WorldNews

[attach=full]20833[/attach] NEW YORK (AP) — It's difficult to tell if Wladimir Klitschko has a tougher time holding up all his championship belts or defending them in the ring. Continue reading...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry says Saudi men operating under orders from members of the extremist Islamic State group in Syria are suspected of being behind the killing of two policemen. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20829[/attach] YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — The presidents of Russia and France joined other leaders Friday at ceremonies commemorating the massacre of Armenians a century ago by Ottoman Turks, an event which still stirs bitter feelings as both sides argue over whether to call it genocide. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20828[/attach] Nuclear powers join non-nuclear nations on Monday to launch a conference on non-proliferation, buoyed by the Iran deal but alarmed by slow-moving US-Russian disarmament. US Secretary of State John Kerry will address the conference that reviews the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and he may meet on the sidelines to discuss the hard-fought Iran deal with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Work on the framework Iran agreement must be completed by June 30 but it is already earning praise as a potential happy ending to one of the world's most vexing nuclear disputes. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20827[/attach] LONDON (AP) — With a field that features five of the seven fastest men's marathoners in history, Sunday's race in London shapes up as a showcase of Kenyan distance running. Continue reading...

LONDON (AP) — Wembley Stadium may not be the only London venue in the NFL's future. Continue reading...

By Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union cleared the import of 10 new types of genetically modified crops and two more kinds of cut flowers on Friday, its first authorizations in more than a year after a review of its blocked approval process. The European Commission said it had authorized 10 new types of maize, soybeans, cotton and oilseed rape as either human food or animal feed for 10 years. In practice, the crops produced by Monsanto, BASF and Bayer CropScience will principally be used as feed. It also extended by 10 years the use of seven other crops already in use produced by Bayer, Monsanto, Dupont's Pioneer and Dow AgroSciences. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20819[/attach] By Ed Cropley JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A crowd of stick-wielding supporters at a soccer stadium roared their approval as South Africa's Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini, insisted he was not behind a wave of violence against migrant workers he had compared a month before to head lice. Remarks like those, with the direct threat of violence, have alarmed politicians and activists in South Africa, who say they amount to an open challenge to the post-apartheid order and its elected leadership, from the traditional head of its biggest ethnic group, the 10 million strong Zulu nation. "This man is laying the basis for a serious contestation that South Africa is going to have," said Nomboniso Gasa, an expert in traditional law at the University of Cape Town, who was involved in negotiations to end white rule two decades ago. He has started with the most vulnerable - those who always suffer prejudice - but he's also saying to government and everybody else who is opposed to his absolute authority as a Zulu king: 'You watch it.'" Finding a role for traditional ethnic chieftains in a large multi-ethnic democracy has been a challenge since the days of apartheid, when white rulers often empowered tribal leaders as an alternative to giving blacks a real stake in state power. Continue reading...

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Fourteen migrants believed to be from Afghanistan and Somalia who were heading north toward the European Union were killed by an express train as they walked along tracks in central Macedonia at night, police said Friday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20818[/attach] ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) — As oil-rich Kazakhstan votes for a president Sunday, the governing elite is pounding home a mantra of stability as fears percolate about the country's massive Russian minority taking inspiration from the Moscow-backed insurgency in Ukraine. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20817[/attach] Thai wildlife officials began a headcount Friday of nearly 150 tigers kept by monks at a temple which has become the centre of a dispute over the welfare of the animals. Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua in Thailand's western Kanchanaburi province -- commonly known as "The Tiger Temple" -- has long proved a hit among tourists who flock there to visit the monks and be photographed next to their huge feline pets. Thailand's Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) said earlier this week it planned to take the animals away on Friday. "We have come to check and scan the tigers to see whether the numbers match what we have or not," DNP official Somsak Poopet told AFP, adding his department said they had been told there should be 147 tigers at the temple. Continue reading...

LONDON (AP) — HSBC says it is considering moving its headquarters from Britain in the wake of "regulatory and structural reforms" imposed after the 2008 financial crisis. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Downplaying the U.S. rift with Israel, Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday staunchly defended President Barack Obama's record of supporting the Jewish state, working to allay the concerns of many American Jews who have lined up against the budding nuclear deal with Iran. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20811[/attach] WASHINGTON (AP) — Legislation to strengthen President Barack Obama's hand for a new round of trade deals advanced Thursday in the House courtesy of Republicans and over the protests of Democrats, a political role reversal that portends a bruising struggle over passage later this spring. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20810[/attach] HAVANA (AP) — Basketball great Dikembe Mutombo sank baskets from seemingly every position on the court Thursday as a half-dozen Cuban players watched admiringly on the first day of an NBA training camp aimed at boosting the game's popularity on the communist-run island following the declaration of detente between Washington and Havana. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is pledging solidarity with Armenians but isn't calling what happened to them 100 years ago "genocide." Continue reading...

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Three immigrant mothers held at a Texas detention facility filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that they were held in isolation in retaliation for their hunger strike to protest their detention and conditions at the center. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20808[/attach] The Supreme Court of Honduras on Thursday struck down a law that banned presidents from seeking a second term, paving the way for their re-election, a contentious issue at the heart of a coup six years ago. The decision would allow President Juan Orlando Hernandez to extend his rule, a prospect that opposition parties say is being pushed by ruling National Party leaders. The unanimous decision from the five-member court was applauded by former President Rafael Callejas, a 71-year-old member of the ruling party who has said he would like to run again. The fight over presidential reelection led to a bitter political stand-off that ended in a coup against former President Manuel Zelaya in 2009. Continue reading...

"It is completely irresponsible for a municipality to penalize its residents for conserving water," said Democratic Assembly member Cheryl R. Brown of San Bernardino, the bill's author. The legislature took up Brown's bill, which was initially introduced last year, after Governor Jerry Brown ordered California's first-ever statewide mandatory cutbacks in water use earlier this month. Cheryl Brown said that residents of the Southern California communities of Glendale, Upland and San Bernardino had said they received anti-blight citations. California is entering its fourth year of a catastrophic drought that has forced farmers to fallow land and cost the state's economy an estimated $2.2 billion last year. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20807[/attach] A Belgian court on Thursday ordered the Archbishop of Brussels to pay 10,000 euros in damages to a former choir boy subjected to sexual abuse by a priest. The plaintiff Joel Devillet, now 42, was raped by a priest in southern Belgium between 1987 and 1991. In 1996 the victim denounced his violator in front of an internal tribunal of the Belgian Catholic Church, which advised him to seek therapy. Belgium was hit by a huge paedophile scandal involving the Catholic Church in 2010 when former Bruges bishop Roger Vangheluwe admitted to sexually abusing two of his nephews. Continue reading...

By Peter Granitz PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Candidates from as many as 125 political parties in Haiti on Thursday rushed to meet a deadline to register to run in the country's long-overdue elections later this year. By late afternoon more than 2,000 people had registered for 119 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 20 open Senate seats, according to officials. The deadline to register for the Aug. 9 legislative elections was set to expire at midnight. "Individual people are allowed to form political parties," said Yolette Mengual, expressing a hint of resignation. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20806[/attach] MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Marc Gasol is a creature of habit, a player who embraces his daily routine and assesses what must be done next at the day's end. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20799[/attach] A Russian state television reporter dropped a lit cigarette butt at the scene of raging wildfires in Siberia, sparking a fire in grass a few metres from a village, his channel said Thursday. A local resident contacted police after seeing Channel One reporter Mikhail Akinchenko drop the butt, but denied the reporter had purposefully started the fire. "We confirm that the incident with the lit cigarette took place. The reporter was covering President Vladimir Putin's visit to southern Siberia, where wildfires raging through the steppe have killed at least 34 people. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20798[/attach] EU leaders agreed Thursday to triple the funding for the bloc's search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean in a bid to curb the soaring number of migrants dying as they seek a better life in Europe. As horrific details continued to emerge from the survivors of last weekend's shipwreck that saw hundreds of men, women and children drown in the Mediterranean's worst migrant disaster, the heads of state also took a step closer to military action against the people smugglers. French President Francois Hollande added separately that his country would seek a UN resolution to destroy migrant traffickers' boats. Continue reading...

By Karolina Tagaris ATHENS (Reuters) - Shortly after taking power in January, Greece’s new government opened the gates of one of the main detention centers where thousands of undocumented migrants had been held against their will after arriving on the country’s Mediterranean shores. Many of the inmates, including refugees and children, were driven to Athens and released, in what Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's leftist government hailed as the beginning of the end of inhumane migrant policies of the past. With the influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East rising this year, hundreds have ended up like 40-year-old Syrian Dia Qasem and her three sons: stuck in the Greek capital’s public squares with nowhere to sleep and little eat. Continue reading...