BEIJING (Reuters) - China allowed a blind legal activist, Chen Guangcheng, to leave a hospital in Beijing on Saturday and board a plane bound for the United States, a move that could signal the end of a diplomatic standoff between the two countries. Chen's escape from house arrest in northeastern China last month and subsequent stay in the U.S. embassy caused huge embarrassment for China and led to a diplomatic rift while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was visiting Beijing for talks to improve ties between the world's two biggest economies. The U.S. ...

Mourners have gathered at a modest stone church north of New York City for the funeral of Mary Richardson Kennedy.

A blind Chinese legal activist was hurriedly taken from a hospital and put on a plane for the United States on Saturday, closing a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations.

CAMP ROUND MEADOW, Maryland (Reuters) - Leaders of the Group of Eight major economies are making progress on addressing the two biggest threats to their economies - the euro zone crisis and very high oil prices, British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday. After an early morning bilateral meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Cameron said he detected a "growing sense of urgency that action needs to be taken" on the euro zone crisis. ...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - At least 20,000 demonstrators marched through Frankfurt on Saturday in a peaceful protest against austerity measures implemented to tackle the intensifying euro zone debt crisis. Police closed off main roads in the centre of Frankfurt and set up check points on highways around the city as part of a heavy security operation to protect Germany's financial capital. ...

Are Republican lawmakers deliberately stalling the economic recovery to hurt President Barack Obama's re-election chances? Some top Democrats say yes, pointing to GOP stances on the debt limit and other issues that they claim are causing unnecessary economic anxiety and retarding growth.

For freshman Sen. Marco Rubio, a rising GOP figure seen as a possible Mitt Romney running mate, there are questions about whether potential vulnerabilities in his personal and political background might hold him back.