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After 22 years, Jay Leno will host his last Tonight Show Thursday night. The 63-year-old comedian is leaving at the top of the ratings. Thirty-nine-year-old Jimmy Fallon will takeover as host on Feb. 17.

Victoria Nuland, a top State Department official, thought she was having a private conversation. But someone else was listening, and her undiplomatic remarks were leaked online. This is how it may have happened.

Top Democrats have said recently that some GOP opposition to President Obama and his agenda is based on race. It's an explosive message that might drive Democratic voters to the polls.

In Rwanda, nearly two-thirds of Parliament consists of women, a trend that developed after the country's genocide. Cuba is third, with women making up 50 percent of its legislators. The U.S. is 99th.

President Obama heads to Europe this week to take part in the NATO summit. The alliance is weighing how to respond to Russia's incursions into Ukraine.

Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, a top propagandist for al-Qaida, has been convicted. The verdict supports the Obama administration's claim that federal criminal courts are ready to hear terrorism cases.

In sharp contrast to his 2008 campaign, President Obama hasn't mentioned climate change on the campaign trail this time around, instead choosing to focus on the economic side of clean energy rather than the climate change side.

Steve Inskeep talks with Boston Globe columnist Juliette Kayyem about city officials' decision to lock down Boston on Friday as law enforcement searched for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing. Kayyem is a former top homeland security official.

Secretary of State John Kerry sets off for what he calls "a long overdue" trip to Russia on Monday, and Syria is likely to top the agenda. But U.S.-Russian relations are frosty these days. The U.S. is imposing targeted sanctions on Russian human rights violators, while Moscow is preventing American families from adopting Russian children.

Defense attorney Judy Clarke routinely faces an enraged public, top-notch prosecutors and difficult, often disturbed clients. Now, she is soon to face those things again with another high-profile client, alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The bicycle sport is grueling, with riders traversing off-road courses dotted with obstacles. It's still little-known in the U.S., but is growing fast. Louisville, Ky., hosts the world championship competition this weekend — the first such event held outside of Europe.

The Pakistani military's Armed Forces Institute for Rehabilitative Medicine in Rawalpindi is the top rehab center for veterans wounded in what they call "the war on terror." Most of the young men there are from the country's Frontier Corps and have fought in Waziristan. They have lost arms and legs to roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices. Pakistan is doing its best to get them artificial limbs. But a new program goes a step further. The hospital is furnishing some men with blade legs and training them for the Paralympics.

New rules go into effect Jan. 14 that end Cubans' need to obtain a costly "exit permit" to travel to other countries. However, some Cubans — like top scientists or athletes, as well as dissidents or others deemed a "threat" to the government — still face restrictions.

The Utah Data Center, 26 miles south of Salt Lake City, will begin operations in September. Though the NSA director has said it won't hold data on U.S. citizens, privacy advocates worry about the agency's expanding capabilities.

A New Jersey teenager who launched a campaign to get Hasbro to make a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven is expected to meet with the toy company Monday afternoon. Her campaign seems to be part of heightened gender messaging awareness in toys this holiday season.

Mitt Romney may have lost the election, but the tax policy he floated is sticking with congressional Republicans. Rather than raising rates, the GOP would prefer to shrink or eliminate deductions. So what would that do to the deficit — and to the middle class?

A scarlet letter is no longer required, but there are sanctions. For some public figures, it can end a career. For others, it's just a bump in the road that quickly passes.

By some measures, General Motors is doing fine post-bailout and post-bankruptcy. The company is profitable and makes better cars than it did a generation ago. But its stock price is down sharply, and it still doesn't have a blockbuster car like its competitors Toyota, Honda and Ford.

The four top congressional leaders held a closed-door meeting Thursday to assess where they stand on the coming government funding and debt-ceiling deadlines. As has become typical in recent years, some conservative House Republicans appear to be the stumbling block with their insistence that any deal repeal or defund Obamacare.

Pick any place on the map and you're likely to find dynasty politics in full bloom. And just wait until the 2016 presidential election, where many of the top prospects are from America's most prominent political families.