Sometimes a retirement is more than a retirement.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., announced Tuesday he would not seek a seventh term in 2014, setting off a political chain reaction that will reverberate from official Washington to Big Sky Country.

“I often rely on Scripture,” Baucus, 71, told his hometown paper the Billings Gazette. “Ecclesiastes says there is a time and place for everything.” He said that after 40 years in Washington and following the …

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What started out as a case about whether corporations could be held accountable in U.S. courts for human rights abuses against foreigners abroad turned into a case about whether anyone can be held accountable. And on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the answer is, mostly, no.

In a sweeping holding, Chief Justice John Roberts led a splintered court in ruling that several Nigerians alleging an oil company aided an abetted torture, arbitrary killings, and …

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One of the major elements of Afghanistan’s air war will remain after most U.S. troops have headed home, the U.S. military command confirmed today. Armed drones, operated by the U.S., will remain over Afghanistan after 2014.

“I come back to the remotely piloted aircraft,” Air Force Maj. Gen. H.D. Polumbo, the commander of the U.S./NATO air war over Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon today. “They can collect intelligence, but they also are armed. And they’re …

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials are making a high-tech screening device available in Africa to help spot counterfeit malaria pills in hopes that the technology may eventually be used to combat the fake drug trade worldwide.

The Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that U.S. partners in Ghana will begin using a federally developed handheld device to screen for fake or diluted versions of two common malaria pills.

More than a third of malaria-fighting pills used …

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When a fire engulfed the Tazreen Fashions garment factory in late November, Sumi Abedin was resigned to die. Defying orders from floor bosses to stay at her sewing machine after word got around that a blaze was spreading down below, she and her co-workers ran to the two “women’s” exits, only to find them padlocked. Another “male” stairwell was choked with smoke and bodies, forcing her to retreat by the light of a cell phone. …

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At least 76 garment workers have been confirmed dead in Bangladesh after an eight-storey building containing clothing manufacturing units collapsed, officials say. It has been confirmed that one of the manufacturers has previously supplied the UK discount fashion chain Matalan.

Mohammed Neazuddin, Bangladesh’s health secretary, confirmed the deaths of the 76 people, and police said hundreds more remained trapped under the rubble.

The building, in Savar, about 12 miles north of Dhaka, the capital, collapsed at 9am …

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Demanding a hefty raise and a fair chance to form a union, workers in Chicago’s growing fast food and retail sectors plan to walk off the job Wednesday morning. The one-day walkout begins at 5:30 a.m. Central Time, and organizers expect 500 workers from a dozen chains to participate. The work stoppage follows similar strikes by New York City fast food workers and by Wal-Mart retail employees across the country, and marks the latest escalation …

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Greenpeace activists off the coast of Australia boarded a massive coal ship on Wednesday in a dramatic protest against the ongoing coal mining and export boom in the country.

Six international activists, using a speed boat, pulled alongside the the Korean-owned MV Meister and subsequently boarded the coal-laden vessel.

In a statement, the group said:

We did this because Australia’s coal exports are the nation’s greatest contribution to climate change and plans are underway …

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All undergraduate and graduate classes in the arts and sciences at Dartmouth College have been canceled for Wednesday after a student demonstration sparked a backlash that included violent online threats against the protesters.

In place of regularly scheduled courses, the New Hampshire institution will hold educational programming that it hopes will foster healthy debate and promote respect for diverse opinion. Featured speakers include the college’s interim president, a dean, faculty members, and students.

The controversy began last …

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A loose coalition of Democratic elected officials, shareholder activists and pension funds has flooded the Securities and Exchange Commission with calls to require publicly traded corporations to disclose to shareholders all of their political donations, a move that could transform the growing world of secret campaign spending.

S.E.C. officials have indicated that they could propose a new disclosure rule by the end of April, setting up a major battle with business groups that oppose the …

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