LONDON (AP) — Veterans wearing medals, some in wheelchairs festooned with the Union flag, paraded through central London on Saturday to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory over Japan and the end of World War II.
ROME (AP) — At least 40 migrants died Saturday in the hold of an overcrowded smuggling boat in the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya, apparently killed by fuel fumes, and some 320 others aboard were saved by the Italian navy, the rescue ship’s commander said.
The U.S. Department of Defense is sending a team to military installations in Kansas and South Carolina to investigate the possibility of relocating some Guantanamo Bay prisoners to U.S. soil, media outlets reported on Saturday. Fox News and CNN said the Pentagon on Friday notified the U.S. Congress that the team was already visiting the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and would then survey the naval brig at Charleston,
(Reuters) – A New Orleans Walmart store was evacuated on Saturday as a police SWAT team responded to an armed robbery, police said. “Armed robbery suspects believed to be inside,” the New Orleans Police Department said on its Twitter feed. Local media said there were no reports of shots being fired. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Letitia Stein)
(Reuters) – A small airplane crashed in a New Jersey suburb of New York on Saturday and fatalities were likely, local media reported.
It may have been 54 years since the American flag was last seen waving above the U.S. embassy in Havana, but mixed reactions to Friday’s flag-raising ceremony revealed that the scars of Cuba’s brutal past run deep — and won’t heal overnight.
American hostage Kayla Mueller was repeatedly forced to have sex with Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, according to accounts provided to U.S. intelligence officials.
Winds in the West are helping stoke wildfires sweeping across the Northern Rocky Mountains, Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, posing problems for firefighters trying to contain the flames fed by drought.
Payroll records suggest the hunt for two escaped killers in northern New York cost more than $1 million a day, with overtime alone for state troopers and corrections officers $22 million higher than last year.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stayed away from a contentious Yasukuni shrine that honors war criminals among other war dead.
By Daniel Trotta and Lesley Wroughton HAVANA (Reuters) – Watched over by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Marines raised the American flag at the embassy in Cuba for the first time in 54 years on Friday, symbolically ushering in an era of renewed diplomatic relations between the two Cold War-era foes. Three retired Marines who last lowered the flag in 1961 participated in the ceremony, handing a new
The St. Louis County Police Department has significantly altered its approach to social media since Michael Brown’s death last year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The two emails on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private server that an auditor deemed “top secret” include a discussion of a news article detailing a U.S. drone operation and a separate conversation that could point back to highly classified material in an improper manner or merely reflect information collected independently, U.S. officials who have reviewed the correspondence told The Associated Press.
NEW YORK (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio is slamming President Barack Obama’s outreach to Iran and Cuba, calling his diplomacy with the two nations evidence of “every flawed strategic, moral and economic notion” that has driven his foreign policy.
TOKYO (AP) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged Friday that Japan inflicted “immeasurable damage and suffering” on innocent people in World War II, but stopped short of offering his own apology and said future generations of Japanese should not have to make them either.
Ferguson saw a fresh wave of demonstrations beginning last weekend, marking the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man shot by a white police officer last August. The killing of Brown was found to be justified, but that incident and the deaths of other unarmed black and Hispanic men that followed in Baltimore, New York City, Washington state and elsewhere inspired a national movement
A federal appeals court on Friday threw out a lawsuit brought by an Arizona sheriff who argued that President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration were unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a district court judge’s finding that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio lacked standing to sue, a provision in U.S. law that means he has to prove he has been directly harmed.
Attorneys for a Kentucky county clerk who has stopped issuing marriage licenses to avoid serving same-sex couples are expected to file a response on Friday to the court. Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis and her office stopped issuing all marriage licenses following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling legalizing gay marriage, and she has continued with that stance despite an injunction on Wednesday by a federal judge ordering her office
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Thursday declined to rule out resuming the use of torture under some circumstances by the U.S. government.
By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Aukkarapon Niyomyat BANGKOK (Reuters) – International terrorists were not suspected of a bomb attack in Bangkok this week that killed 20 people and China was not the target, Thai authorities said on Thursday, as police said they believed at least 10 plotters were involved. Authorities have not blamed any group for carrying out Thailand’s worst bombing. “Security agencies have cooperated with agencies from allied countries
MERS coronavirus infections have soared in Saudi Arabia ahead of the hajj pilgrimage, killing three people and forcing a Riyadh hospital to close its emergency ward, officials and newspapers said Thursday. The Saudi Gazette said authorities shut the emergency ward at one of the capital’s largest hospitals, King Abdulaziz Medical City (KAMC-R), “after at least 46 people, including hospital staff” contracted the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. The health ministry has
NEW YORK (AP) — Another sell-off in the Chinese stock market spread across global markets on Thursday. The declines pushed the Standard & Poor’s 500 index into the red for 2015 in early-afternoon trading.
By Orhan Coskun and Ercan Gurses ANKARA (Reuters) – Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made a last-ditch call for Turkey’s political parties to agree a working government on Thursday, three days before a deadline that would otherwise see President Tayyip Erdogan call a snap election. Turkey’s politicians have until Aug. 23 to agree a working government or else Erdogan could call for an interim, power-sharing cabinet to lead the country to
By Letitia Stein TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – Danny became the first hurricane of the 2015 Atlantic season on Thursday even as the storm remained relatively small and far from affecting any land, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Winds from Danny were gusting up to 75 miles per hour (120 kph), government forecasters said, just attaining hurricane status of at least 74 mph (119 kph) winds. Danny could weaken
BERLIN/ATHENS (Reuters) – Germany’s parliament approved a third bailout for Greece on Wednesday after Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble argued the country should get “a new start”, while in Athens the government agonized over whether to call a snap election. The Bundestag’s vote cleared one of the final obstacles to Greece getting funding so that it can make a 3.2 billion euro debt repayment to the European Central Bank on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend next month’s U.N. General Assembly in New York and would “consider constructively” any request for a meeting there with President Barack Obama, Russia’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. Relations between Russia and the West hit a post-Cold War low over Ukraine, where Moscow annexed Crimea from Kiev last year and where Washington and Brussels say it is driving a separatist pro-Russian revolt in the
By Mohammed Ghobari and Noah Browning SANAA/DUBAI (Reuters) – Emirati tanks heave across southern Yemen’s stony wastes and Apache helicopters from a Saudi-led coalition, dubbed “black genies” by local media, rule its skies, helping fighters loyal to the exiled government win the initiative against an Iran-allied militia. The advanced weapons deployed by Gulf Arab states have powered the local fighters into territory controlled by the Houthi group, reversing the tide
By George Georgiopoulos ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has yet to make up his mind on calling early elections, a government minister said on Wednesday, following a rift in the ruling party over the country’s new bailout deal. The comment came as former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, who leads hard left rebels in Tsipras’ Syriza party, repeated his opposition to the bailout and signaled he might refuse
By Nick Tattersall and Seyhmus Cakan ISTANBUL/DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – Gunmen opened fire on Turkish police outside an Istanbul palace and eight soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in the southeast on Wednesday, heightening a sense of crisis as the country’s political leaders struggle to form a new government. The Istanbul governor’s office said two members of a “terrorist group” armed with hand grenades and an automatic rifle were
The number of asylum-seekers and refugees to Germany will quadruple to a record 800,000 this year compared with last, twice as many as forecast in January, the government said on Wednesday. Germany has become a magnet for refugees from Africa, Asia and the Middle East and has criticized European Union partners for not doing more. “We’ve got to reckon there will be 800,000 people coming to Germany as refugees or
Nearly 30,000 firefighters and support staff were battling blazes across a handful of mainly western US states, officials said Wednesday, after millions of acres and multiple buildings have burned. A total of 7.16 million acres (2.9 million hectares) have gone up in flames across the country this year, the National Interagency Fire Center said. The firefighters and other personnel, who totaled 28,884 as of Wednesday, were battling large wildfires in
Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Wednesday he believes that euro zone countries and the International Monetary Fund will be able to come to an agreement on IMF participation in Greece’s latest bailout package. Dijsselbloem said that while European governments opposed any nominal writedown of Greek debt, and while the IMF believed Greek debt was not sustainable as is, they will be able to find a compromise in the form
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for the European Parliament to join the so-called quartet of creditor institutions overseeing the country’s 86-billion-euro EU/IMF bailout program. “I deem it politically imperative that the sole European institution with direct popular mandate acts as the ultimate guarantor of democratic accountability and compatibility of economic policy in Europe,” Tsipras wrote in a letter to European Parliament President Martin Schulz. Tsipras’ office said Schulz reacted
AZRAQ REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan (AP) — Jordan’s second-largest refugee camp for Syrian refugees now has a water well and a new school.
By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Aukkarapon Niyomyat BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai authorities said on Tuesday they were looking for a suspect seen on closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage near a popular shrine where a bomb blast killed 22 people, nearly half of them foreigners. The government said the attack during Monday’s evening rush hour in Bangkok’s commercial hub was aimed at destroying the economy. Major-General Werachon Sukhondhapatipak said there were similarities
Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition hit Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeida on Tuesday, and officials there said the raids destroyed cranes and warehouses in the main entry point for aid supplies to the north of the country. Hodeida, controlled by Iranian-allied Houthi forces, has become a focal point of efforts to resupply the impoverished Arab state, battered by five months of war that has killed over 4,300 people. “The
By Lefteris Papadimas ATHENS (Reuters) – Alexis Tsipras has presided over a near-death experience for the Greek financial system and performed a U-turn on resisting austerity. With his ministers openly discussing the possibility of a snap election, Tsipras seems nearly ready to exploit his enduring popularity in Greece and further consolidate his position after seven turbulent months in office. Tsipras’s one tangible achievement has been to seal a new bailout
By Orhan Coskun ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will formally give up trying to form the next government on Tuesday after weeks of coalition talks failed, raising the prospect of a fractious interim administration leading the country to a new election. Davutoglu had been trying to find a junior coalition partner since the AK Party lost its parliamentary majority in an election in June, leaving it unable
By Shihar Aneez and Douglas Busvine COLOMBO (Reuters) – Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s attempt to stage a comeback in Sri Lanka’s general election has ended in defeat as results on Tuesday showed the alliance that toppled him making decisive gains. The ruling United National Party (UNP) fell just short of an outright majority, but Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe should still command enough support to form a stable government after eight
