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Ancestry.com has determined that President Obama is the 11th great-grandson of John Punch, the first documented slave in American history. The nation's first African-American president may be descended from America's first documented slave.

Romania's unpopular president was fighting for his political life on Sunday as Romanians voted on whether to oust him, part of a political battle that has raised questions about the rule of law in the fledgling European Union member....

Ask Americans how race relations have changed under their first black president and they are ready with answers. Ashley Ray, a white woman, hears more people debating racial issues. "I know a lot of people who really thought we were OK as a nation, a culture, and now they understand that we're not," she says.

Syria's ambassador to Iraq defected on Wednesday in protest over President Bashar al-Assad's violent suppression of a 16-month uprising as the U.N. Security Council remained deadlocked over the next steps in the crisis.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday ordered a series of modest steps aimed at helping small businesses, his latest election-year effort to counter Republican attacks on his economic record and show voters he is trying to tackle high unemployment.

Egypt’s dissolved parliament defied a court order and reconvened Tuesday, escalating the power struggle between the newly elected Islamist president and the military over the political future of a nation still tangled in the legacy of toppled leader Hosni Mubarak.

The battleground of alternate history about the Civil War is so crowded there’s barely room to wield a cavalry sword, let alone a pen. Long before Mr. Lincoln started hunting vampires, we had Harry Turtledove and his army of astute novels; Ward Moore, Harry Harrison and Peter Tsouras have all fought on this field, along with Winston Churchill’s essay “If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg” and even James Thurber’s story “If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox.”

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday the latest EU sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil are "the strongest" measures yet imposed on the country.

Mohamed Morsi was formally sworn in on Saturday as Egypt’s first democratically elected president, marking a new stage in an ever murkier struggle to define the future of the nation.

A conference called by special envoy Kofi Annan to end the Syria crisis appeared on the brink of failure as it opened Saturday, with the U.S. and Russia still divided over a role for President Bashar Assad in a transition government....