The last time the nation’s tax code was overhauled, in 1986, Congress tried to end a big corporate giveaway.

But this valuable perk — the ability to finance a variety of business projects cheaply with bonds that are exempt from federal taxes — has not only endured, it has grown, in what amounts to a stealth subsidy for private enterprise.

A winery in North Carolina, a golf resort in Puerto Rico and a Corvette museum in …

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We cannot intimidate others into behaving well when we ourselves are misbehaving. Yet that is precisely what nations armed with nuclear weapons hope to do by censuring North Korea for its nuclear tests and sounding alarm bells over Iran’s pursuit of enriched uranium. According to their logic, a select few nations can ensure the security of all by having the capacity to destroy all.As an Oslo conference on nuclear weapons starts, we should not accept …

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LOS ANGELES — On Tuesday, voters in Los Angeles will go to the polls for a mayoral primary. But much of the attention will also be on the three races for the school board, a battle that involves the mayor, the teachers’ union and a host of advocates from across the country — including New York City’s billionaire mayor — who have poured millions of dollars into the races.

Steve Zimmer, an incumbent and Ms. …

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As closed-door talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement resume in Singapore this week, international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières is calling on Australia and negotiating countries to reject rules that threaten to dismantle internationally agreed public health safeguards and restrict access to medicines in developing countries.

The TPP negotiations, which currently involve eleven Asia-Pacific countries, are being conducted in secret, but leaked texts reveal the most aggressive intellectual property (IP) measures ever suggested in …

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RIYADH | Mon Mar 4, 2013 11:03am EST

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is scheduled to execute seven men on Tuesday for crimes committed when they were juveniles aged under 18, the British-based rights group Amnesty International said.

The seven were sentenced to death in 2009 for an armed robbery in 2006, but Amnesty quoted the men as saying they were tortured into confessions. It said King Abdullah ratified their sentences in February.

“They have since said they were …

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There are a record 1,426 billionaires spread around the globe, according to the latest count from Forbes, as rising stock prices helped bring 210 new members into the exclusive 10-figure club.

The Forbes rankings published Monday showed Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim on top of the list for the fourth year in a row. His estimated $73 billion fortune, up from $69 billion a year ago, edged out Microsoft founder Bill Gates, once again No. 2 …

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I was in a military courtroom at Fort Meade in Maryland on Thursday as Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted giving classified government documents to WikiLeaks. The hundreds of thousands of leaked documents exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as government misconduct. A statement that Manning made to the court was a powerful and moving treatise on the importance of placing conscience above personal safety, the necessity of sacrificing careers and liberty for …

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RAWABI, West Bank — As gambles go, it hardly gets bigger: A $1 billion dollar bet on peace — or at least a measure of calm — in the West Bank.

Even the founder of Rawabi, the biggest construction project in the history of the Palestinian people, says nobody in his right mind would invest here.

Standing on a wind-swept hilltop overlooking the biblical hills of Judea, a half-hour drive from Ramallah, Bashar Al-Masri points to the …

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(Reuters) – At least 15 people were killed in attacks by machete-wielding gangs on Monday as millions of Kenyans voted in the first presidential election since a disputed 2007 poll unleashed weeks of tribal bloodshed.

Voting the tight contest passed off peacefully across most of the East African nation, although many of its 14.3 million voters were caught in long lines. Election officials said there was a high turnout without giving figures.

Officials and candidates have made …

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WASHINGTON — The $85 billion in automatic cuts working their way through the federal budget spare many programs that aid the poorest and most vulnerable Americans, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program and food stamps.

But the sequestration cuts, as they are called, still contain billions of dollars in mandatory budget reductions in programs that help low-income Americans, including one that gives vouchers for housing to the poor and disabled and another that provides fortified …

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