Germany is now more peaceful, more united and less turbulent than people had expected.

The Afghan Defense Ministry and local officials in Badghis Province said that seven members of the Afghan security forces had been killed in a NATO airstrike the day before.

How to divide payments among developing nations and the developed world is among issues making budget talks especially tense.

A case involving the admissions policy of a Jewish high school in London has potential repercussions for thousands of other parochial schools across Britain.

Peruvians pose what might be a final challenge to the ecosystem supported by the giant huarango tree, which is coveted as a source of charcoal and firewood.

Zenyatta ran her record to 14-0 and put an exclamation point on a great year for fillies by coming from way back to win the Breeders Cup Classic.

President Obama, extending condolences to Fort Hood, Texas, reminded Americans that people of “every race, faith and station” serve in the military — an oblique attempt to prevent a backlash against Muslims.

Leaders of Russia’s largest opposition faction have made it clear that they prefer the current president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, to his predecessor, Vladimir V. Putin.

Despite the riches trapped below the oil fields of Basra, the city of three million is plagued by poverty, unemployment, and poor sanitation.

The statement by President Dmitri A. Medvedev resembles an earlier one, but it takes on added significance now because Iran has equivocated on the international agreement.

Gordon Brown of Britain told G-20 finance ministers that the world needed a system to force banks, not taxpayers, to cover future bailouts.

There are just over 100 people in the world serving sentences of life without parole for crimes they committed as juveniles in which no one was killed; 77 of them are in Florida.

Those who treat soldiers’ psychological wounds say this week’s rampage highlights the strains of their profession.

Recalling the joy of unexpected liberation at the Berlin Wall, let loose on a city that knew how to party, makes an editor tremble with emotion even now.

Barbara Mulas, 49, is chef and part-owner of Sidebar, a “gastropub,” as she describes it, in the Lake Merritt section of Oakland

In Hebrew the word for Julie Seltzer’s arcane profession is soferet; she’s a scribe, a Hebrew calligrapher who writes sacred texts on parchment.

Jeremy Tyler, 18, left high school in San Diego to play basketball in Israel. His goal is to be drafted by an N.B.A. team in two years, but for now he is struggling.

Construction of a permanent memorial is under way at the crash site in Pennsylvania of United Airlines Flight 93.

As a high-priority bill for Congressional leaders and President Obama, the legislation has become a vehicle for many other initiatives large and small.

Gen. Casimir Pulaski finally became an American citizen, 230 years after he died fighting in the Revolutionary War.