With nearly two dozen parents and others standing behind her, community activist Martha Sanchez announced Monday the end of an eight-year battle to close a metal finishing plant that residents say has contaminated their South Los Angeles neighborhood, making their children and teachers sick.

The plant, the target of lawsuits, fines and repeated calls for its closure, is across the street from 28th Street Elementary School. Wearing matching yellow T-shirts, members of Alliance for Californians for …

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Hundreds of Wall Street protesters blocked gates at some of the West Coast’s busiest ports on Monday, causing the partial shutdown of several in a day of demonstrations they hope will cut into the profits of the corporations that run the docks.

The closures affected some of the terminals at the ports in Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Longview, Wash., though it was not immediately clear the how much the shutdowns would affect operations and what …

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REPORTING FROM LONDON — The leaders of 23 European countries agreed early Friday to bind their nations together in a pact to limit government spending and borrowing but failed to persuade Britain to sign up, dealing a blow to European unity.

The agreement came after marathon talks in Brussels at a two-day summit billed as the last chance to rescue the euro from the debt crisis that threatens the single currency’s survival. Leaders from 23 European …

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Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison and fined $20,000 for what U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald famously referred to as a criminal corruption crime spree at the time of Blagojevich’s arrest three years ago.

Patti Blagojevich buried her head in her husband’s shoulder and the two embraced. He pulled back to brush tears off her cheek and then rubbed her shoulders.

As he left the courthouse, Blagojevich told reporters “we’re going to keep …

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Prosecutors have called off their 30-year battle to execute former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal for murdering a white police officer, putting to an end the racially charged case that became a major battleground in the fight over the death penalty.

Flanked by the police Officer Daniel Faulkner’s widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision Wednesday, just two days short of the 30th anniversary of the killing. He said continuing to seek …

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Two bomb blasts apparently targeting Shia Muslim shrines as hundreds of people gathered to mark the day of Ashoura have killed at least 60 people and injured scores more, according to Afghan police and media reports.

At least 56 people were killed by a suicide bomber who detonated explosives at the gate of the Abu-Ul Fazil shrine in the capital Kabul on Tuesday, many of them children, the AFP news agency reported.

Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, …

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They call it the Robin Hood tax — a tiny levy on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the world’s poor.

And like the mythical hero of Sherwood Forest, it is beginning to capture the public’s imagination.

Driven by populist anger at bankers as well as government needs for more revenue, the idea of a tax on trades of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments has attracted …

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Even as a sergeant shouted, “Stop hitting him! Stop hitting him!,” Deputy Marcos Stout continued punching an inmate in the head. Then, with the inmate on the concrete floor, Stout landed his knee on the man’s skull.

Lawyers for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department described the deputy’s actions as “callous and brutal behavior toward a helpless and unresisting person.”

Though Stout’s excessive force was egregious enough to get him fired, prosecutors did not charge him with …

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Chanting student demonstrators disrupted a meeting of UC regents being held at UCLA and several other system campuses, forcing officials to move to other rooms to continue their teleconferenced gathering.

UC leaders attending the meeting by teleconference at UCLA, UC San Francisco, UC Davis and UC Merced were all forced to adjourn and reconvene elsewhere after small groups of demonstrators stood and began shouting and chanting. During their protests and an extended public comment session, student …

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Images of the funerals of the young soldiers killed in the Nato attack on their checkpost filled television screens across Pakistan on Sunday, as a country already bursting with anti-Americanism found another reason to hate the US.

Prayers were held at a military base in Peshawar, provincial capital of the north-west, in front of 24 coffins laid out on a lawn, each wrapped in a Pakistan flag. The head of the army, General Ashfaq Kayani, considered …

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