Populist Daily

American troops on a mission in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, last fall. Under a new plan, elite units will soon play a bigger role.

In ending its combat role in Afghanistan a year earlier than expected, the United States will rely more on special forces that hunt insurgent leaders and train local troops, officials say.

Anti-government protesters during the funeral of protesters killed in earlier clashes town of Daraya, near Damascus on Saturday.

A United Nations Security Council effort to end the violence in Syria collapsed in acrimony hours after the Syrian military attacked the ravaged city of Homs.

Demonstrators braved bitterly cold temperatures to attend the protest.

A third huge rally was undeterred by the arctic cold or by the near certainty that Vladimir V. Putin will win a six-year term as Russia’s president next month.

A party appeals panel upheld the five-year suspension of the firebrand youth leader Julius Malema from the African National Congress Youth League.

Students from China, including Rui Liu, left, make up 11 percent of the nearly 5,800 freshmen at the University of Washington this year.

At the University of Washington, 18 percent of the freshmen are foreigners, and each pays about three times as much as students from Washington State.

Mitt Romney celebrated his victory in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Mitt Romney won handily in the Nevada caucuses with the help of groups he has struggled to persuade before, including strong Tea Party supporters and very conservative voters.

ALL IN THE FAMILY: The Yamaguchis, from left, Taiki, Koji and Terry, with their Toyota Celicas from the 1970s.

Bargain-price Japanese cars from the ’70s and ’80s are being revisited by a generation of enthusiasts who grew up riding in the back seats.

Preservationists in Beijing awoke last weekend to find that the house of the famous architects Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin had been reduced to rubble.

The demolition of a historic house in the imperial city, once home to famous architects who championed historic preservation, is a cruel blow to conservationists.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta in Munich on Saturday.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Europe on Saturday that the United States was not abandoning its partners across the Atlantic.

Saboteurs blew up a pipeline in Egypt that supplied gas to Israel, the 12th such attack in a year, security officials said.

Children lined up in January at a food center in Mogadishu, Somalia. The United Nations helped raise more than $1 billion for relief efforts in the region.

A bumper harvest and a surge in emergency food aid have ended a famine in Somalia that killed tens of thousands of people, the United Nations said on Friday.

The group known as Anonymous listened in on a call between the bureau, Scotland Yard and other foreign police agencies about their joint investigation of the group and its allies.

Danyall White, a sister of the confessed killer Richard Paul White, used alcohol to help deal with the situation.

In a society where headlines of violence are almost commonplace, the families of the perpetrators are largely unheard from. But now some relatives have decided to share their stories.