Politics and Elections News

NEW YORK (AP) — Financial markets shuddered Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it could start scaling back its huge bond-buying program later this year and end it by the middle of 2014.The Fed's $85 billion in monthly bond purchases have b ...more

BERLIN (AP) — Summoning the harsh history of this once-divided city, President Barack Obama on Wednesday cautioned the U.S. and Europe against "complacency" brought on by peace, pledging to cut America's deployed nuclear weapons by one-third if Cold Wa ...more

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Hopes dimmed for talks aimed at ending the Afghan war when an angry President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday suspended security negotiations with the U.S. and scuttled a peace delegation to the Taliban, sending American officials s ...more

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan compromise on student loans started to take shape in the Senate on Wednesday linking interest rates to the financial markets. If approved, it would prevent rates for new borrowing from doubling in coming days.Stude ...more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the group that President Barack Obama says will meet with him to discuss the National Security Agency's secret surveillance program is expressing concerns about the program and says the group will publish a report abou ...more

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Seven al-Qaida-linked militants on a suicide mission attacked the U.N. compound Wednesday with a truck bomb and then poured inside, killing at least 13 people before dying in the assault.At least three foreigners were s ...more

NEW YORK (AP) — A man accused of fatally shooting a gay man walking with a companion in New York City's Greenwich Village afterward claimed that he opened fire because the victim "thought he was tough in front of his bitch," prosecutors said in court p ...more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chairman Ben Bernanke ended weeks of speculation Wednesday by saying the Federal Reserve will likely slow its bond-buying program later this year and end it next year if the economy continues to improve.The Fed's bond purchases ...more

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — As the West battles one catastrophic wildfire after another, the federal government is spending less and less on its main program for preventing blazes in the first place.A combination of government austerity and t ...more

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A network of human rights groups on Wednesday criticized plans to include Chadian troops in a new U.N. peacekeeping force for Mali while Chad's military remains on a U.N. 'list of shame' for child recruitment. But U.N. officials m ...more