AP News

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad: Dec. 28 The Daily Gazette, Schenectady , N.Y., on flexible spending accounts and over-the-counter drugs. Flexible spending accounts, which have given American workers a small dose of relief from the rising cost of health care, are about to become a little less lucrative, thanks to the health care reform act passed earlier this year. Where consumers have been able to use the tax-exempt accounts to pay for doctor's...Read Full Story

China's high-profile feuds with the United States , along with territorial spats with Southeast Asian neighbors and Japan , showed a more muscular foreign policy in 2010 that called into question Beijing 's promise of a "peaceful rise." China's leaders bristled against outside pressure like never before, but they now seem to be dialing back that combativeness. Beijing is working to ease tensions with the United States ahead of a high-profile visit by the president to Washington next month...Read Full Story

Brazil's president granted political asylum to Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti on Friday — but the case must still be heard by the nation's Supreme Court, the top justice said. A statement released by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva 's office said the decision in favor of Battisti was made taking into consideration a section of Brazil's extradition treaty that allows the government to consider the petitioner's "personal condition." The statement did not elaborate, and Battisti's lawyers...Read Full Story

In the weeks before the New Year's Day suicide bombing of an Egyptian church, al-Qaida-linked websites were carrying a how-to manual on "destroying the cross," complete with videos on how to build a bomb and the locations of churches to target — including the one that was attacked. They may have found a receptive audience in Alexandria , where increasingly radicalized Islamic hard-liners have been holding weekly anti-Christian demonstrations, filled with venomous slogans against the minority...Read Full Story

In better days, newly elected governors were welcomed into office with star-studded galas, serenades by rock bands, even an NFL stadium transformed into a winter wonderland. But with many now facing multibillion-dollar deficits and high unemployment, states' top bosses are toning it down. Way down. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is ditching his black-tie affair and holding a free barbecue, while Minnesota Gov.-elect Mark Dayton is encouraging blue jeans at his inaugural ball. In California , where Gov...Read Full Story

Mexico plans a shake-up of its corruption-ridden immigration institute, officials said, after a year that saw some of the worst atrocities against illegal migrants trekking through the country — including the mass slaughter of 72 Central and South Americans trying to reach the United States . The dismissals early this week will include several top directors of the National Institute for Migration , according to two government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision...Read Full Story

Multiple explosions rocked a central Nigerian city, another bomb killed at least four at an army barracks in the capital and a radical Muslim sect burned churches in the northeast. The new violence over the past two weeks highlights the tensions between Nigeria's two major faiths — Christians and Muslims — and threatens peace ahead of the young democracy's April presidential election. Africa 's most populous country, home to 150 million people, has seen tens of thousands die in the violence...Read Full Story

Anxious to receive their Medicare benefits after years of paying taxes into the system, baby boomers say they're willing to sacrifice to preserve the scope and level of coverage. The first boomers will be old enough to qualify for Medicare Jan. 1, and a new Associated Press -GfK poll finds them worried about the future of the giant health care program that has helped their parents and grandparents live longer, healthier lives in retirement. By a ratio of 2-to-1, baby boomers say they fear...Read Full Story

The first baby boomers will be old enough to qualify for Medicare Jan. 1, and many fear the program's obituary will be written before their own. A new Associated Press -GfK poll finds that baby boomers believe by a ratio of 2-to-1 they won't be able to rely on the giant health insurance plan throughout their retirement. The boomers took a running dive into adolescence and went on to redefine work and family, but getting old is making them nervous. Now, forty-three percent say they don't...Read Full Story

Authorities reviewing a death by stoning sentence against an Iranian woman convicted of adultery could still halt the punishment, a senior judiciary official said Sunday as Iran struggles to mute an international outcry over the case. The comments, however, offered no clear evidence that Iran's judiciary would commute the sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani , who was taken from prison late Saturday to meet with journalists in another bid by Iran to highlight her purported confession...Read Full Story