Government officials said the drought is the worst since record-keeping began and has left two million people without access to water and devastated cropland in nearly half of the country.

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Drought and Cold Snap Cause Food Crisis in Northern Mexico

After a two-year freeze in federal workers’ salaries, President Obama will propose a 0.5 percent pay increase for civilian employees as part of his 2013 budget, senior administration officials said Friday. The plan is likely to become part of an election-year confrontation between the White House and Congress over government spending. Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates have called for freezing basic pay rates for at least one more year, with some pitching it as a way to pay for extending the payroll tax cut . Read full article > >

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White House calls for modest 0.5% pay raise for federal civilian workers

Law enforcement officials said they found the body of a man suspected of shooting a ranger at Mount Rainier National Park on Sunday morning

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Body Found at Mt. Rainier Belongs to Ranger Shooting Suspect

After another night of fires, officials said a “person of interest” had been detained in connection with the case.

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Cars Are Set on Fire, and Los Angeles Is Set on Edge

A flash mob involving an estimated 200 young people turned violent at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., on Monday—turning one of the busiest shopping days of the year at the nation’s largest mall into chaos. At least 10 juveniles have been arrested in the incident on suspicion of disorderly conduct, but there were no weapons involved and no theft has been reported. A mall spokeswoman said the riot started around 4:20 p.m. with a single incident in the food court and then quickly spread and officials put the mall on lockdown, although they later called that a premature move. More than 30 Bloomington police, as well as Metro Transit and Richfield officers, responded to the call, and order was restored by 5:30 p.m. Mall officials said they will review security measures to determine how the situation descended so quickly into chaos.

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10 Arrested in Mall Riot

SANAA, Yemen — Several al-Qaida militants escaped early Monday from a prison in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, officials said, tunneling their way out in the second such spectacular jailbreak this year. A prison officer said at least 10 convicts escaped through an up to 130 feet (40 meter) long tunnel, which took the inmates from under the western side of the Aden prison to near a petrol station outside the prison walls. Read full article > >

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Officials: Several al-Qaida militants escape in daring prison break in southern Yemeni city

An Air Force crew damaged a component of an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile while performing maintenance near a North Dakota base last month, prompting a partial evacuation, military officials said Monday. Air Force officials said no one was hurt in the Nov. 17 incident near Minot Air Force Base, but it was immediately reported to the highest levels of the Pentagon. A military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said it triggered a “robust discussion” over whether to inform the public. Read full article > >

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Missile component damaged in accident

There are many mysteries involved in the crash of a U.S. surveillance drone in Iran . Among them: What could have brought it down? Defense officials said Monday they had no indication that it was shot down . Iran’s semiofficial Fars New Agency, meanwhile, has claimed the drone was “downed with help from the Iranian military’s electronic warfare unit.” Read full article > >

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Iran unlikely to have used cyberattack to bring down U.S. surveillance drone, experts say

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed in a new recorded message released Thursday that the terrorist group is holding an American aid worker hostage in Pakistan, an assertion that U.S. intelligence officials said was credible. The message marked the first time that al-Qaeda has asserted responsibility for the kidnapping of Warren Weinstein, the 70-year-old Pakistan director for an Arlington County-based development contractor. He was abducted in August at gunpoint from his residence in Lahore . Read full article > >

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Al-Qaeda claims it’s holding American hostage

European officials said Tuesday that they plan to appeal for deeper involvement by the International Monetary Fund in addressing the region’s debt crisis, an acknowledgment that their own efforts to date have fallen short. With international investors continuing to press on weak links in the euro currency union, European finance ministers said they would turn to the IMF to help supplement their own emergency bailout fund. Read full article > >

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European ministers plan to turn to IMF for more help in debt crisis

The leadership ranks of the main al-Qaeda terrorist network, once expansive enough to supervise the plot for Sept. 11, 2001, have been reduced to just two figures whose demise would mean the group’s defeat, U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence officials said. Aymen al-Zawahiri and his second in command, Abu Yahya al-Libi, are the last remaining “high-value” targets of the CIA’s drone campaign against al-Qaeda in Pakistan, U.S. officials said, although lower-level fighters and other insurgent groups remain a focus of Predator surveillance and strikes. Read full article > >

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Al-Qaeda targets dwindle as group shrinks

The Commerce Department is investigating whether technology produced by a California company helped Syrian police monitor dissidents amid a bloody nationwide crackdown there, U.S. officials said Thursday. Commerce officials are attempting to determine whether the company, Blue Coat Systems of Sunnyvale, Calif., had prior knowledge that its equipment and software was being used by the Syrian government , according to several U.S. officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Read full article > >

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U.S. probing use of surveillance technology in Syria

TRIPOLI, Libya — Hundreds of uniformed men described as members of a new Libyan army have been deployed for the first time to settle a bloody feud between rival militias, officials said Monday. The soldiers, wearing beige camouflage uniforms and ID badges, were sent to serve as a buffer between gunmen from the city of Zawiya and the nearby tribal area of Warshefana. Read full article > >

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New Libyan army members deployed to settle tribal feud

The murders of at least 10 people included immigrant shopkeepers and a police officer, German officials said Sunday. The group is also suspected in bank robberies and a bombing.

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Neo-Nazis Suspected in Wave of Crimes in Germany

Fairfax County elections officials are bracing for confusion at the polls on Election Day , in part because glitches in Virginia’s voter database could lead some voters to the wrong polling place. County officials said Monday that they discovered about 2,200 cases in which a state-run computer program assigned voters to incorrect precincts. Read full article > >

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Fairfax County braces for election confusion after voter database glitches