NABEEL USED TO WORK FOR the Americans in Iraq. He was a security team leader for the Research Triangle Institute, a U.S. contractor that was paid more than half-a-billion dollars to run “local governance programs” throughout the country. He survived three car-bombing attempts. “I was lucky,” he says nonchalantly.

But as GIs began to exit Iraq in 2011, he knew that his luck would not last. Nabeel says that some guys threatened him: “We will kill …

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The nation will continue to get its Saturday mail through at least September 30, the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday.

The Postal Service backed down from its plan to cut mail delivery starting this summer from six days a week to five, saying Congress had prohibited such a move.

A measure passed by Congress last month to fund government operations while the budget remains in limbo included language that barred the U.S. Postal Service from changing its …

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BEIJING (AP) — California and China signed an agreement Wednesday to look for ways to boost trade and investment, even as Gov. Jerry Brown acknowledged the state’s reputation for red tape and its limited willingness to offer tax incentives.

Brown told executives of mostly American companies that California has ranked at the bottom of nearly annual surveys of the business climate of U.S. states for 37 years. Having just resolved a $27 billion budget deficit, Brown …

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A key congressional panel will vote in private on Wednesday on a new law that would allow private companies to share cybersecurity information with federal agencies, drawing criticism from advocates who say the controversial measure should be debated in public.

The intelligence committee, which is working on the bill, will hold its meeting in a secure room in the basement of the new Capitol Visitor Centre, which is specially designed so that classified documents can be …

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Thousands of advocates are expected to descend on the nation’s capital Wednesday afternoon to press for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship.

The demonstration, dubbed the “Time is Now” rally by its organizers, is the brainchild of the immigrant community group Casa de Maryland and the labor union SEIU 32BJ, which represents service workers such as janitors, security guards, and food service employees. The two host organizations are members of a national pro-reform coalition …

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Forty years after his death, the body of a poet will be gently disinterred from his grave at Isla Negra, on Chile’s Pacific coast. The hope is that Pablo Neruda’s remains will answer a question that has exercised Chileans ever since his sudden death. Was he murdered by the military regime that killed his old friend, Salvador Allende, on 11 September 1973? Or did he die of natural causes, or of sorrow, just 12 days …

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Worried that public schools are failing to prepare students for a complex and changing world, educators unveiled new guidelines Tuesday that call for sweeping changes in the way science is taught in the United States, emphasizing hands-on learning and critical scrutiny of scientific evidence.

Among many other changes, the guidelines call for introducing climate science into the curriculum starting in middle school, and teaching high school students in detail about the effects of human activity …

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Sequestration can seem a little vague, abstract, difficult to wrap your head around.

But here’s what it means when it comes to housing: up to 140,000 fewer low-income families receiving housing vouchers, more children exposed to lead paint, higher rent for people who can’t afford it and a rise in homelessness.

These are among the human costs of sequestration noted in a new paper by Doug Rice, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy …

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For Jason, the hospital emergency room was practically his home. Literally. He lived on the streets for nearly five long years, making frequent visits to the hospital — dozens and dozens of times — because of a pestering chronic disease and no healthcare insurance. The nursing staff knew him by name, often times giving him food and a few bucks to survive.

That urban health center was the closest place to being a home for him, …

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — With perhaps billions of dollars at stake, a hearing Tuesday over concussion litigation filed against the NFL promises to be a contest between legal lions.

About 4,200 former players have sued the league. Some suffer from dementia, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological problems. Others simply want their health monitored.

And a small number, including Ray Easterling and 12-time Pro Bowler Junior Seau, committed suicide after long downward spirals.

The players’ lawyers accuse the NFL …

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