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What inflation? The US Senate on Tuesday afternoon voted 50-49 to raise the debt limit by $2.5 trillion. Senator Lummis (R-WY) did not vote because he is currently sick and recovering in Wyoming. The bill now heads to the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives where it is expected to pass. 50-49: Senate along party lines votes to increase the debt limit by $2.5T until 2023 to avert a default. Senator Lummis (R-WY), who is sick and is recovering in Wyoming, did not vote. Bill now heads to the House.

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NEW YORK — How widespread is the corruption at the United Nations? The multibillion-dollar Iraq Oil-for-Food (search) scandal was just the beginning. Now the issue is becoming the scale of corruption in the U.N.'s normal operations — and which individuals and corporations are reaping the benefits of a network of bribery and conspiracy that investigators have just begun to uncover. So far, those identities are still a mystery — but perhaps not for much longer.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro made a surprise visit to Venezuela Tuesday for what he described on arrival as an ''historic encounter'' with his top ally, President Hugo Chávez, and Caribbean leaders in his fourth trip to Venezuela since 1999 and his first outside of Cuba since late 2003. Venezuelan state television showed Castro arriving at the Caribbean port of Puerto La Cruz aboard a Cubana de Aviación jetliner, wearing his traditional olive green fatigues, as the leftist-populist Chávez waited for him. Although rumors of a Castro visit to Venezuela had been making the rounds in Caracas for several days, Chávez...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A federal judge issued a third restraining order Friday that gives the U.N. oil-for-food probe another 2 1/2 weeks to work out a deal with a former investigator over the fate of thousands of documents he took with him when he quit. The order from a Washington judge, which expires June 14, again blocks Robert Parton from handing over the documents to two congressional committees that subpoenaed them after he quit the U.N.-backed Independent Inquiry Committee. Parton resigned from the probe in April, reportedly because he believed it ignored evidence critical of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan....