Global markets tumbled Thursday as investor pessimism about the outlook for the United States and European economies was deepened by weak data for the euro zone and a grim assessment from the Federal Reserve...

Libyan rebel forces claim to have discovered banned chemical weapons stockpiles in southern desert areas captured from Gaddafi loyalists in the last few days.

Spokesmen for the National Transitional Council (NTC) said a depot had been found in the Jufra area, 435 miles (700km) south of Tripoli, during part of an offensive against regime strongholds in the remote south of the country...

BP has clawed its way back from political purgatory, finding itself right where it was before the Deepwater Horizon disaster: contributing significant cash to candidates happy to take it...

Sada Mire fled Somalia's civil war as a child, and lived as a refugee in Sweden. But now she is back in the Horn of Africa as an archaeologist, making some incredible discoveries...

The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, U.S. officials said...

Even as Civil War history has gone through several cycles of revision, one thing has remained fixed: the number of dead. Since about 1900, historians and the general public have assumed that 618,222 men died on both sides. That number is probably a significant undercount, however. New estimates, based on Census data, indicate that the death toll was approximately 750,000, and may have been as high as 850,000...

Whether you are a “Doonesbury” fan or critic, you probably know that artist Gary Trudeau often skewers politicians. So some readers were surprised this week at an editors’ note explaining that 2009 cartoons were used instead of new cartoons described as having “strong partisan content based on an unpublished book.” AJC editors say it wasn’t the subject of the strip but rather the unusual nature of the content that called for special treatment...

After years of debate, the military can no longer prevent gays from serving openly in its ranks as of this morning at 12:01 a.m. EDT. For the first time, troops can publicly reveal they’re gay without fear of official retribution. Those troops who were discharged under the ban are being encourage to reenlist. And the Defense Department says it will have no tolerance for anti-gay behavior....

Six earthquakes hit the tiny Central American nation of Guatemala Monday, killing at least three people...

Barack Obama doesn’t lack for detractors. The economy is struggling, unemployment is high, conservatives reject nearly every initiative he proposes, and the president’s base is growing increasingly annoyed by his seeming unwillingness to ever fight for liberal causes. But few of his detractors are likely to land a punch as solidly as Ron Suskind, whose new book, Confidence Men, focuses on the inner workings of Obama’s economic team as it worked through TARP, auto bailouts, financial reform, and health-care reform...