WorldNews

[attach=full]19616[/attach] MARTINSVILLE, Va. (AP) — Denny Hamlin just needed a visit to Martinsville Speedway to get his racing team back on track. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19615[/attach] Two Saudi police officers were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Riyadh Sunday, a spokesman said, days after the Kingdom strengthened security measures as it leads air strikes on Yemen. "A security patrol was carrying out its duties in Riyadh when it came under fire from an unknown vehicle" in an attack that "left two policemen wounded," the spokesman said in a statement published on the official SPA news agency. The attack comes just days after Saudi Arabia's Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef ordered that security measures be strengthened along borders and across the kingdom, as Riyadh leads air strikes against Iran-backed Shiite rebels in neighbouring Yemen. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19614[/attach] Sierra Leoneans were once again allowed to leave their homes Sunday evening after the government announced the end of a three-day nationwide lockdown aimed at preventing a resurgence of the deadly Ebola virus. During the curfew period -- which was ordered by President Ernest Bai Koroma and ran from 0600 GMT on Friday until 1800 GMT Sunday -- some 26,000 volunteers went door-to-door to check for sick people and raise awareness about the disease. Officials at the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) said locals had overwhelmingly complied with the lockdown, the second time in six months the country's six million residents were told to stay indoors over Ebola concerns. "The campaign went well and we are pleased over the level of compliance," the head of NERC's Situation Room, Obi Sesay, told AFP. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19606[/attach] Nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi, on a Yamaha, won a spectacular Grand Prix of Qatar on Sunday as he withstood a furious onslaught from fellow Italian Andrea Dovizioso over the final laps to take the opening race of the season. A see-saw battle saw the the lead change hands numerous times before the 36-year-old Rossi opened up a slight gap on the final two laps and held off the charging Dovizioso on his Ducati, who was looking for his first win in MotoGP. It was a stunning 109th victory for the iconic Rossi and his 197th podium as Italy swept the board with Andrea Iannone, also on a Ducati, coming home third. It was a first time Italy took the top three places since the Japanese MotoGP in 2006. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19605[/attach] ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Boko Haram fighters attacked poll stations in northeast Nigeria and a governor demanded elections be canceled in an oil-rich southern state Sunday as the count started for a presidential election too close to call. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19604[/attach] Saudi-led warplanes bombed Yemen's main international airport and a renegade troop base in the capital Sunday, as Arab leaders vowed to pummel Iranian-backed rebels until they surrender. Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi has urged his Arab allies to keep bombing until the Huthi Shiite rebels are defeated, branding them Iran's "puppet". His Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin said there could be "no negotiations and dialogue" with the rebels "until the legitimate government has control over all Yemeni lands". Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said at a regional summit in Egypt the offensive would last until the rebels "surrender" their weapons and withdraw from areas they seized. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19603[/attach] An indefinite lockdown was ordered on three areas in northeast Nigeria on Sunday after troops battled scores of Boko Haram fighters outside the Bauchi state capital, Bauchi city, the authorities said. The fighting took place as Nigeria held a second day of voting in its general election after technology failures hampered polling on Saturday. A spokesman for the Bauchi state governor said an indefinite, round-the-clock curfew had been imposed on three areas because of the fighting. "The state government has put a 24-hour curfew in Bauchi, Kirfi and Alkaleri local governments as a result of the security breach by Boko Haram," Danlami Baban-Takko said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19602[/attach] A prominent Afghan MP escaped a suicide attack Sunday that killed three people including a child and left seven others wounded, officials said, just days after Washington announced it would slow the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. President Barack Obama last Tuesday reversed plans to withdraw around 5,000 US troops from Afghanistan this year, an overture to the country's new reform-minded leader, President Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban, waging a deadly insurgency since they were ousted from power in late 2001, warned that the announcement would damage any prospects of peace talks as they vowed to continue fighting. The suicide bomber detonated himself on Sunday evening as Gul Pacha Majidi, a lawmaker from eastern Paktia province, was leaving a meeting of Afghan elders in central Kabul. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19594[/attach] MONTABAUR, Germany (AP) — The pastor of the Lutheran church in Andreas Lubitz's hometown said Sunday that the community stands by him and his family, despite the fact that prosecutors blame the 27-year-old co-pilot for causing the plane crash that killed 150 people in southern France. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19593[/attach] The crash of Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 Tuesday has sparked a range of possible theories to explain the actions of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who investigators believe deliberately flew the plane into a mountainside. Mental health experts caution that suicide is usually the result of multiple, complex factors and warn against overly simplistic explanations. - German media reports have said Lubitz was suffering from serious depression but these have not been confirmed. German prosecutors on Friday said medical documents had been found at Lubitz's homes suggesting "existing illness and appropriate medical treatment" but they did not specify the ailment. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19592[/attach] "We are here to register our protest that there was no election in Rivers state yesterday (Saturday)," Rivers state governorship candidate Dakuku Peterside told the crowd. Peterside alleged that APC supporters across the southern state were "disenfranchised by INEC, working in connivance with (the) PDP (Peoples Democratic Party)". Continue reading...

[attach=full]19591[/attach] As hopes fade for a commodities boom in Greenland there is growing concern that an exodus of young people could cripple the economy of a territory already facing an uncertain outlook. "People come down here to study and then they become so rooted that it's difficult to go back again," said Angunguak Egede, a 28-year-old Greenlander working as an office clerk for the Copenhagen municipality. Together with a group of friends, Egede left home in 2004 for Denmark, Greenland's former colonial master and some 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) away, because "it was just the thing to do". "In general there is just much more to choose from in Denmark," he said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19590[/attach] At least 23 people were hurt and petrified passengers described how they feared for their lives when an Air Canada plane careened off a runway in heavy snow at Halifax airport on Sunday. Like the doomed Germanwings flight, the Air Canada plane was an Airbus A320. Flight AC624 from Toronto "exited runway upon landing at Halifax," the airline said on Twitter, and pictures showed the nose of the plane sliced off, its landing gear collapsed and at least one engine badly mangled. Passengers said the plane had circled over the airport before coming in to land and had "bounced" upon impact, shortly after midnight. Continue reading...

HELSINKI (AP) — Former U.S. international Freddy Adu has signed a one-year contract with Finnish club Kuopion Palloseura. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19586[/attach] Life returned to normal in Nigeria's financial hub of Lagos on Sunday after the presidential election. The retired carpenter's polling station was one of about 300 across the country affected on Saturday by either a lack of election materials or staff or a failure of voter identification technology. The close-run campaign between President Goodluck Jonathan and the main opposition candidate, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, has energised voters in Nigeria. Continue reading...

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Team Sky rider Richie Porte of Australia hung on to his overnight lead to win the Volta a Catalunya Sunday after the race's seventh and final stage was won by Alejandro Valverde of Spain. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19585[/attach] CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top prosecutor on Sunday named 18 Muslim Brotherhood members, including the group's leader and his deputy, as terrorists in the first implementation of an anti-terror law passed earlier this year. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19584[/attach] BEIRUT (AP) — Syrians fled Idlib Sunday, fearing government reprisals a day after opposition fighters and a powerful local al-Qaida affiliate captured the northwestern town, activists said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19579[/attach] Tunisia said it killed the leader of the jihadists accused of organising the massacre at its national museum, as thousands took to the streets Sunday in a march against extremism. Authorities said Lokmane Abou Sakhr -- an Algerian who was singled out as the organiser of the museum attack -- was killed along with at least eight others from the notorious Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade. Officials had accused Abou Sakhr and his group of organising the attack on the Bardo Museum that left 21 foreign tourists dead, despite a claim of responsibility from the Islamic State group. Tunisian forces "were able yesterday (Saturday) to kill the most important members of the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade including its head Lokmane Abou Sakhr," Prime Minister Habib Essid told reporters. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19578[/attach] The captain of a passenger jet that investigators believe was deliberately crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, shouted at the co-pilot to "open the damn door" as he desperately tried to get back into the locked cockpit, a German newspaper reported Sunday. French officials say the plane's black box voice recorder indicates that Andreas Lubitz, 27, locked the captain out of the cockpit of the Germanwings jet and steered Flight 4U 9525 into a mountainside. They believe that the more senior pilot, identified by Germany's Bild newspaper as Patrick S., tried desperately to reopen the door during the Barcelona to Duesseldorf flight's eight-minute descent after he left to use the toilet. It said "loud metallic blows" against the cockpit door could then be heard, before another warning alarm went off and then the pilot is heard to scream to a silent Lubitz in the cockpit "open the damn door". Continue reading...

[attach=full]19577[/attach] Tunis (AFP) - Thousands of Tunisians set off on Sunday for a march "against terrorism" through the capital following the massacre of foreign tourists at the country's national museum. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19576[/attach] Syrian troops regrouped on Sunday after a coalition including Al-Qaeda's local affiliate seized the city of Idlib, the second provincial capital to fall from government control. The capture is a blow to the government and raises the prospect that the city will become the effective capital of territory held by Al-Qaeda's Syrian wing, Al-Nusra Front, analysts said. On Sunday, the city in northwestern Syria was largely quiet, after sporadic government aerial bombardment overnight, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. A security source in Damascus and Syrian media said government forces were regrouping outside the city. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19575[/attach] SINGAPORE (AP) — Singaporeans turned out in the tens of thousands Sunday to pay final respects to longtime leader Lee Kuan Yew. Singapore's prime minister for more than three decades until 1990, Lee died last Monday at age 91. His cortege took a 15-kilometer (9-mile) route through the city-state before a three-hour state funeral. Singaporeans credit Lee's leadership with laying the foundation of the Southeast Asian country's current prosperity, and his death triggered a wave of emotion rarely seen in Singapore. Continue reading...

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — New Zealand got off to the worst possible start to the Cricket World Cup final after captain Brendan McCullum was bowled for a duck by Mitchell Starc in the first over. Continue reading...

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum won the toss and elected to bat first against Australia in a Cricket World Cup final featuring the co-hosts at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday. Continue reading...