Filling a long-vacant seat on an important appeals court passes for progress in a legislative body where partisan wrangling continues to hold up many important posts.

The North Korean envoy, Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, said the North would “accept the proposal” by China, its biggest benefactor which it has strained relations with.

Lois Lerner, the head of the tax division on exempt organizations, was put on administrative leave a day after she invoked the Fifth Amendment before a House committee.

The Boy Scouts of America voted to allow openly gay youths as members, while continuing its policy of excluding openly gay adult leaders.

One outstanding question is how transparent the Obama administration will be about drone strikes in the future.

Prime Minister David Cameron is trying to mend the damage as the right wing of his Conservative Party views him as too liberal, too metropolitan, too out of touch.

SakaMai, on the Lower East Side, does not commit to one genre of Japanese cuisine or mode of dining.

Stocks regained ground in New York after global investors were rattled by signs of a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing and a potential easing of central bank support for the economy.

A funeral was held Thursday for a 9-year-old who died at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, in one of the state’s most destructive tornadoes in decades.

In a widely anticipated speech on Thursday, President Obama said he would impose a higher standard on the use of drone strikes, and he sought to renew his effort to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Apple-1 computers, built in Steve Jobs’s family garage, have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent auctions, a run-up reflecting the company’s mystique.

Some populations of roaches have evolved a highly effective strategy to avoid sweet-tasting poison baits, researchers say.

The bill would head off a doubling of interest rates, instead tying the rates to prevailing market trends, an approach not favored by Senate Democrats.

JPMorgan Chase is redoubling its efforts to move beyond a big trading loss following a resounding shareholder endorsement to keep Jamie Dimon as both chairman and chief of the bank.

“Before Midnight” follows the continuing romance of characters played by Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in the third film in a series directed by Richard Linklater.

The soldier was identified Thursday as Lee Rigby, 25, a ceremonial military drummer and machine-gunner, who had served in Afghanistan. He had a 2-year-old son.

During his first day on the campaign trail of New York’s mayoral race, Anthony D. Weiner was the wisecracking know-it-all, the policy wonk and the civic superman.

On his fourth visit to the area in two months, Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the doubts being expressed on both sides over his chances of revitalizing the peace process.

The author of “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” calls Franzen her “big daddy” — “My favorite kind of book is a domestic drama that’s grounded in reality yet slightly unhinged.”

A stock retreat spread around the world, with European markets down around 2 percent. Wall Street was also down in early trading.

Cameron Burrell will run the 100 meters at the New York Grand Prix on Saturday on Randalls Island, where his father and now coach, Leroy Burrell, set a world record in the race.

B.Y.U.’s animation program is not your typical film school. And that’s why its graduates actually get jobs.

The company, using money it raised last week in the markets, is repaying the government nine years before its loan was due.

The province where the attacks took place, Baluchistan, has been the site of a separatist insurgency and violence by other militants.

Japanese stocks plummeted Thursday after a spike in government bond yields and unexpectedly weak Chinese manufacturing spooked investors sitting atop months of massive gains in share prices. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo nosedived 7.3 percent to close at 14,483.98.