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U.S., Taliban to begin talks

Jun 18, 2013 11:02 am
KABUL, Afghanistan — American officials say U.S. representatives will begin formal meetings with the Taliban in a few days at the group's new office opening in Qatar. Senior Obama administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak o...
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University programs that train U.S. teachers get mediocre marks in first-ever ratings

Jun 18, 2013 9:01 am
WASHINGTON — The vast majority of the 1,430 education programs that prepare the nation's K-12 teachers, including the University of Maine System, are mediocre, according to a first-ever ranking that immediately touched off a firestorm.
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Mainer among newest NASA astronauts

Jun 17, 2013 10:42 pm
CARIBOU — The valedictorian of Caribou High School’s Class of 1995 is among eight Americans selected by NASA to begin training for future space missions that may one day take them to Mars. Dr. Jessica U. Meir, 35, joins three other women and four men as the newest members of th...
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Rowhani, Obama sound positive, but progress likely to take time

Jun 17, 2013 9:41 pm
President Barack Obama and the newly elected president of Iran signaled willingness to improve ties between their nations Monday, but both leaders made clear that a positive tone may not easily translate into progress in resolving the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. In his first...
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Shrinking soaps vie for Daytime Emmy Awards

Jun 16, 2013 10:11 pm
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It's survival of the fittest among shrinking soap operas at the Daytime Emmy Awards. Sunday's ceremony pits the only four remaining soaps still airing on the broadcast networks against one that found new life on the Internet. Top-rated "The Young and th...
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Scientists moving 15-ton magnet from NY to Chicago

Jun 16, 2013 9:31 pm
UPTON, N.Y. — New York to Chicago, in five weeks? Scientists on Long Island are preparing to move a 50-foot-wide electromagnet 3,200 miles over land and sea to its new home at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. The trip is expected to t...
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Iran reformists dance in streets for new president

Jun 15, 2013 11:39 pm
TEHRAN, Iran — Wild celebrations broke out on Tehran streets that were battlefields four years ago as reformist-backed Hasan Rowhani capped a stunning surge to claim Iran's presidency on Saturday, throwing open the political order after relentless crackdowns by hard-liners to consolidate an...
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Sequester cuts hit poor, elderly, cancer patients

Jun 15, 2013 11:37 pm
The first warnings about the spending cuts were dire. In March, as the sweeping $85 billion reductions known as sequestration kicked in, President Barack Obama called them "stupid" and "arbitrary" and said they could thwart economic progress. Opponents said the administration was using sca...
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Nazi commander found in Minneapolis

Jun 14, 2013 11:11 pm
MINNEAPOLIS — The revelation Friday that a former commander of a Nazi SS-led military unit has lived quietly in Minneapolis for the past six decades came as a shock to people who knew him, prompted harsh condemnations from World War II survivors in the U.S. and Europe, and led prosecutors i...
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Online generation wants privacy

Jun 14, 2013 12:59 am
CHICAGO — Amid the debate over government surveillance, there's been an assumption: Young people don't care about privacy. Turns out, the generation that puts much of the "social" in social networking is much more complex when determining what personal information they want to share....
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