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The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency insisted Monday that a probe of a suspected nuclear weapons research site in Iran does meet strict agency standards, while acknowledging that Iranian experts provided samples from the site for analysis. Such sampling is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told reporters that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested. The arrangement was first revealed in confidential draft agreement between the sides seen last month by The...

China’s president on Saturday pledged billions in aid and said Beijing will forgive debts due this year in an effort to help the world’s poorest nations, as world leaders begin to seek the trillions of dollars needed to help achieve sweeping new development goals. President Xi Jinping spoke at a global summit that on Friday launched the non-binding goals for the next 15 years. Xi and others spoke as the U.N. gathering began to shift focus from development to the high-powered General Assembly meeting that begins Monday with speeches by Xi, President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian...

The Republican Party’s conservative wing, pumped up by House Speaker John Boehner’s stepping down, is warning the 2016 presidential candidates that defying its wishes will come at their peril. Religious activists forcefully conveyed this message Saturday: embrace our uncompromising stance against abortion rights and gay marriage, among other priorities, even if doing so risks a federal government shutdown. An emboldened conservative movement signals fresh trouble for White House candidates viewed by the party’s frustrated base as insufficiently committed to their cause. Chief among them is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “Conservatives are on fire at the moment,” said Gary Bauer,...

Singing “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” as he began his press conference, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) formally announced his resignation from his leadership post and from Congress effective at the end of October. […] “Now as you’ve often heard me say, this isn’t about me. It’s about the people. It’s about the institution. Just yesterday, we witnessed the awesome sight of Pope Francis addressing the greatest legislative body in the world, and I hope that we will all heed his call to live by the golden rule,” Boehner said. “But last night I began thinking about this, and this morning I woke up,...

In a White House Rose Garden news conference alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Barack Obama praised outgoing House Speaker John Boehner as “a good man” and “patriot,” who “cares deeply about the House” and America. “I just heard the news as I was coming out of the meeting here, so it took me by surprise, and I took the time prior to this press conference to call John directly and talk to him. John Boehner’s a good man. He is a patriot. He cares deeply about the House, an institution in which he’s served for a long time. He...

Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) decision to resign from Congress at the end of October is “a victory for the crazies,” Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said Friday. “I’m disappointed. This is a victory for the crazies,” King told Newsday. “You can’t appease these people.” King said Boehner was resigning “to avoid putting the party through tumult” amid challenges to his leadership and an impending government shutdown. The Long Island Republican also told Reuters that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is the leading contender to replace Boehner as Speaker. …

A new round of contempt-of-court hearings began Thursday in Phoenix against the sheriff in the nation’s sixth-largest city over his defiance of a judge’s order to stop carrying out his signature immigration patrols. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose immigration crackdowns turned him into a national political figure, listened intently as his second-in-command testified about emails involving the agency’s violation of a key court order in the racial profiling case. The order demanding the office stop the patrols was ignored for 18 months. Arpaio could face fines as a result of the hearings and could later be called into criminal...

President Barack Obama has invested more time building personal ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping than with most other world leaders. But as Xi arrived in Washington late Thursday for a grand state visit, it’s clear that Obama’s overtures have produced decidedly mixed results. During intimate walks and hours of private discussion around the world, Obama and Xi forged a historic breakthrough to combat climate change and collaborated on efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear program. But there’s been little progress on a pair of vexing security issues that will be at the forefront of their latest round of discussions: China’s...

New York City public schools are closed to observe the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Thursday was the first time the schools serving 1.1 million pupils closed for a Muslim holiday. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this year that the city’s public schools would observe the two Muslim holy days of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

Plenty of things will be different at Friday’s White House state dinner for China, ranging from the setting to the decor to the post-dinner entertainment. But in trying to figure out what to change, the White House decided to keep one thing the same: Maine lobster is back on the menu. The lobster will be poached in butter and served with traditional rice noodle rolls embedded with spinach, shiitake mushrooms and leeks when President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan to dinner in the East Room with a few hundred...

The Chicago Tribune is suing Mayor Rahm Emanuel over claims he violated open records laws for failing to disclose personal emails and texts used to conduct city business. Thursday’s lawsuit asks a judge to force the former White House chief of staff to produce documents. The lawsuit argues that the newspaper’s Freedom of Information Act requests to Emanuel’s administration have been “met with a pattern of non-compliance, partial compliance, delay and obfuscation.” …

London’s Imperial War Museum has removed an offensive exhibit branding Jewish soldiers who fought the Nazis during World War Two as “terrorists.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center lodged its own formal complaint with the Museum following widespread outrage, after it was revealed that a display on the Jewish Brigade of the British Army was described as “terrorist activities.” A poster of Jewish warriors was captioned: “Terrorist activities: Men of the First Battalion Jewish Brigade during a march past”; adding, “The Jewish Brigade was formed in September 1944 and fought in Italy under the British Eighth Army. Many of its members went...

There’s been a series of violent murders of Bangladeshi internet bloggers, accused of being atheists by Islamist groups—with four killed so far this year. […] Bonya Ahmed is herself a writer and was also married to perhaps the most famous atheist killed this year, Avijit Roy—the moderator of a popular online blog called “Free Thinking,” which defended secular and humanist ideas. She and her husband were attacked together in February. Bonya lost fingers and was scarred, but lived. Her husband was hacked to death with machetes in a manner that followed the same gruesome pattern of later killings. They had...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday rejected what he called German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “moral imperialism” as he outlined his own rival plan to tackle Europe’s migrant crisis. When asked what he expected from Merkel while Europe grapples with an influx of asylum-seekers, the hardline leader grinned: “I have a long list.” Orban accused Merkel of trying to impose her vision of an open EU on the rest of the bloc. “The most important thing is that there should be no moral imperialism,” he said during a visit to the southern German state of Bavaria. […] Orban’s appearance at...

For the first time in a decade, there was a notable increase last year in the number of U.S. children in foster care, according to new federal figures released Wednesday. The annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services tallied 415,129 children in the foster care system as of September 30, 2014, up from about 401,000 a year earlier. The peak was 524,000 children in foster care in 2002, and the number had dropped steadily since 2005 before rising slightly in 2013. The long-term drop resulted primarily from shifts in the policies and practices of state and county...

Russia warned on Wednesday that it will rebuild its nuclear presence in Europe if the US carries out plans to extend its nuclear arsenal in Germany. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman warned that Russia would be forced to re-establish “strategic balance” if the US carries out plans recently reported in the German media to strengthen its nuclear arsenal in Germany, reports Spiegel. According to a report by broadcaster ZDF published on Monday, preparations are currently underway at the Büchel military base in Rhineland-Palatinate to station 20 new nuclear bombs there. The broadcaster claims to have seen copies of the American...

Employers are leaving a bigger chunk of the bill for care to workers who use their health insurance, and benefits experts see few signs of this trend slowing. Most companies now offer health coverage that requires employees to pay an annual deductible before insurance kicks in, and the size of that deductible has soared in the past decade, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust. The average general deductible for workers with single coverage totaled $1,077 this year, compared to only $303 in 2006. That deductible has climbed nearly seven...

Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus apologized to Congress on Tuesday for sharing classified information with his biographer and mistress, Paula Broadwell. It was his first public testimony before lawmakers since resigning as CIA director. Petraeus appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee, offering his recommendations for how the U.S. should address what he called a “revolutionary upheaval that is unparalleled in its modern history.” He said the progress achieved so far in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq has been “inadequate” and suggested the U.S. increase support to Iraqi security forces and Sunni tribal and Kurdish fighters. In Syria, he...

Britain says a new expert panel will report on the activities of the Irish Republican Army and other outlawed paramilitary groups as part of efforts to heal the rift in Northern Ireland’s unity government. […] The IRA in 2005 declared it had renounced violence and disarmed in support of power-sharing. Protestant leaders are threatening to end cooperation with the IRA-linked Sinn Féin party because of police assessments that IRA members killed a former Belfast comrade last month. …

Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) gave his own Republican congressional leadership a failing grade for not going “all in” to solve the nation’s fiscal problems and for not fighting President Obama’s executive overreach. “I’d give them all F’s. Fail. We did not fight. We didn’t win. My district sent me up here to score some points,” Brat said Friday after C-SPAN Washington Journal host Peter Slen asked the Tea Party-backed freshman congressman what he thought about House Speaker John Boehner’s leadership over the past year. Brat noted the Republican-controlled Congress’ failure to defund Planned Parenthood in the wake of graphic undercover...