Cars decorated with white ribbons and carnations drove around Moscow's Garden Ring Road in a wet snow this past Sunday, honking cheerfully to the thousands of demonstrators on the sidewalk who formed a human chain around the city.

Elena Korobova was a link in that chain.

"I want to get rid of Putin, because I don't like his policy, I don't like what he's doing for Russia," she says of Vladimir Putin, Russia's current prime minister.

The Senate has turned back an attempt to kill President Obama's new rules requiring most health insurance plans to provide contraceptives without additional cost.

The 51-48 vote against an amendment to an unrelated highway bill (Yes, that's just how the Senate works) was mostly along party lines.

After undergoing surgery for a lesion on his pelvis, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez made his first public comments on Thursday.

"I am fine, my recovery is accelerating," he said via phone to Venezuelan state TV, according the AP. "A greeting, a hug to you all!"

By a 51-48 vote, the Senate just set aside an effort to reverse the Obama administration's policy requiring most employers to provide health insurance plans that cover the cost of women's contraception methods.

On this week's Smiley & West, a conversation with Arun Gandhi about his grandfather's legacy, and the future of nonviolence.  Friday at 1pm.

According to activists inside and outside Syria, the government's 27-day siege against the opposition stronghold of Baba Amr has now succeeded. Initial reports suggest that forces are entering this neighborhood in the city of Homs, but details are sketchy at best because most of the reporters and citizen journalists covering the story have either fled or died.

Environmentalists question whether a plan to build two underwater tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta that would provide more water to people in the Bay Area and farmers in the Central Valley, would restore the ecosystem in that area or harm its species…

The premise of NBC's new detective series, Awake, is about as high concept as it gets. Jason Isaacs, one of the leads of Showtime's Brotherhood, stars as Michael Britten, who survives a horrible car crash intact. Well, his body is intact — but his mind, or at least his subconscious, is split.

Mitt Romney had a big night Tuesday — with victories in two states over insurgent Rick Santorum, thereby increasing his margin over Santorum by ... six delegates?

As improbable as it might seem, the combination of Michigan's delegate allocation rule and Arizona's rule-violating winner-take-all contest could mean that Romney's twin victories provide him little ultimate benefit — and highlight again the dual-track GOP primary campaign season.