Scott Neuman

Deadly suicide attacks in Afghanistan aimed at minority Shia Muslims have experts wondering whether the war there could be taking a dangerous new sectarian turn.

Tuesday's twin attacks, in the capital of Kabul and the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killed at least 60 Shia worshippers as they celebrated Ashura, one of their sect's holiest days. It was the first such large-scale attack against Shias in Afghanistan in more than a decade.

Not long ago, economists and others expressed concerns that China's economy was expanding too quickly. Now, the latest data are raising concerns about a slowdown — and the woes it could trigger.

With a sluggish U.S. economy and troubles in the eurozone, Chinese exports are taking a hit, causing a slowdown on shop floors in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Earlier this week, the Chinese Purchasing Managers' Index, or PMI, fell to its lowest level in nearly three years.

As American Airlines struggled to keep up with its rivals in recent years, it could at least boast something that competitors could not: The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier had never gone bankrupt. Not anymore.

On Tuesday, American's parent, AMR Corp., filed for bankruptcy protection, citing $10 billion in loses over the past decade. In a statement, it said it took the step in hopes of bringing down costs and emerging more competitive.

A NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers over the weekend has brought U.S.-Pakistani ties to a new level of strain, but experts say it's unlikely to produce a permanent rift in the relationship.

Barely a month ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Islamabad hoping to cement greater Pakistani cooperation to eliminate Taliban safe havens inside its territory. After Saturday's attack, that kind of cooperation appeared to be on indefinite hold.

When the bipartisan supercommittee on the federal debt was formed four months ago, there was more than a little skepticism that the 12-member group could come up with $1.2 trillion in savings and avoid a severe round of automatic government budget cuts.

On Monday, with the deadline fast approaching and no plan in sight, it looked like the skeptics were on the verge of being proved right.

It's hard to miss the irony: Leon Panetta, as President Clinton's budget guru, backed billions of dollars in Pentagon cuts. Now, as secretary of defense, he's warning that the U.S. could become a "paper tiger" if his department's budget is further reduced.

The Justice Department said Tuesday it had foiled a plot directed by elements in the Iranian government who sought to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S.

Attorney General Eric Holder said two men, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, have been accused in connection with the alleged plot. Authorities said they had planned a bombing to kill the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.

The three women who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize were lauded for their courage in standing up to the violence and brutality of oppressive regimes in Liberia and Yemen.

The five-member Nobel Committee in Norway announced Friday that it would split the coveted award three ways, honoring Africa's first democratically elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; Liberian campaigner Leymah Gbowee; and Yemeni democracy activist Tawakkul Karman.

When Dave Barnes drove 600 miles from Maryland to Indiana last week for his 50th high school reunion, he was surprised by the price of gas — in a good way.

Barnes, 68, says he filled up his Dodge Challenger in Indianapolis for as little as $3.15 a gallon. It was a far cry from the cross-country motorcycle trip he took this summer.

"When I took the trip in June, I was seeing $3.60 a gallon in most places and as high as $4 a gallon in California," he says.

Anwar al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico, educated in Colorado and spent years as a cleric in San Diego and suburban Washington, D.C. But in the past several years, he became a master al-Qaida propagandist whose sermons inspired jihadists worldwide before his death Friday by a U.S. missile on a desert road in northern Yemen.

Awlaki's journey from a childhood in Las Cruces, N.M., to the Arabian Peninsula placed him in the cross hairs of U.S. intelligence after he was linked to the failed "underwear bomber," the Fort Hood shooter and the foiled plot to bomb New York's Times Square.

Alabama's toughest-in-the-nation law on illegal immigration went into effect Thursday, a day after a federal judge upheld some of its key provisions, but the court battle over the issue appears far from over.

State law enforcement can now question and detain without bond people they suspect may be in the country illegally, and public schools are required to verify students' immigration status.

If you're afraid of heights, this is definitely not your dream job.

Tuesday, five engineers began a series of rappelling operations down the face of the Washington Monument to assess damage caused by the Aug. 23 earthquake that shook the nation's capital. The five belong to a special "difficult access team" from Northbrook, Ill.-based Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc., or WJE.

The two American men who stepped out of an Iranian prison Wednesday after spending more than two years in custody may have a tiny Persian Gulf nation to thank for greasing the wheels of their release.

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, had been accused of espionage along with fellow American Sarah Shourd and sentenced to eight years in prison. They were freed in exchange for $1 million dollars and flown to Oman.

Time was when it took a fair amount of expertise to launch the kinds of illegal computer attacks that have become the hallmarks of "hacktivist" groups like Anonymous.

Today, just about anyone can download user-friendly software capable of crippling websites. One such tool is LOIC [Low Orbit Ion Cannon], which was used in Anonymous' attack on MasterCard, Visa and other companies late last year.

It's rumored that the group will release another weapon, called #RefRef, on Saturday.

The latest dismal employment report has thrown a monkey wrench in the White House spin machine ahead of President Obama's big jobs plan next week.

No net jobs were created in August, and the administration has acknowledged that the nation's unemployment rate — which stayed flat at 9.1 percent in Friday's Labor Department report — isn't likely to budge much before next year's presidential election.

Waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $60 billion and the tally could grow, according to a government study released Wednesday.

In its final report to Congress, the nonpartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting said lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and corruption resulted in losses of "at least $31 billion, and possibly as much as $60 billion" out of some $206 billion in total payments to contractors by the end of the current fiscal year.

Target has Walmart's price-conscious customer base in its sights, and its aim is improving, analysts say.

Minneapolis-based Target Corp., the nation's third-largest retailer, reported profits up 3.7 percent to $704 million for the quarter ending July 30 over the same quarter last year. Although profits for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. were even better — profits for the quarter were $3.8 billion, up 5.7 percent from a year — the company's sales at U.S. stores open for more than a year fell for the ninth consecutive quarter.

Broker and financial adviser Jim Lacamp has been in the business long enough to remember when Americans had little stake and even less interest in the stock market.

It was a time when "people had a pension and profit-sharing plan that was run by [their] company," says Lacamp, senior vice president at Fort Worth, Texas-based Macro Portfolio Advisors. "They might see what a stock did on the news, but it didn't really have an impact on their daily lives."

There's one thing that freshman Republicans and the old-guard GOP leadership can agree on — the Class of 2010 fundamentally changed the focus of the debate over taxes and spending.

In a key test of their clout, the group of congressional newcomers largely stuck to their guns through tense negotiations, forcing a first-ever cap on discretionary spending and staving off tax increases.