KABUL, Afghanistan -- Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked legislation on Saturday aimed at strengthening provisions for women's freedoms, arguing that parts of it...
VATICAN CITY -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, mindful of the weight of Christian voters in September elections, made a quick trip to Rome Saturday for a private meeting with Pope Francis, focusing on how Europe's struggling economy should be at the service of the people.
GRANDE RIVIERE, Trinidad -- Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad while villagers await wearing dimmed headlamps in the dark. Their black carapaces glistening, the turtles inch along the moonlit beach, using their powerful front flippers to move their bulky frames onto the sand.
ORANJESTAD, Aruba -- An American Airlines flight that was headed to Miami from Brazil has made an emergency landing in Aruba because of a mechanical problem.
BAGHDAD -- Bombs struck Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 58 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in two months, officials said, as a spike in violence has raised fears the country could be on the path to a new round of sectarian bloodshed.
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- Soldiers in northeast Nigeria shelled suspected camps of Islamic extremists in the first military action of a new offensive against the insurgents, killing at least 21 people, a security official said Friday.
TORONTO -- Earthquakes Canada is reporting a 5.1-magnitude earthquake just west of Ottawa that was felt as far away as Toronto.
PRAGUE -- The United States says it has completed a transfer of 75 kilograms (165 pounds) of salt coolant material to the Czech Republic as part of cooperation between the two countries in developing new nuclear reactors.
LONDON -- A clutch of blogs and Twitter accounts maintained by the Financial Times were hacked Friday, the latest in a series of cyberattacks claimed by the Syrian Electronic Army, a pro-government group which often attacks media organizations it sees as sympathetic to the country's rebels.
TORONTO -- A video purportedly of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack has caused an uproar in Canada. Ford called the allegations "ridiculous."
PETARE, Venezuela -- Stern-looking soldiers clutching assault rifles wave down the beat-up Chevy Caprice entering this sprawling slum on the outskirts of Caracas.
VATICAN CITY -- If Pope Francis is feeling a bit homesick these days, he need only go downstairs to St. Peter's Square.
PARIS -- Suspected thieves ripped out a small safe from the wall of a hotel room near the Cannes Film Festival and made off with about $1 million worth of jewelry inside, a French police official said Friday.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Bombs exploded outside two mosques in a village in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 13 people, underlining the challenge of militant violence facing a new government led by Nawaz Sharif set to take power.
MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippine envoy to Taiwan on Friday advised thousands of Filipino workers there to eat at home and avoid the streets while emotions run high on the island over the shooting death of a fisherman by the Philippine coast guard.
CAIRO -- Dozens of disgruntled border policemen forced the closure of Egypt's main crossing point into the Gaza Strip on Friday to protest the abduction of their colleagues by suspected militants, underscoring the country's lawlessness and its crisis of authority two years since the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
LISBON, Portugal -- Portugal's Parliament has passed a law allowing same-sex married couples to adopt their partners' children, but lawmakers rejected legislation granting gay couples the same adoption rights as heterosexuals.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who took power in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow Argentines in a war to eliminate "subversives," died Friday while serving life sentences in prison for crimes against humanity.
MILAN -- The Moroccan woman at the center of a sex scandal involving former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has testified that a young woman attending one of Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" parties dressed up like a nun, danced provocatively and stripped down to her underwear for the then-premier at his in-house disco.
YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar's president pardoned at least 20 political prisoners on Friday, just ahead of an historic state visit to the United States that will highlight the two sides' improved relations brought about by the former pariah nation's democratic reforms.