The annual appraisal of China’s military modernization also suggests Beijing leaders want to project power while avoiding confrontation with neighbors and the United States.

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Pentagon Study Says China Military Getting Stronger

The first NATO summit meeting to be held in the United States outside of Washington will amount to a significant trial for Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

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Big Gathering for NATO Puts Chicago on High Alert

Maná, a rock group that sings only in Spanish, has been attracting fans, both recent immigrants and others, in the United States for decades.

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Latin Pop Group Maná Draws Adoring Crowds

President Obama warned congressional leaders on Wednesday that he would not tolerate a replay of the bitter debt ceiling fight of last summer that nearly put the United States in default and led to the nation’s first ever credit-rating downgrade. Read full article > >

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Obama warns Republicans over debt ceiling fight

Clarence Aaron seemed to be especially deserving of a federal commutation, an immediate release from prison granted by the president of the United States. At 24, he was sentenced to three life terms for his role in a cocaine deal, even though it was his first criminal offense and he was not the buyer, seller or supplier of the drugs. Of all those convicted in the case, Aaron received the stiffest sentence. Read full article > >

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Clarence Aaron was denied commutation, but Bush team wasn’t told all the facts

In about two dozen states across the country, the insurance marketplaces at the heart of the 2010 health-care law remain in limbo, with Republican governors or lawmakers who oppose the statute refusing to act until the Supreme Court decides its constitutionality. Read full article > >

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Republican state officials stall on setting up health insurance marketplaces

Presumptive US Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney restates his opposition to same-sex marriage, days after President Obama backed it.

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Romney rejects same-sex marriage

Ashima Shiraishi, an 11-year-old bouldering enthusiast, is the best climber her age in the United States, and her accomplishments have put her among the sport’s elites.

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Ashima Shiraishi, 11, Conquers Difficult Bouldering Climbs

United States and British regulators have been in discussions with JPMorgan Chase for almost a month about the trading group that disclosed more than $2 billion in losses.

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DealBook: Regulators Looking Into JPMorgan Trading Activities Before $2 Billion Loss

More than 230,000 jobless Americans will lose their unemployment insurance by this weekend as reductions in the federal program that provides extended benefits to the long-term unemployed take broader effect. Read full article > >

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Extended jobless benefits cut in eight states

With 50,000 new H.I.V. cases each year in the United States, government advisers said Truvada, an antiviral medicine, should be approved for use in healthy people at high risk of infection.

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F.D.A. Panel Backs Preventive Use of H.I.V. Drug Truvada

“THE FREEDOM TO MARRY has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” So wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia , the landmark case declaring unconstitutional the anti-miscegenation laws on the books in 16 states. Among those whose parents’ interracial marriage would have been illegal in Virginia at the time he was born is President Obama. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama for the first time declared his view that gay and lesbian Americans should be able to marry as well. Read full article > >

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Editorial Board: President Obama’s welcome support of gay marriage

North Carolina’s voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage, joining 29 other states and the rest of the South.

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North Carolina Votes on Same-Sex Marriage Amendment

The Department of Veterans Affairs may need to hire more mental health workers on top of the 1,900 new positions announced last month, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki told a House panel Tuesday. Skinseki made the comments at a hearing before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee held in response to the release of a report from the VA’s inspector general that found the department has greatly overstated how quickly it provides mental-health care for veterans. Read full article > >

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Shinseki: VA may need more mental health workers

Experts in the United States have been analysing a sophisticated new al-Qaeda bomb to see if it could have slipped past airport security.

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VIDEO: Experts analyse new underpants bomb