Global markets were jolted in recent days following the threat by a state-owned company in Dubai to default on its debt, as investors reawakened to the risks posed by mammoth debts in developing economies.

The men arrive a little before 9 a.m. just as they have for decades now; trundling down the slope of Westmoreland Hills Park in Bethesda. They unpack gym bags, picking the previous Sunday's mud from their cleats. One pulls out a football. Another grabs a pile of small orange cones and begins to mark...

KABUL -- Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to...

Getting to the president is not supposed to be this easy.

Throngs of bargain hunters kicked off the holiday shopping season Friday, buying Paula Deen cookware, Zhu Zhu toy hamsters and flat-panel TVs. But even as they filled parking lots, waited in lines overnight and loaded shopping bags, they talked of restraint, drawing names for gifts, paying cash and...