WORLD NEWS
BERLIN (AP) -- A former SS sergeant who worked unnoticed for decades as a train-station manager was charged with 58 counts of murder Tuesday after a student doing undergraduate research uncovered his alleged involvement in a massacre of Jewish forced laborers.... Read More
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian prosecutors say an anti-hate crimes campaigner has been shot and killed in Moscow.... Read More
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The fight is on between backers of an Alaska mine being developed near the world's most productive wild salmon streams and 13 Seattle restaurants.... Read More
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Valuing truth over the right to privacy, Argentina's Congress has authorized the forced extraction of DNA from people who may have been born to political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago - even when they don't want to know their birth parents.... Read More
LONDON (AP) -- A British couple being held hostage by Somali pirates said in an interview broadcast Friday that they fear they will be killed or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom is not paid soon.... Read More
BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. (AP) -- David Brown scored 15 points in 16 minutes off the bench and Gardner-Webb defeated Montreat 89-62 on Monday night.... Read More
BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union rejected requests Tuesday that it support a Palestinian plan for gaining recognition as an independent state at the U.N. Security Council without Israeli consent.... Read More
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- The Supreme Court rejected final appeals Thursday by five former soldiers sentenced to death in the 1975 killing of Bangladesh's independence leader in a military coup, a government attorney said.... Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The Israeli military says its aircraft have struck a weapons-manufacturing facility and two smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip.... Read More
LONDON (AP) -- Health experts say extraordinary measures against swine flu - most notably quarantines imposed by China, where entire planeloads of passengers were isolated if one traveler had symptoms - have failed to contain the disease.... Read More
ST.PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -- Russia's Constitutional Court effectively outlawed the death penalty Thursday, saying that a moratorium on capital punishment should remain in force until the nation fully bans executions.... Read More
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Showing impatience with Iranian foot-dragging, President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. and its allies are discussing possible new penalties to bring fresh pressure on Iran for defying international attempts to halt its contested nuclear program.... Read More
BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union's 27 leaders were facing an all-nighter Thursday as a bruising battle loomed over who to name as the bloc's first full-time president and new foreign policy chief.... Read More
Oil prices slipped below $79 a barrel Thursday amid mixed signals over the strength of the global economic recovery.... Read More
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- Hundreds of thousands of people joined a somber funeral procession Thursday for Patriarch Pavle, who led the Serbian Orthodox Church through its post-Communist revival and the Balkans' bloody ethnic wars in the 1990s.... Read More
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- One of the gems of the Vatican's priceless religious art collection - a 6th century reliquary containing the purported fragments of the cross on which Jesus was crucified - has been restored to its Byzantine-era glory.... Read More
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- President Barack Obama is now confirming what many have long suspected: He will miss his January deadline to close the Guantanamo prison - partly because he cannot persuade other nations to take the detainees.... Read More
BEIJING (AP) -- Sometime into his long detention by China's feared state security agents, American geologist Xue Feng had something to show U.S. consular officials on their monthly visit. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the burns where his interrogators pressed lit cigarettes into his arm.... Read More
DUBLIN (AP) -- Ireland appealed to France and soccer authorities Thursday to replay their World Cup playoff after an obvious hand ball by Thierry Henry produced the winning goal.... Read More
LONDON (AP) -- Eating disorder experts criticized Kate Moss on Thursday after the supermodel cited a phrase used on pro-anorexia Web sites as her motto.... Read More
ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Faced with an escalating insurgency, Pakistan increasingly views U.S. efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan as critical to its own security - but is worried enough about the chances of American failure that it continues to hedge its bets.... Read More
HAVANA (AP) -- President Barack Obama has answered questions submitted by a celebrated Cuban blogger, saying he isn't interested in "talking for the sake of talking" with Raul Castro and indicating he won't visit the island until the communist government changes its ways.... Read More
DUBLIN (AP) -- Soccer-mad Ireland is fighting mad - and demanding justice for a disputed goal that had fans here crying "Oui were robbed."... Read More
GENEVA (AP) -- Four years after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad set off violent protests across the Muslim world, Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery - essentially a ban on blasphemy that would put them on a collision course with free speech laws in the West.... Read More
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- UNICEF urged the world to help the 1 billion children still deprived of food, shelter, clean water or health care - and the hundreds of millions more threatened by violence - two decades after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights.... Read More
RIYADH,Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading al-Qaida's message to Muslims in the West.... Read More
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- A key U.N. committee expressed "very serious concern" Thursday at widespread reports of torture and other grave human rights violations in North Korea and strongly urged the government to put an end to the violations.... Read More
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- Honduras' interim president said Thursday he may step down temporarily to allow voters to concentrate on the upcoming presidential elections.... Read More
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- A Hindu festival in which hundreds of thousands of animals are expected to be sacrificed will go ahead as scheduled in southern Nepal despite protests, organizers said Friday.... Read More
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) -- Officials say a gunman opened fire on the Pacific resort island of Saipan, killing four people before fatally shooting himself.... Read More
MOSCOW (AP) -- A Russian shipping company says that its icebreaker carrying more than 100 tourists, scientists and journalists on an Antarctic cruise has freed itself from ice and reached clear water.... Read More
LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Police say a gang in the Peruvian jungle has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics, although medical experts say they doubt a major market for fat exists.... Read More
GANDAH KASARAY, Afghanistan (AP) -- France's foreign minister walked into a remote Afghan village on Friday to talk with small farmers and local tribal leaders about how to bypass corrupt officials and bring aid directly to those who need it.... Read More
NEW DELHI (AP) -- Arun Kumar was born to disabled parents, beaten by his grandparents, ran away from home, got a job in a garment factory and had all his savings stolen by the police.... Read More
EDITOR'S NOTE - The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child 20 years ago Friday, yet hundreds of millions of children still suffer from violence, hunger and disease. Associated Press correspondents around the globe interviewed children who illustrate the remaining challenges, along with some victories.... Read More
KABUL (AP) -- A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed 16 people, including two children and a policeman, and wounded at least 23 others Friday in a busy city square in western Afghanistan, officials said.... Read More
PATNA, India (AP) -- A passenger train derailed after Maoist rebels blew up a key track in eastern India, killing two people and injuring at least 30 others, a police official said Friday.... Read More
PARIS (AP) -- A 20-year-old top South Korean model who was a fashion week regular in New York, Milan and Paris has been found hanged in her Paris apartment, a police official said Friday.... Read More
LONDON (AP) -- European stock markets fell Friday and Wall Street was expected to open lower amid mounting concerns about the pace of the U.S. economic recovery following a disappointing earnings update from computer maker Dell Inc.... Read More
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A top aide to Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader on Friday urged the country's fractious political blocs to resolve a crisis over a key election law that threatens to delay national polls planned for January.... Read More
BRUSSELS (AP) -- Representatives of six world powers urged Iran on Friday to accept a U.N. plan aimed at delaying its ability to build a nuclear weapon, as the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency warned Tehran not to miss the opportunity to resolve the dispute.... Read More
ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistan expressed fear Friday that a large increase in foreign troops in Afghanistan could push militants across the border into its territory and called on the U.S. to factor in that concern as part of its new war strategy.... Read More
KABUL (AP) -- Underpaid, under-equipped and under-trained, Afghanistan's 93,000-member police force is the weak link in an ambitious security strategy to hand over defense of the country to Afghans so American and other foreign troops can go home.... Read More
LONDON (AP) -- Catherine Ashton: International woman of mystery.... Read More
PERUGIA, Italy (AP) -- An American student accused of fatally stabbing her British roommate in Italy had a growing hatred for the victim and killed her in retaliation during a drug-fueled sex game, a prosecutor contended Friday in closing arguments at her murder trial.... Read More
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) -- The Pacific resort island of Saipan was reeling Friday from one of the most violent attacks in its history, when a gunman killed five people, including two small children and himself, in a rampage that ended at a World War II historical site.... Read More
ROME (AP) -- Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again, a Florence museum said Friday.... Read More
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) -- The United States will do its part to reduce corruption in Afghanistan by examining its own contracts and projects, even as it is demanding the same from the Afghan government, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.... Read More
COCKERMOUTH, England (AP) -- Raging floods engulfed northern England's picturesque Lake District on Friday following the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes.... Read More
ROME (AP) -- A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus.... Read More
