President Obama has proposed the creation of a new “Lawful Prospective Immigrant” visa specifically for illegal immigrants that would allow those who are here illegally to remain in the country while they await permanent legal status.

The United Nations Security Council condemned the communist government of North Korea for conducting its third nuclear test on February 12, and tightened sanctions on the repressive regime.

In an unanticipated statement that shocked members of the Catholic Church and greatly surprised the rest of the world, Pope Benedict XVI announced on Monday that he would resign from the papacy, effective February 28.

Leaders of European Union nations met for a two-day summit in Brussels on February 7, in an attempt to reach a seven-year spending agreement. 

Information leaked from a report compiled by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that heat from the sun may play a larger role in increasing the Earth’s temperatures than previously thought.

An unnamed senior UN official announced on January 25 that the world body wants to establish a force of about 2,500 troops — which the UN called an "intervention brigade" — in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A bipartisan group of eight senators announced on January 28 that they had developed a plan for comprehensive immigration reform. The group of four Democrats and four Republicans had worked independently of their colleagues in the Senate and informed President Obama over the weekend that they had reached an agreement.

As the nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that struck down a Texas law — and by extension, all states’ laws —that had criminalized abortion, the debate between those who uphold the right to life of the unborn and those who assert that a woman’s right to “choose” must be paramount, continues. And there is a category of individuals for whom the abortion issue is perhaps the most personal of all: those who have survived attempted abortions.

On the night of January 15, the House of Representatives passed a bill appropriating $50.5 billion in emergency relief funds for victims of last October’s Hurricane Sandy. The legislation, H.R. 152, “Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013,” sponsored by Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) passed by a vote of 241-180. A total of 192 Democrats and 49 Republicans voted in support of the measure, with 179 Republicans and one Democrat opposed.

Veteran U.S. diplomat Robert A. Wood, Chargé d'Affaires of the U.S. Mission to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) in Vienna, Austria, issued a statement to the IAEA Board of Governors on November 29, asking IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano to note in his next quarterly report whether Iran has taken "any substantive steps" to address the international agency's warnings.