WorldNews

[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...

By James Mackenzie CATANIA, Italy (Reuters) - Italian investigators are piecing together a picture of beatings and abuse that hundreds of Africans and Bangladeshis suffered before setting sail from Libya to Italy, only to drown late on Saturday in one of the worst migrant shipwrecks ever in the Mediterranean. One man was killed when he stood up on a rubber dinghy without permission, the prosecutors said. More than 700 people, most locked into the hold and lower deck of a 20-metre-long fishing boat, are believed to have drowned instantly when the overloaded vessel capsized after colliding with a Portuguese merchant ship coming to its aid some 70 nautical miles off the coast of Libya. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20797[/attach] NEW YORK (AP) — Procter & Gamble and Facebook seem to have nothing in common. One deals in razors and toothpaste, the other in "likes," self-promotion and embarrassing family photos. But this week, they shared the same problem: the strong dollar took a cut of their quarterly sales. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20789[/attach] BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Rafael Nadal's clay-court woes mounted on Thursday at the Barcelona Open with another loss. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20788[/attach] At least 23 Yemeni rebels were killed in fresh Saudi-led coalition air strikes Thursday on their positions in the southern town of Daleh, a government official there said. In Yemen's third city of Taez, meanwhile, a Red Cross official said his team retrieved the bodies of 10 pro-government soldiers thought to have died when rebels overran a loyalist base there on Wednesday. Speaking to AFP, the official said there were more bodies but that the Red Cross team was being denied access to the site by the Huthi Shiite rebels in the area. Several rebel positions in schools and public buildings were "razed" by air strikes in Daleh as well as in the nearby province of Lahj, said Nasser al-Shuaibi, a leader of armed groups loyal to Hadi. Continue reading...

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — The Macedonian Football Federation says it has appointed Ljubinko Drulovic of Serbia as the national coach. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20787[/attach] St. George's (Grenada) (AFP) - England's first century opening partnership for more than two years helped them to 143 for one in reply to the West Indies first innings total of 299 at lunch on the third day of the second Test on Thursday. Skipper Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott played carefully in extending their stand from the overnight total of 74 to 125 on the first sun-drenched morning of the match before leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo grabbed the wicket of Trott for 59. Cook will resume in the afternoon on 67 together with Gary Ballance (seven). In conditions ideal for batting at the National Cricket Stadium, the England top-order appeared more concerned with eliminating risks than dominating bowlers, especially the faster ones, who hardly posed any serious threat on a placid pitch. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and coalition forces conducted 16 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and five in Syria since Wednesday, the American military said. The strikes in Iraq targeted Islamic State tactical units, buildings, sniper positions and vehicles around seven cities including Falluja, Mosul, Ramadi and Sinjar, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement on Thursday. The strikes in Syria were near Kobani and al Hasaka, it said. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Susan Heavey) Continue reading...

[attach=full]20785[/attach] Paula Radcliffe said a conversation with her eight-year-old daughter convinced her she was doing the right thing in bowing out of the London Marathon. Radcliffe, recalling a conversation with her daughter, Isla, said: "I will always go out for runs and things, I just won't be preparing to be competitive in races and really putting everything into going away on training camps and things like that. Radcliffe, who has recently been troubled by foot and Achilles injuries, said she was looking forward to going round the London course one last time. "The London marathon inspired me into running," Radcliffe said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20784[/attach] PARIS (AP) — With its European aspirations in tatters after two losses to Barcelona in the Champions League quarterfinals, Paris Saint-Germain will now focus on finishing ahead of Lyon in the close-fought French title race. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20783[/attach] A century ago, thousands of soldiers from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) struggled ashore on a narrow beach at Gallipoli at the start of an ill-fated campaign that would claim more than 130,000 lives. The centenary is expected to see the largest ever commemoration, with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Britain's Prince Charles leading the ceremonies. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20782[/attach] MILAN (AP) — Juventus has a couple of canine solutions to keep Luis Suarez and his biting at bay if it draws Barcelona in the Champions League semifinals. Continue reading...

By Chris Scicluna VALETTA (Reuters) - An imam and a bishop led a poignant inter-faith funeral service on Malta on Thursday for 24 drowned migrants, the only victims whose bodies were recovered from the Mediterranean in the weekend shipwreck that shocked Europe. The dead were picked up by the Italian vessel Gregoretti and brought to Malta on Monday after their vessel capsized and sank early on Sunday morning. Twenty-eight survivors were taken to Italy. The captain has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of homicide, people smuggling and causing a shipwreck. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20773[/attach] A 14-year-old Mexican girl grabbed by police at school and sent to the United States in a case of mistaken identity was reunited with her parents Wednesday, a happy ending to a saga that captivated the country. A video of the April 16 operation shows Alondra Luna Nunez screaming as officers shove her inside a police vehicle in the central state of Guanajuato before flying her to a woman in Texas who thought she was her daughter. Her parents did not rule out taking legal action against the officials and judge who ordered police to take Luna and fly her to Texas. Luna seemed to hold no grudge, saying she hoped the Texas woman, Dorotea Garcia, ended up finding her daughter. Continue reading...