National News

The settlement stems from what Cardinal Roger Mahony, who is in Rome helping elect the next pope, called "the most troubling case of his tenure."

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit invalidated three appointees, saying Obama overstepped his authority by making "recess appointments."

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Under pressure from the New York state comptroller — who oversees one of its largest shareholders — the doughnut chain has agreed to set a goal of using only 100 percent sustainable palm oil to make its doughnuts. Production of palm oil has caused serious deforestation in Indonesia.

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In 1944, Von Kleist volunteered to wear a suicide vest. After another bombing plot went wrong, Von Kleist ended up in a concentration camp. Somehow — and inexplicably — he was let go and he lived to see 90.

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Nearly 200 smaller airports, including Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pa., are set to have their control towers closed this year as the FAA makes sequestration cuts. Although commercial flights will continue, some say safety is a concern.

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The proposal describes changes to the Medicare program in Obamacare-like terms. One change would be to the choices seniors would have as part of a "new Medicare exchange" — similar to the insurance exchanges now being built under the Affordable Care Act.

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In his annual assessment of threats, the director of national intelligence also cited Iran and North Korea. He warned the spending cuts mandated under the sequestration jeopardized the nation's safety.

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The longtime activist hasn't quite overcome the reputation of his early career, but the Rev. Al Sharpton now commands a uniquely powerful platform.

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As part of a conversation with author Melanie Warner, we asked how to avoid processed food in your daily diet, especially if 70 percent of the caloric intake in the U.S. is processed food. Here are Warner's tips:

1. Shop the perimeter.Most of the fresh and minimally processed foods at the supermarket reside along the edges. This means the produce section, the fresh meat counter or cooler, and the dairy area. If you venture into the middle aisles, only do so sparingly and mostly in search of healthy, minimally processed choices (canned beans, natural peanut butter, frozen vegetables, etc.). If you're following that advice, then you’re probably already avoiding a lot of processed food.
2. Read ingredient labels.Calorie counts and sugar totals can only tell you so much. But if a product is made with an ingredient list that runs for three paragraphs or reads like a chemistry textbook, then it’s a highly engineered product of modern food science likely to have minimal levels of naturally occurring nutrition. Added vitamins and minerals are also a marker for products with paltry nutrition. After all, if it’s a healthy product, why does it need synthetic nutrients?
3. Demand that restaurants provide information about what’s in their food.
   Unlike packages at the grocery store, restaurants are under no obligation to reveal what they put in their food. The largest chains like McDonald’s, Burger King and Subway print that info on their web sites, but places like Applebee’s and Chili’s have decided to keep their customers in the dark. Andit’s something you may want to know, since much of the food at these chain restaurants isn’t being freshly prepared in the kitchen, but centrally produced and then delivered to the restaurants pre- or partially made.
4. Cook for an army on the weekends (or whatever day of the week might contain a little free time).
   Weekdays are hectic, but homemade meals don’t have to be an impossibility. Food made ahead of time and either stored in the fridge or freezer can be your own version of fast food, and often at a lower cost than what it would take to hit the drive thru or order Domino’s.
5. Think simple.Cooking doesn’t have to mean gourmet. It doesn’t even need to mean cooking. Lots of chefs, from Rachel Ray to Jamie Oliver, have web sites and cookbooks featuring recipes truly anyone could make, and quickly. Sites like 100 days of real food offer loads of great, practical advice for kicking the processed food habit.

An inspector general investigation exposed deep fissures within the unit for the past dozen years and gave rise to perceptions of politicized and partial behavior by lawyers there.

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In an industry full of damsels in distress, game designer Mike Mika hacked the classic game to let his 3-year-old play as the female hero. His story is becoming part of a larger conversation about gender roles in the video game industry. But Mika says he didn't set out to push a feminist agenda or statement.

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Amancio Ortega has just bumped Warren Buffett off his No. 3 spot on Forbes' list of billionaires. The Spanish entrepreneur's clothing chain has become highly popular around the world, but do you know the man behind the label?

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Amancio Ortega has just bumped Warren Buffett off his No. 3 spot on Forbes' list of billionaires. The Spanish entrepreneur's clothing chain has become highly popular around the world, but do you know the man behind the label?

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At the end of last year, Americans were borrowing money at the fastest clip since 2008, that could be seen as the bad news. If you prefer to think of it as good news though, at the end of last year, Americans were borrowing money at the fastest clip since 2008. That's according to the Federal Reserve.

It's the paradox of debt -- leverage, as Wall Street likes to say. According to Matt Phillips, with the business website Quartz, this borrowing is, “for the economy, in the short term, a good thing." Phillips said this debt isn't being used for mortgages; mostly people are buying cars with auto loans and borrowing to pay for college.

"In auto loans, there is subprime and subprime has been growing as a share of pie," said Phillips. "If we do want to do any fundamental reshaping to the way the economy works, a necessary precondition to that is to have economic growth. And if economic growth depends on consumer debt, then as long as it doesn't get out of control, you can argue that this is a good thing."

Phillips says the U.S. economy is still largely fueled by debt and consumer spending -- and has been for the last 30 years.

Like the famous cherry blossoms forecast to bloom in a few weeks, this time of year is marked by the arrival of competing, partisan and utterly doomed federal budget proposals.

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Years of war have overtaxed Gaza's hospitals, making it tough for kidney patients to get good treatment. Thanks to help from British doctors, Gaza surgeons are now being trained to perform kidney transplants. They hope to help ease the huge demand for dialysis, but transplants have their own cost.

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Years of war have overtaxed Gaza's hospitals, making it tough for kidney patients to get good treatment. Thanks to help from British doctors, Gaza surgeons are now being trained to perform kidney transplants. They hope this will ease the huge demand for dialysis.

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Our V.I.P. and Radiolab host Jad Abumrad plays a game about unintentional scientific discoveries and inventions.

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One name has been "retired." Others have never been reused. John is the most popular. It's a tradition going back to the year 533 that a new pope chooses a name other than the one he was born with. He's likely sending a message about what type of leader he hopes to be.

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President Bashar Assad's government has repeatedly blamed religious extremists for the uprising. Now, the most prominent Muslim cleric says it is the religious duty of Syrians to fight in support of the government.

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