By Arshad Mohammed MUSCAT (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Oman on Tuesday for Raytheon Co's signing of an estimated $2.1 billion arms deal and to consult on Syria and Iran, U.S. officials said. Oman is expected to sign a letter of intent to purchase a ground-based air defence system that would help protect against cruise missile, drone or fighter aircraft attacks, a senior U.S. State Department official told reporters aboard Kerry's plane. Part of the sale has been previously disclosed. In October 2011, the U.S. Defense Department notified Congress of a proposed $1. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron is committed to governing as part of a two-party coalition until the next national election in 2015, his spokesman said on Tuesday, days after Cameron raised the prospect of the alliance breaking apart. Cameron has ruled with the Liberal Democrats, his junior coalition partner, since 2010, but the two have taken increasingly different positions on issues such as Britain's role in Europe and Cameron on Sunday for the first time raised the possibility that the coalition might not last until 2015. ...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb exploded near the seafront in Karachi on Tuesday likely targeting a van full of Chinese port workers, police said, a day before Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrives in the capital, Islamabad. No one was hurt. Karachi, the nuclear-armed country's key port, is home to 18 million people. It typically sees about a dozen murders a day, a combination of political killings, attacks by the Pakistan Taliban and sectarian militant groups, and street crime. ...

By Patrick Temple-West WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Apple Inc came under fire on Tuesday at a Senate hearing over an investigation that alleged the U.S. high technology icon has kept billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries and paid little or no taxes to any government. "Apple effectively shifts billions of dollars in profits offshore, profits that under one section of the tax code should nonetheless be subject to U.S. taxes, but through a complex process avoids those taxes," said Senator Carl Levin. ...

By Conor Humphries and Padraic Halpin CORK/DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland said on Tuesday it was not to blame for Apple Inc's low global tax payments and had no special rate deal with the company after the U.S. Senate said it paid little or no tax on tens of billions of dollars in profits stashed in Irish subsidiaries. The Irish government, which has seen the luring of U.S. multinationals with low taxes as a key part of its economic policy since the 1960s, said its system was transparent and other countries were responsible if the tax rate paid by Apple was too low. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co shareholders voted in support of Chairman and Chief Executive Jamie Dimon maintaining both roles, rejecting a proposal from shareholders who said the corporate governance structure was flawed, according to a preliminary tally at its annual meeting on Tuesday. Only 32.2 percent of shareholders voted in favor of splitting the chairman and CEO roles, less than the roughly 40 percent who voted to split a year ago. Shareholders also voted to support the bank's 11 directors in a range of 53.1 percent for Ellen Futter to 99. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Carol Burnett, who became famous for playing a variety of characters in sketch comedy routines on her namesake television show, was named the winner of the nation's top humor prize on Tuesday.

CANNES, France (AP) — Joel and Ethan Coen had almost given up on casting the lead for their film "Inside Llewyn Davis." The part, a folk musician in early 1960s Greenwich Village, demanded the elusive combination of someone who could both carry a movie and perform the songs central to the film.

CANNES, France (AP) — Hollywood is hell.

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Yankees are going into the soccer business.

BOSTON (AP) — NFL owners approved a $200 million loan Tuesday for the Atlanta Falcons to build a new stadium.

Golf's governing bodies approved a rule Tuesday that outlaws the putting stroke used by four of the last six major champions, a move opposed by two major golf organizations that contend long putters are not hurting the game.

Two top Internal Revenue Service officials knew that the agency was using a list to scrutinize applications for tax-exempt status that included the phrase "tea party" as early as the spring of 2012, but did not tell lawmakers until this year. Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and outgoing Commissioner Steven Miller told the Senate Finance [...]

A bipartisan group of senators begins a fifth full day of debating changes to the immigration reform bill Tuesday. So far, the so-called mark-up process has left the sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration laws—which would legalize most of the country's 11 million undocumented immigrants—largely untouched. On Tuesday, the senators will address some of the [...]

President Barack Obama on Tuesday morning assured residents of Oklahoma that they have both the nation's support and the federal government's assistance as they reel from the aftermath of a deadly tornado. "Our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today," Obama said during remarks delivered at the White House after a giant tornado tore [...]