The debonair Iraqi diplomat who made his name by staunchly defending Saddam Hussein to the world during three wars and was later sentenced to death as part of the regime that killed hundreds of thousands of its own people, has died in a hospital in southern Iraq, officials said. He was 79.
MARSEILLE, France (AP) — A state prosecutor says a co-pilot with a history of depression who crashed a Germanwings airliner into the French Alps had reached out to dozens of doctors ahead of the disaster. The revelation suggests Andreas Lubitz was seeking advice about an undisclosed ailment.
By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Friday ruled against a group of American Samoans who had argued that those born in the U.S. territory in the South Pacific should be eligible for U.S. citizenship at birth. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, noting that both the U.S. government and the government in American Samoa opposed the campaign, rejected the legal
By Scott Malone BOSTON (Reuters) – A Kazakh exchange student who was friends with the Boston Marathon bomber was sentenced to 3-1/2 years in U.S. federal prison on Friday for removing a backpack containing fireworks from the suspect’s room during a massive manhunt. Azamat Tazhayakov was the second of three friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be sentenced for going to Tsarnaev’s dorm room three days after the April 2013 bombing,
LOVELAND, Colo. (AP) — Police in northern Colorado are investigating any possible link between the slaying of a man on a neighborhood sidewalk and two previous shootings of a bicyclist and a driver.
An advisory panel to the FDA has recommended approval of flibanserin, a pill touted by Sprout Pharmaceuticals as a viable treatment for women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder-a persistent lack of desire for sex.
By Scott Malone LEWISTON, Maine (Reuters) – From the Mogadishu market to the women in brightly colored veils walking their children to school, Maine’s second-largest city shows the signs of the growing Somali-American community that is making its mark on the former New England mill town. One place in Lewiston where that growing diversity is not evident is the city’s 82-member police force, but Chief Michael Bussiere aims to change
Yahoo’s Bianna Golodryga and guests take a closer look at the former Texas governor’s chances and the crowded GOP field.
Katie Couric talks with the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court case that could change gay rights in America forever.
Voters aren’t going to have their nominees dictated to them, Yahoo’s Matt Bai writes.
A woman who organized a May event in Texas highlighting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed said she was the target of a man who federal prosecutors said had planned to behead police officers in Boston. Pamela Geller told CNN on Thursday that she believed that Usamaah Abdullah Rahim, whom police said they shot dead on Tuesday after he allegedly confronted them with a large knife, had intended to come after
(Reuters) – Baltimore’s top prosecutor plans to seek a protective order that would block the release of Freddie Gray’s autopsy report and other documents as she prosecutes police over his arrest, the Baltimore Sun reported on Thursday. State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby told the newspaper that prosecutors “have a duty to ensure a fair and impartial process for all parties involved” and “will not be baited into litigating this case through
(Reuters) – The pilots of a U.S. Army helicopter that crashed into a Florida bay in March, killing 11 service members, lost control of the aircraft after becoming disoriented in heavy sea fog, the military said on Thursday. An investigation found that the two pilots failed to switch from using visual flight procedures to instruments that could have helped them navigate the foggy conditions they encountered during the nighttime training
Former FIFA Vice President Jack Warner, a central figure in world soccer’s deepening scandal, has vowed to tell investigators all he knows about corruption within the sport’s governing body. In a paid political address entitled “The gloves are off” broadcast in Trinidad and Tobago late on Wednesday, Warner said he feared for his life, but would reveal everything he knows. “There can be no reversal of the course of action
BOSTON (AP) — A knife-wielding man killed by the terror investigators who had him under surveillance was confronted because he had bought knives and talked of an imminent attack on “boys in blue,” the FBI said Wednesday.
The mysterious case of Lauren Spierer has bewildered detectives in the charming college town of Bloomington, Ind., ever since June 2011, when the Indiana University sophomore disappeared after a night of partying. Nearly four years later, the death of another IU student and the interest of a former FBI investigator turned TV crime show host are breathing new life into the cold case.
A day after announcing his decision to resign, Sepp Blatter was back at work at FIFA headquarters on Wednesday as the worst corruption crisis in the governing body’s 111-year history continued to unfold.
A new CNN/ORC poll finds a majority view the former president favorably for the first time in more than a decade.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, generally seen as a master congressional deal-maker, walked into a legislative dead end on domestic surveillance that left some of his friends bewildered.
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The second-in-command of Yemen’s Shiite rebels on Wednesday assailed the Saudi-led airstrikes pounding his group’s positions and allied forces, insisting they are ready to travel to Geneva for U.N.-mediated peace talks on ending the country’s civil war.
Ginger pickles, soup with cabbage and porcini, and reindeer tartare: as economic troubles take a bite out of imported food, Russian restaurants are increasingly turning to local delicacies. Gone is the era when Italian and French cuisine dominated Moscow’s high-class eateries. The economic crisis and import embargo keeps foie gras and Parmesan out of Russian kitchens, so new venues like Poyekhali (Let’s Go) are aiming to “tell their own story”
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders said Wednesday he plans to show cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Dutch television after Parliament refused to display them.
JIANLI, China (AP) — Chinese authorities deployed scores more divers and a large crane as they escalated efforts Wednesday to recover more than 410 people believed to be trapped inside an overturned river cruise ship. The capsizing late Monday of the multi-decked Eastern Star in the Yangtze River is on track to become the country’s deadliest maritime disaster in seven decades. Chinese authorities have launched a high-profile response while tightly
By Megha Rajagopalan and John Ruwitch JIANLI COUNTY, China (Reuters) – Rescuers searched on Tuesday for more than 400 people, many of them elderly Chinese tourists, missing after a cruise boat was hit by a freak tornado and capsized on the Yangtze River in what may become China’s worst shipping disaster in nearly 70 years. Battling bad weather, divers and other rescue workers pulled five people they found trapped in
A bomb blast hit a busy meat market in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri on Tuesday, killing as many as 50 people, an eyewitness and a hospital source told Reuters. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the latest explosion, which follows two bomb attacks over the weekend that killed at least 30 people and bore the hallmarks of militant Islamist group Boko Haram. The group, which new President Muhammadu Buhari has
By Sylvia Westall BEIRUT (Reuters) – Steady advances by insurgents on key fronts in Syria mean President Bashar al-Assad is under more military pressure than at any point in the four-year-old war. Losses in the north, east and south to groups including al Qaeda’s Syrian arm and Islamic State may test Assad’s hold over western parts of the country that are the most crucial to his survival. After his loss
By Gabriela Baczynska MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian company that makes the BUK air defense system that was used to shoot down a Malaysian airliner in east Ukraine said on Tuesday the plane was hit by a missile deployed by Ukraine and not widely used by Russia’s military. State-run Almaz-Antey said its own analysis of the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines plane brought down on July 17 last year, killing
The court last month sought the death penalty for Mursi after he and his fellow defendants, including top Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, were convicted for killing and kidnapping policemen, attacking police facilities and breaking out of jail during the uprising against then-president Hosni Mubarak. The ruling was referred at the time to Egypt’s top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for a non-binding opinion. The court also postponed to June 16
The United States has accused the Syrian military of carrying out air strikes to help Islamic State fighters advance around the northern city of Aleppo, messages posted on the U.S. Embassy Syria official Twitter feed said. Islamic State fighters pushed back rival insurgents north of Aleppo on Sunday near the Turkish border, threatening their supply route to the city, fighters and a group monitoring the war said. Fighters from Levant
PARIS (AP) — Ana Ivanovic advanced to the semifinals of a major tournament for the first time since winning her only Grand Slam title at the French Open seven years ago with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Elina Svitolina on Tuesday.
Boko Haram rejected claims from Nigeria’s military that it has been routed by a four-nation offensive in a video released online on Tuesday, which does not show the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau. The unidentified speaker, his face obscured by a headscarf, instead called Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, who have been battling the Islamists, “the lying coalition partners”. The video bears the logo “Islamic State in West Africa” and follows
PARIS (AP) — The Latest from the French Open:
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian title challenger FC Krasnodar has signed Russia international striker Fyodor Smolov as a free agent, a move that avoids any further punishment by UEFA for breaching its Financial Fair Play rules.
By Mohammed Ghobari SANAA (Reuters) – Efforts to bring Yemen’s warring factions together to discuss their conflict have made some progress, officials said on Monday, as warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition mounted more air strikes against the dominant Houthi group. Neighboring Oman is trying to end more than two months of fighting that has killed nearly 2,000 people by mediating talks between U.S. officials and representatives of the Houthi group.
China’s military will hold land and air live fire drills along a part of the border with Myanmar where shells have fallen during fighting between the Myanmar government and ethnic Chinese rebels, the Defence Ministry said on Monday. China has been angered by repeated incidents of shells or bombs from the fighting falling in Chinese territory, in which at least five Chinese have died, and thousands of refugees have crossed
Islamic State militants drove a tank rigged with explosives into a base south of the Iraqi city of Samarra on Monday, killing 38 policemen, military and police sources said. A further 46 people were wounded in the attack on the Muthanna bases in an area from which security forces and Shi’ite paramilitaries have been fighting to drive out the insurgents. Security forces seized the complex from the militants several days
By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) – A separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine is revealing increasing evidence, but not yet conclusive legal proof, of Russian state involvement, senior United Nations human rights officials said on Monday. “We are speaking about increasing inflow of (unofficial) fighters and increasing evidence that there are also some (Russian) servicemen involved in fighting,” Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic told a news conference in Geneva.
By David Alexander HANOI (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter discussed his call for an end to island-building in the South China Sea in talks on Monday with his Vietnamese counterpart, who said Vietnam had not expanded its islands but had done work to prevent wave erosion. The response appeared to fall short of the immediate halt to land reclamation activity and further militarization of the islands that Carter
An Iranian airline that acquired nine passenger jets in defiance of U.S. sanctions will begin using them on international routes this week, the Fars news agency reported on Monday. Mahan Air, which is blacklisted by Washington, acquired eight second-hand Airbus A340s and one Airbus A321 in early May. The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on two firms based in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates on suspicion of helping the purchase.
