WorldNews

[attach=full]19538[/attach] SHANGHAI (AP) — It wouldn't be figure skating without Andrew Lloyd Webber. Continue reading...

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — U.S. scientists are launching an expedition to study the underwater habitat around the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of a 12-year effort to map and help conserve Caribbean coral reefs. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19537[/attach] LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday that Britain's election campaign is on a knife edge, as he rallied the Conservative party with a personal attack on his main rival. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19536[/attach] Retaking the city of Tikrit, where jihadists have rigged streets and buildings with explosives, will require "major sacrifices" on the part of Iraqi forces, a senior intelligence officer said Saturday. Iraqi forces and allied paramilitaries have been fighting to retake the city since March 2, but halted ground operations for more than a week in what officials described as a bid to curb human and material losses before pushing forward again. "The task of liberating Tikrit requires major sacrifices and street fighting, and our forces are ready for these sacrifices," the officer told AFP on condition of anonymity, indicating that the pause in operations only deferred the inevitable cost. IS spearheaded a sweeping offensive last June that overran much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland, and the operation to retake Tikrit is Baghdad's largest to date against the militants. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19535[/attach] SISTERON, France (AP) — The German co-pilot accused of crashing a passenger plane in the French Alps frequented a gliding club near the crash site as a child with his parents, according to a member of the club. Continue reading...

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Saudi King Salman vows that military intervention will not stop until Yemen is stable and safe. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19530[/attach] SHANGHAI (AP) — Last season, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva finished a lowly 10th at the Russian national championships and had to sit at home while fellow Russian Adelina Sotnikova won the gold medal at the Sochi Olympics. Then she broke her foot and was off the ice altogether for three months. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19529[/attach] SIRACUSA, Sicily (AP) — As Italy copes with record number of migrants making the risky trip across the Mediterranean to reach European shores, it is also registering a record number of political asylum requests, filling migrant holding centers with would-be refugees hoping that their cases are accepted. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19528[/attach] Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate seized control of most of Idlib on Saturday after government forces pulled back to bases in the heart of the main northwestern city, a monitoring group said. Al-Nusra Front and its Islamist allies "control the majority of neighbourhoods in Idlib, apart from government and security buildings," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP. Idlib province, which borders Turkey, is a bastion of Al-Nusra, which has driven out several rival rebel groups. Government control is restricted to Idlib city, the towns of Jisr al-Shughur and Ariha, the Abu Duhur air base and five army garrisons. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19527[/attach] Vandals Saturday destroyed an improvised memorial created by supporters of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on the bridge where he was shot a month ago, the Echo of Moscow radio station reported Saturday. Supporters had regularly refreshed flowers and candles on the bridge next to the Kremlin where the 55-year-old former deputy prime minister and prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin was gunned down on February 27. Later on Saturday morning Nemtsov's supporters came to place fresh flowers, photographs and Russian flags at the spot, the chief editor of Echo of Moscow, Alexei Venediktov, wrote on Instagram. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19524[/attach] BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) — Two Russians and an American floated into the International Space Station on Saturday, beginning what is to be a year away from Earth for two of them. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19523[/attach] ROME (AP) — Amanda Knox, who maintained that she and her former Italian boyfriend were innocent in her British roommate's murder through multiple trials and nearly four years in jail, was vindicated Friday when Italy's highest court threw out their convictions once and for all. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19522[/attach] WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington honors America's closest friends by inviting their leaders to address a joint meeting of Congress. But until Thursday, when House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner invited Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, no Japanese leaders had been invited. That's striking considering the tight U.S.-Japan alliance in the 70 years since World War II ended. British, South Korean and German leaders have been invited multiple times. So have two Liberian presidents and a Latvian one - more than 100 invitations overall since the war. So why not Japan? The answers have to do with underlying friction that has been a part of U.S.-Japanese relations and, more recently, frequent changes of Japanese leaders. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19521[/attach] SEATTLE (AP) — Amanda Knox says she's "so grateful to have my life back" after Italy's highest court overturned her murder conviction in the slaying of her roommate. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19520[/attach] Barack Obama's sustained public criticism of Netanyahu's election rhetoric has led to allegations of a personal vendetta and even a touch of presidential petulance. Obama has steadfastly rebuffed Netanyahu's efforts to row back his election-time opposition to a Palestinian state. "It's has been a continuously running soap opera between Netanyahu and Obama," said Aaron David Miller, a former advisor to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19511[/attach] ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The ratings agency Fitch has downgraded Greece's sovereign rating amid growing uncertainty over the new government's pledge to overhaul reforms needed to restart bailout loan payments and avoid default. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19510[/attach] Italy's top court on Friday threw out Amanda Knox's conviction for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher, bringing a sensational end to an eight-year legal drama that has gripped a global audience. Judges at the Court of Cassation also quashed all charges against Knox's Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito after ten hours of deliberations in Rome. "I am tremendously relieved and grateful for the decision of the Supreme Court of Italy," Knox said in a statement from her home in Seattle. Sollecito, 31, learned of the verdict at his home in Puglia in southern Italy, where he had driven after attending the final hearing in the high court review on Friday morning. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19509[/attach] SAO PAULO (AP) — The federal police agency said Friday it has begun legal proceedings against companies allegedly involved in a fraud scheme that has cost Brazil's public coffers almost $2 billion in unpaid fines and taxes. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19508[/attach] ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan urged his nation to vote peacefully and accept the results of Saturday's presidential elections, which analysts say will be the most tightly contested in the history of Africa's richest nation and its largest democracy. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19507[/attach] UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday called for transparent and peaceful elections in Nigeria on the eve of the vote that will be closely-watched by world governments. "The international community has high expectations that Nigeria will provide leadership in setting a high standard for this election," Ban said in a statement. The UN chief called on Nigerians to vote in large numbers and voiced hope that the presidential and parliamentary elections will be "transparent, inclusive and peaceful". Nigeria has a history of election violence and both candidates have appealed for calm to prevent a repeat of 2011, when 1,000 people were killed in clashes after the results were announced. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19501[/attach] Togo's presidential election has been postponed by 10 days to April 25, the communications minister announced on Friday, after calls for a delay over claims the voter register was flawed. "The presidential election will be held on April 25, 2015 and not April 15, the initial date," said a presidential decree read on state television in the small West African country by Communications Minister Germaine Koumealo Anate. The chairman of regional bloc ECOWAS, Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, had suggested the postponement during a visit to Togo Tuesday, citing the need to update the electoral roll. "As a result, ECOWAS proposes that the election is delayed by 10 days to allow the election list to be revised so everyone is satisfied," Mahama told reporters. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19500[/attach] NEW YORK (AP) — A tough week on the stock market ended quietly Friday. Continue reading...

KOUROU, French Guiana (AP) — A rocket fired from French Guiana has launched two Galileo satellites for the European Space Agency as the European Union continues to expand its global navigation system. Continue reading...

MONTPELIER, Vermont (AP) — A man convicted on charges he lied on a U.S. immigration form about his role in Bosnian war crimes is asking for a new trial, claiming jurors based the conviction on allegations prosecutors made during the trial rather than charges in his indictment. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19499[/attach] The two main opposition groups from inside Syria will take part in peace talks with the regime set for early April in Moscow, the two parties told AFP Friday. Head of the Building the Syrian State Party and known dissident Louay Hussein announced his party would attend the talks at the invitation of regime-backer Russia. Despite a travel ban pending an ongoing court case, Hussein said he hoped he could attend the talks alongside party representatives Mona Ghanem and Anas Judeh. Continue reading...