While U.S. policy bans federal officials from doing business with kidnappers, the FBI for years has used a secret exemption to government rules to communicate with hostage-takers and sometimes send money to them, U.S. government sources said.
Japan's military is considering joining the United States in maritime air patrols in the South China Sea in response to China's increasingly assertive pursuit of territorial claims, a Japanese and a U.S. source familiar with the discussions said.
Convicted Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was once a bright, hardworking child who won the adoration of his teachers and classmates alike, his former instructors testified on Wednesday for defense attorneys trying to spare him the death penalty.
The U.S. Supreme Court was set on Wednesday to hear arguments in a case brought by three death row inmates challenging Oklahoma's method of execution by lethal injection as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
