Biden faces delicate two-step in Asia
TOKYO — With Japan locked in a tense standoff with China over disputed airspace, Vice President Joe Biden arrived here late Monday for a weeklong visit to Asia intended to reassure a close ally and demand answers from a potential adversary.
Economies worldwide are showing momentum
Bucking fears of a sharp brake on growth after the government shutdown in the United States and earlier signs of distress in Europe and Asia, global manufacturing activity sped up in November, raising hopes for a broader global economic turnaround in the coming year.
December is here, but no snow yet
The first week of December will be reasonably warm, with a mix of sun and clouds and highs in the mid-40s°F. A low-pressure system is situated over the Atlantic Ocean, but most of the precipitation is expected to stay away from the New England coast. The precipitation, if any, will be in the form of rain instead of snow. Temperatures will be on par with historical averages for Boston at this time of year.
Ukrainian protesters control landmark plaza
KIEV, Ukraine — Even as thousands of protesters occupied Independence Square, blockaded the Cabinet Ministry and continued to demand his resignation, President Viktor F. Yanukovych of Ukraine on Monday defended his refusal to sign accords with the European Union, said he was on the verge of securing lower gas prices from Russia, and urged opposition politicians to wait for presidential elections in 2015 to challenge him.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a ruling from New York’s highest court requiring Internet retailers to collect sales taxes even if they have no physical presence in the state.
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WASHINGTON — More than a year after the Supreme Court upheld the central provision of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, a fresh wave of legal challenges to the law is playing out in courtrooms as conservative critics and their Republican allies on Capitol Hill make the case that Obama has overstepped his authority in applying it.
Top UN rights official links Assad to crimes in Syria
GENEVA — The top U.N. human rights official linked President Bashar Assad of Syria to war crimes and crimes against humanity for the first time Monday, citing evidence collected by her panel of investigators over the course of the 33-month-old conflict in that country.
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WARSAW, Poland — Two weeks of U.N. climate talks ended Saturday with a pair of last-minute deals keeping alive the hope that a global effort can ward off a ruinous rise in temperatures.
Wal-Mart names chief of international unit as new CEO
As Wal-Mart enters a fiercely competitive holiday season while still hampered by sluggish sales, the company’s board announced Monday that Michael T. Duke, its chief executive, would retire early next year and a longtime executive, C. Douglas McMillon, would replace him. McMillon, 47, president of Wal-Mart International, will take the helm Feb. 1, just after the holiday season, the company said. He was also elected to the board effective immediately and Duke will help with the transition.
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NEW HAVEN — Police officers swarmed onto Yale University, asked nearby shops to shut down and warned students not to go outside after a gunman was reported on campus Monday morning.
In report, 63 percent favor path to citizenship
A consistent and solid majority of Americans — 63 percent — crossing party and religious lines, favors legislation to create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally, while only 14 percent support legal residency with no option for citizenship, according to a report published Monday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.
Close vote raises tensions in Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras appeared headed toward days of political tension Sunday as the two leading candidates each declared they had won the presidency. With 43 percent of the votes counted, Juan Orlando Hernández, the conservative candidate of the National Party, led with 35 percent to 28.4 percent for Xiomara Castro, the candidate of the left-wing Libre party.
Syrian peace talks to begin on Jan. 22
GENEVA — After months of delay, the United Nations said Monday that Syria’s government and the opposition would hold their first negotiations aimed at ending that country’s civil war in Geneva on Jan. 22. But the precise agenda for the negotiations, as well as a complete list of participants, remained unresolved.
Windy Wednesday could cause travel trouble
A strong cyclonic storm will have a big impact on this week’s weather in the Northeast. The storm, which as of last night was currently forming in the Gulf of Mexico, will bring high winds and heavy rains into New England beginning tonight. Although earlier forecasts had included the possibility of a travel-crippling snowstorm for this system, it is now apparent that there will be enough warm air advected ahead of the Nor’easter to keep the precipitation in the form of rain for each of the major cities in the Northeast Corridor. Still, the storm could pose problems for those traveling home for the Thanksgiving holiday, as winds on Wednesday are expected to exceed 30 mph, with gusts upwards of 50 mph possible in the afternoon. These potentially dangerous conditions had prompted the National Weather Service to issue a High Wind Watch for much of Southern New England at the time of this publication.
Oil prices dip after nuclear deal with Iran
LONDON — Oil prices dipped Monday on the heels of an interim agreement between Iran and the United States and other world powers to temporarily freeze Tehran’s nuclear program.
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Missiles believed to have been fired by a U.S. drone struck an Islamic seminary in northern Pakistan on Thursday, in a rare strike outside the country’s volatile tribal regions.
Karzai says security pact with US should be signed next year
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai stood before thousands of Afghan leaders on Thursday in a watershed moment for his tumultuous rule. Having just come to agreement with U.S. leaders on a security deal that would commit the two countries to a lasting military alliance — and would surely define his legacy — he convened the assembly that would decide the deal’s fate.
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Frederick Sanger, a British biochemist whose discoveries about the chemistry of life led to the decoding of the human genome and to the development of new drugs like human growth hormone, earning him two Nobel Prizes, a distinction held by only three other scientists, died Tuesday in Cambridge, England. He was 95.
Landmark Senate vote weakens the filibuster
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to eliminate the use of the filibuster against most presidential nominees, a move that will break the Republican blockade of President Barack Obama’s picks to Cabinet posts and the federal judiciary. The change is the most fundamental shift in the way the Senate functions in more than a generation.
France may be returning to recession, new data shows
FRANKFURT, Germany — Hopes that the eurozone could be emerging from years of torpor suffered another setback Thursday when an indicator of economic activity in the region slipped unexpectedly and suggested that France could be sliding back into recession.