WorldNews

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A Serbian far-right party says its leader Vojislav Seselj has undergone surgery, defying orders to return to a U.N. war crimes tribunal that released him temporarily for health reasons. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21387[/attach] LONDON (AP) — Voters were choosing a new parliament for the United Kingdom on Thursday in an election that is expected to produce an ambiguous result and lead to a period of frantic political horse-trading. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21386[/attach] 13:11 p.m. (1211 GMT; 8:11 a.m. EDT) Continue reading...

[attach=full]21385[/attach] WASHINGTON (AP) — Legislation giving the U.S. Congress a chance to review and possibly reject any final nuclear deal with Iran is facing a test vote in the Senate on Thursday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21384[/attach] MOSCOW (AP) — If you call history student Nikolai Podchasov on his cell phone these days, you will hear the popular wartime tune "Katyusha" while waiting for an answer. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21381[/attach] ROME (AP) — Rome's Fiumicino international airport was closed Thursday morning due to a fire overnight in the international terminal. Continue reading...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Thursday that Greece would not leave the euro zone and that a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Monday should mark progress toward a compromise between Athens and its creditors. Speaking to the finance committee of the European Parliament in Brussels, he said of the Eurogroup meeting: "There won't be an accord in a definitive sense but I want May 11 to be a positive day, a day that shows that things are going well and so that a solution lies before us. ... Continue reading...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Middle East's biggest airline, Emirates, says its profit jumped 40 percent during the last fiscal year, driven by rapid expansion and helped by a drop in fuel prices. Continue reading...

MADRID (AP) — Spanish energy company Repsol says its first-quarter profit fell by 6 percent compared with the same period last year following a sharp drop in oil prices and interruptions in Libyan production. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21380[/attach] An annual Jewish pilgrimage to Africa's oldest synagogue in Tunisia began in a festive atmosphere Wednesday, despite tight security after the Bardo museum massacre and warnings of planned attacks. Around 200 Jews joined the pilgrimage on the island of Djerba in southern Tunisia, voicing defiance as they chanted and lit candles at the Ghriba synagogue. Believed to have been founded in 586 BC by Jews fleeing the destruction of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, the Ghriba synagogue has long been a pilgrimage site, especially for Jews of Tunisian descent. There were an estimated 100,000 Jews in Tunisia when the country gained independence from France in 1956, but the number has since dwindled to around 1,500. Continue reading...

Beijing has extended a ban on outdoor barbecues to restaurants operating in some suburban areas as it tries to improve its notoriously poor air quality in case it wins the 2022 Winter Olympics, state news agency Xinhua reported. The government blames them for contributing to smog, despite much public ridicule that dirty factories are more to blame. The outlying suburb of Tongzhou, as well as parts of Shunyi, Miyun, Pinggu and Fangshan, will now have to follow the ban, the report issued late on Wednesday said, citing the Beijing Municipal Bureau of City Administration and Law Enforcement. Xinhua said this was part of efforts to ensure air quality is up to scratch in case Beijing wins the 2022 Games, a decision that will be made in late July. Continue reading...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — More than a dozen families have abandoned their homes in two rural communities following threats from gang members, police in El Salvador said Wednesday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21373[/attach] Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton seeks to build on his 27 points lead in this year's title race with another victory for Mercedes at the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend. While Hamilton's Mercedes teammate and championship rival Nico Rosberg bids to match the leader in equal machinery, Alonso will be in forlorn pursuit. He will merely hope for a points finish behind Ferrari, Williams and the rest while his successor in the scarlet scuderia, four-time champion Sebastian Vettel looks for his second win this year. Rosberg will he hoping he can translate his speed from pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya into a winning performance for the first time since last year's Brazilian Grand Prix and so prevent Hamilton's juggernaut-like run of triumphs. Continue reading...

By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown on Wednesday delivered a spirited defense of his controversial proposals to shore up California's water system, which is straining under years of drought and population growth. Brown's impassioned argument in favor of mandatory conservation, desalination and water recycling plants, and a massive project to funnel water from the Sacramento River came a day after regulators imposed steep cutbacks in water use as part of the state's first-ever mandatory conservation plan. "I have to deal with these problems I've been given," Brown told a meeting of the Association of California Water Agencies. I wish we didn't have any problems." California is entering the fourth year of a devastating drought that has killed 12.5 million trees, caused farmers to fallow a half-million acres of land and left mountains bereft of snow that melts to replenish streams and reservoirs. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21372[/attach] By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California regulators on Wednesday adopted the first statewide rules for the permitting of seawater desalination projects that are expected to proliferate as drought-stricken communities increasingly turn to the ocean to supplement their drinking supplies. The action, which sets uniform standards for minimizing harm to marine life, was welcomed by developers of the state's two largest desalination projects as bringing much-needed certainty and clarity to the regulatory approval process. "It reaffirms that the Pacific Ocean is part of the drinking water resources for the state of California," Poseidon Water executive Scott Maloni told Reuters after the rule was enacted on a voice vote in Sacramento by the State Water Resources Control Board. Before Wednesday's action, developers and regulators of desalination plants had no specific guidance for meeting federal and state clean water standards, complicating review of the projects, state water board spokesman George Kostyrko said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21364[/attach] A humorous social media trend declaring solidarity with Labour leader Ed Miliband went viral on the eve of Thursday's election, which will decide whether he becomes British prime minister. Supporters of Miliband, whose awkward manner was definingly captured in a much re-produced photo of him eating a bacon sandwich, uploaded pictures of themselves messily eating food in solidarity. "I will never vote based on how a candidate eats food," wrote physics and maths student Henry Legg with a photo of himself with a banana. Many users expressed anger that the bacon sandwich image had been put on the front page of The Sun, a newspaper owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the day before the vote. Continue reading...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A group of Venezuelan military officers the government accused of plotting to blow up the presidential palace have been sent to prison, officials said Wednesday. Continue reading...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican official says the number of workers injured in a deadly oil-maintenance platform collapse has risen to 18. Continue reading...

JERUSALEM (AP) — After weeks of haggling with potential political partners, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cobbled a governing coalition together Wednesday night. His narrow coalition, dominated by nationalists and religious parties, sets Netanyahu's government on a collision course on many fronts. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21365[/attach] LAS VEGAS (AP) — Traveling about 55 miles per hour on a Nevada highway, the big rig's driver looked like The Thinker, with his elbow on the arm rest and his hand on his chin. No hands on the steering wheel, no feet on the pedals. Continue reading...

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalan business leaders on Wednesday added their voices to growing calls for the vice president to step down because of a customs corruption scandal in which her former private secretary is implicated. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21361[/attach] Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza insisted Wednesday he would run for a third term in an election in June, defying international pressure to change his mind in a crisis that has sparked deadly protests. A day after the Constitutional Court ruled he could stand for another term, Nkurunziza said it would be "the last mandate" he would seek, and offered to release those jailed during the recent unrest if the opposition movement ends its protests. "If the people of Burundi put their trust in us, it will be the last mandate I seek, as determined by the Constitutional Court," Nkurunziza added. The speech came a day after the Constitutional Court cleared his bid to stay in power after its vice-president fled citing "enormous pressure and even death threats" from senior figures to rubberstamp the president's candidature. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21360[/attach] Doha (AFP) - Qatar champions Lekhwiya advanced to the last 16 of the AFC Champions League with a comprehensive 3-1 win over Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr on Wednesday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21359[/attach] CATANIA, Sicily (AP) — Nearly 100 migrants who reported being at sea for 12 days arrived in Sicily on Wednesday as diplomats mulled a draft U.N. resolution authorizing an EU mission to seize the smugglers' boats that are fueling the Mediterranean migrant crisis. Continue reading...

Turkey on Wednesday arrested four prosecutors and a gendarme officer for trying to carry out a search of Syria-bound trucks belonging to the state intelligence agency that they suspected of illegally carrying arms for rebels fighting Syria's government. Local media said the arrests were part of a crackdown by President Tayyip Erdogan on followers, within the judiciary and police, of a U.S.-based Islamic cleric he accuses of trying to oust him. The MIT intelligence agency, regarded as strongly loyal to Erdogan, refused to allow the search of the trucks stopped in the southern province of Adana last year. Turkey denies that allegation and any suggestion it has delivered arms to Islamist militants. Continue reading...