insights that emerge from the first in a series of regular quarterly updates of key statistical indicators of the Obama presidency.... Read more»

North Korea opens window into possibility of talks with U.S.

North Korea said it was open to dialog with the US but that it would not return to the “humiliating negotiating table” until it has boosted its nuclear arsenal enough to fend off an American attack, the state news agency reported.... Read more»

More Az veterans report dealing with military sexual trauma

Luisa Valdez said she was 18 and new to the Army when knocks awoke her and four male service members pushed her back into her barracks room and onto the bed. Each man raped her, she said.... Read more»1

Obama proposes shifting funds from nonproliferation to new nuclear weapons

The Obama administration will propose a deep cut in funding for nuclear nonproliferation programs at the Energy Department largely so it can boost the department’s spending to modernize its stockpile of nuclear weapons, according to officials familiar with the proposed 2014 federal budget to be unveiled Wednesday.... Read more»

Chile plans to exhume famed poet Pablo Neruda

Authorities hope to determine if the literary figure died of prostate cancer, or was killed by the Pinochet regime.... Read more»

Hearts, minds and dollars: condolence payments in the drone strike age

In February, during his confirmation process, CIA director John Brennan offered an unusually straightforward explanation:  “Where possible, we also work with local governments to gather facts, and, if appropriate, provide condolence payments to families of those killed.”... Read more»

All quiet on the northern front

Over the years, plenty of Koreans have explained how they feel when the North drums up the militant rhetoric. It’s just a part of life, they usually say, and not as big of a deal here as it is in the American press.... Read more»

Analysis

North Korea: Is there reason to hope?

Externally, it’s clear enough that Kim Jong Un intends this season’s extreme saber-rattling performance to establish North Korea as a recognized nuclear weapons and long-range missiles power, not to be messed with. Internally, it’s equally clear he wants his subjects to see him not as a 30-year-old kid who’s inheriting power from his dead daddy but as a clever and fearless general able to save them from the machinations of ferocious enemies.... Read more»

Hagel warns Pentagon officials that change is coming

If anyone thought Chuck Hagel wants to be a caretaker defense secretary, he worked hard to disabuse them of the idea in an April 3 speech to a roomful of generals and other senior officers at Washington’s National Defense University, an elite school chartered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.... Read more»