WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Friday that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would be a "game changer," but he cautioned that the United States needs more evidence that President Bashar Assad has used the deadly agents against his people."We cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations," Obama said in his first comments since the White House disclosed that U.S. intelligence indicates Syria probably has used chemical weap

The teen Boston Marathon bombing suspect, recovering from wounds suffered in a getaway attempt, has been moved from a hospital to a prison medical facility, the U.S. Marshals Service said Friday.Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was sent to the Federal Medical Center Devens near Boston, spokesman Drew Wade said in a one-sentence statement, which gave no reason for the transfer or details on the suspect's condition.The facility is about 65 kilometers northwest of the Boston-area hospital where Tsarnaev had

Two Syrian officials denied Friday that government forces had used chemical weapons against rebels, Damascus' first response to U.S. assertions that it had.On Thursday, the White House and other top Obama administration officials said that U.S. intelligence had concluded with “varying degrees of confidence” that the Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons in its civil war.In the Syrian capital however, a government official said President Bashar Assad's military “did not and will not u

DALLAS (AFP) ― President Barack Obama lauded George W. Bush Thursday as a leader of “incredible strength and resolve” who faced a storm of terrorism head on, at the opening of his predecessor’s library.In a rare gathering of all living U.S. presidents, partisan divides were hinted at but put aside, as Bush was painted as a man of courage and compassion, in front of a building meant to shore up his place in history.“He is comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is ... he is a good man,” Obam

Major newspapers in Japan on Friday blasted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s nationalist remarks denying the country’s past invasion of the Korean Peninsula, urging the hawkish leader not tell misleading facts about Japan’s imperial past. “It is a historical fact that Japan had invaded and colonized its surrounding countries in the past,” Mainichi newspaper said in its editorial. “For P.M. to attempt to distort that fact is a problem.”In the editorial, the paper blasted Abe’s “historical understandin

The White House declared Thursday that U.S. intelligence indicates Syrian President Bashar Assad has twice used deadly chemical weapons in his country's fierce civil war, a provocative action that would cross President Barack Obama's “red line” for a significant military response. But the administration said the revelation won't immediately change its stance on intervening.The information, which has been known to the administration and some members of Congress for weeks, isn't solid enough to wa

The Boston Marathon bombers were headed for New York's Times Square to blow up the rest of their explosives, authorities said Thursday, in what they portrayed as a chilling, spur-of-the-moment scheme that fell apart when the brothers realized the car they had hijacked was low on gas.New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators from his hospital bed that he and his older brother had decided spontaneously last Thursday night to drive to New York and lau

Israel shot down a drone Thursday as it approached the country's northern coast, the military said. Suspicion immediately fell on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.The incident was likely to raise already heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, a bitter enemy that battled Israel to a stalemate during a monthlong war in 2006.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he was in a helicopter in northern Israel at the time of the incident, said he viewed the infiltration attempt wit

BAGHDAD (AFP) ― Gunmen took control of the Iraqi town of Sulaiman Bek on Wednesday after fighting with security forces, part of a bloody two days of violence that killed 128 people and wounded 269, officials said.Most of the casualties ― 102 dead and 195 wounded ― came from clashes and attacks involving security forces, protesters and their supporters, which have sent tensions in Iraq soaring.The violence, which began with clashes on Tuesday at a protest site in northern Iraq after security forc