The most feared and effective rebel group battling President Bashar al-Assad, the Islamist Nusra Front, is being eclipsed by a more radical jihadi force whose aims go far beyond overthrowing the Syrian leader.

U.S. companies are hiring more workers and home prices, stock markets and energy production are climbing. But a sudden narrowing in the U.S. budget deficit could trump all that — and provide another leg up for U.S. asset prices.

h no sign of an end to three mushrooming scandals, the White House acknowledged the rising political dangers on Wednesday by launching a concerted effort at damage control.

He may have been the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. He may have written a book extolling constitutional values in a democracy. And he may have run for president on a civil liberties banner, pledging to reverse the legacy of George W. Bush.

U.S. President Barack Obama learned on Monday what can happen to presidents caught up in allegations of scandal: they have to address them instead of anything else.

Occasionally a public opinion survey surfaces that signals a seismic event. That is the case with a new report from the Pew Research Center that measures the widening tremors of a political earthquake now shaking Europe.

In Syria's eastern province of Deir al-Zor, a network of tribes and smugglers has exploited the chaos of war to create an illicit oil trade that makes European hopes of buying crude from President Bashar al-Assad's opponents a distant prospect.

If Russia has decided to make a new diplomatic push to drag Syria's warring parties into peace talks, it may be because of signs that the United States could slowly get sucked into the conflict.

Israeli missiles breached Syria's vaunted air defense system over the weekend, but that offered little comfort to U.S. military planners weighing the risks of any intervention against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Addressing an audience of dignitaries in Luxembourg in 2005, Bulgaria's then prime minister extolled the virtues of European Union membership, declaring his nation ready to take its place at the heart of the continent.