BRASILIA (Reuters) - A call home from an anguished daughter in Spain and images from a soap opera about human trafficking for sexual exploitation led a Brazilian mother to realize her daughter was in trouble. So she called a sexual abuse hotline set up by Brazil's Ministry of Women's Affairs, prompting an international police operation that led authorities to break up a prostitution ring in the Spanish university town of Salamanca last week. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday named James Stock to the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Stock has been chief economist for the council since 2012. He was previously an economist at Harvard University and a member of the committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research that dates the start and end of recessions. Stock's appointment brings the three-member panel to full strength, joining Chairman Alan Krueger and Katherine Abraham. He does not require Senate confirmation. ...
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Security Council should consider lifting an arms embargo on Somalia to help rebuild the country's security forces and consolidate military gains against al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon suggested in a report Friday. The council imposed the embargo in 1992 to cut the flow of arms to feuding warlords, who a year earlier ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged Somalia into civil war. Council diplomats said the arms embargo was "under discussion" as the delegations have not reached a final agreement. ...
BOSTON (AP) — Former Sen. Scott Brown said Friday he would not run in a special Senate election in Massachusetts, dealing a setback to Republican hopes of winning the seat being vacated by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Barney, the Scottish Terrier that accompanied former President George W. Bush through his entire two-term presidency, has died. He was 12 and a half years old. They say if you want a friend in Washington, you should get a dog. President George W. Bush brought...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Social networking start-up Path will pay $800,000 to settle charges with federal regulators that it improperly collected personal information on children. The company also agreed to submit to 20 years of independent privacy reviews to settle charges that it secretly collected information from its users mobile phone address books. The settlement, announced by the Federal Trade Commission on Friday, is the latest between the agency and Web companies for privacy violations. ...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton formally resigned Friday as America's secretary of state, capping a four-year tenure that saw her shatter records for the number of countries visited. John Kerry was sworn in to replace her.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is leaning toward choosing Gina McCarthy, a top official in charge of air quality at the Environmental Protection Agency, to run the EPA in his second term, according to two sources familiar with the matter. McCarthy, currently the assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Air and Radiation, would take on the top job as the agency leads Obama's push for measures to fight climate change. McCarthy would replace Lisa Jackson, who said in December she planned to step down as EPA chief. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, who is head of the agency that protects the president and other officials, will retire next month, a Secret Service spokesman said on Friday. Sullivan, who was in charge of the agency when it was embroiled in a scandal involving prostitutes in Colombia last year, will step down on February 22 after almost three decades with the service, spokesman Brian Leary said. "The director is retiring," Leary said. "He's got almost 30 years of service so he's retiring. He's the third longest serving director. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Harry Truman once said if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. George W. Bush had one, a Scottish terrier named Barney, and Bush announced on Friday that Barney had died. "He never discussed politics and was always a faithful friend," Bush said in a statement issued from his home in Dallas. The dog, more than 12 years old, had been suffering from lymphoma. Barney was a frequent companion of the president and his wife, Laura, going on frequent walks at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, and was said to have been a "fierce armadillo hunter. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has decided against moving the U.S. military's headquarters overseeing Africa from Germany to the United States, concluding the benefits of staying in Europe - closer to African hot spots - are worth the extra cost, officials say. The Pentagon notified Congress of its decision this week. Some lawmakers had been pushing for Africa Command to move stateside, with South Carolina and Georgia promoted as possible locations. "The decision was based on the operational needs of the commander," a U.S. ...
(Reuters) - A judge on Friday modified an earlier order and said the Internal Revenue Service does not have to shut down a new program for registering and testing tax preparers, but he also said preparers need not take the tests or pay related fees. In a move to put the IRS program on hold for now, Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered that "the IRS is not required to suspend its ... program." Further legal action is expected. ...
UNION CITY, N.J. (AP) — To his critics, Sen. Robert Menendez is the bad guy who always wiggles away. To defenders, he's a respected figure persecuted in whispers and investigations.
Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown Law grad who spoke out in support of free access to contraception last February, downplayed the importance of President Obama’s proposed compromise with religious groups on birth control coverage almost one year later. In an interview with ABC News, Fluke said today’s...
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Alberta on Friday appointed energy executive David Manning, a former head of Canada's most powerful oil lobby group, as its envoy to Washington as it looks for a favorable decision from the Obama administration on the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline project. Manning is a senior vice-president and head of the energy practice at Vanasse Hangen Brustline Inc, a Boston engineering firm, and a director at consulting firm M.J. Bradley & Associates. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Snacks sold in U.S. schools would need to be lower in fat, salt and sugar and include more nutritious items like fruits, vegetables and whole grains, under new potential standards released on Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The proposal, more than a year overdue, also calls for the nation's public schools to ensure individual food and drink items sold in vending machines and other venues during the school day be 200 calories or less, USDA said. The proposed rules are the second step in a larger effort to improve the foods U.S. ...
