By Ross Kerber, Jim Finkle and Mark Hosenball BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The two brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon had originally planned to set off their bombs on July 4, a law enforcement official said. The official said the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, advanced the date of their attack because they completed building bombs more quickly then they originally anticipated. The official declined to be identified and did not offer more details. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. called Thursday for North Korea to grant amnesty and immediately release a Korean-American sentenced to 15 years' hard labor for "hostile acts" against the state.

By Justyna Pawlak BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Negotiators from the European Union and Iran will meet in Istanbul this month to discuss future diplomatic efforts to resolve a decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. The May 15 meeting between the EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who leads diplomacy with Iran on behalf of six world powers, and Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili follows a failed round of talks in Kazakhstan in April. Its outcome may be crucial in deciding whether a new round of negotiations can take place, and when, Western diplomats say. ...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Killer robots that can attack targets without any human input "should not have the power of life and death over human beings," a new draft U.N. report says.

BEIRUT (AP) — International military action against Syria's government over its alleged use of chemical weapons would run up against one of the Middle East's most formidable air defenses, a system bolstered in recent years by top-of-the-line Russian hardware.