Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has ordered the building of 2,000 new housing units for Israelis, mainly in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, an area Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state.

Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday that the new construction would include settlements that he believed would be part of Israel in a future peace accord. Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land are considered illegal under international law.

Israel also decided on …

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LONDON — A London court ruled on Wednesday that Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, can be extradited to Sweden for questioning over allegations of sexual abuse there last year. He will seek a final appeal to the Britain’s highest court, according to a person close to Mr. Assange

The decision was the latest chapter in a months-long legal battle that has seen Mr. Assange under house arrest and WikiLeaks temporarily shuttered. In their ruling, two British …

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Bowing to a national flood of protests, Bank of America Corp. is calling off its plan to charge customers $5 a month for using its debit cards to make purchases — a strategy that proved a public relations disaster for what once was America’s biggest bank.

Analysts had believed the rest of the banking industry would follow BofA in imposing similar fees to make up for new rules restricting the fees banks charge merchants for accepting …

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Compton’s finances are in such disarray that the city amassed $369,000 in late fees over the last year because it could not pay its policing contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on time.

The city has already laid off about 15% of its workforce, and city leaders warn that more cuts may be on the way. City Hall has slashed spending, even canceling the city’s popular gospel concert.

But most disconcerting is the city’s looming …

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The Obama administration cut off funding for the U.N. cultural agency on Monday, after its member countries defied an American warning and approved a Palestinian bid for full membership.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the vote triggered a long-standing congressional restriction on funding to U.N. bodies that recognize Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached. She said the U.S. as a result would refrain from making a $60 million payment it …

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Early Tuesday, the city began ousting protesters who have camped out for two weeks at the Occupy Oakland tent city on Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Police started assembling around the tent city at 14th Street and Broadway at about 3 a.m.

At a press briefing at City Hall, Police Chief Howard Jordan said the police operation went smoothly, without injuries to police or protesters. No children were found at the camp. Dogs and their owners were …

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Early Tuesday, the city began ousting protesters who have camped out for two weeks at the Occupy Oakland tent city on Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Police started assembling around the tent city at 14th Street and Broadway at about 3 a.m.

At a press briefing at City Hall, Police Chief Howard Jordan said the police operation went smoothly, without injuries to police or protesters. No children were found at the camp. Dogs and their owners were …

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Muammar Gaddafi has been killed after National Transitional Council fighters overran loyalist defences in Sirte, the toppled Libyan leader’s hometown and final stronghold.

“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Muammar Gaddafi has been killed,” Mahmoud Jibril, the de facto Libyan prime minister, told reporters on Thursday in Tripoli, the capital.

Crowds took to the streets of Sirte, Tripoli and Benghazi, the eastern city that spearheaded the uprising against Gaddafi’s 42-year rule in …

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Contending that allegations of prisoner mistreatment have “shattered” public faith in the Los Angeles County jail system, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved on Tuesday an outside oversight committee and measures that could potentially overhaul the sheriff’s use-of-force policy.

The moves followed weeks of reports in The Times and other organizations detailing allegations of abuse of inmates and a code of silence within the Sheriff’s Department, which oversees the nation’s largest jail system. The FBI is …

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Los Angeles elected officials have been assiduously wooing the Occupy movement, which inspired protesters furious at Wall Street to take over the grassy area around City Hall downtown — and public spaces in cities across the nation.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave 100 ponchos to soggy demonstrators during the last big rain. Council President Eric Garcetti told campers in the tent community to “stay as long as you need to.” And officials have quietly allowed the urban …

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