International

BEIRUT, March 23 (Reuters) – Air strikes hit a rebel-held enclave of Syria’s eastern Ghouta region on Friday despite a ceasefire that the area’s controlling rebel group had said was agreed to come into force at midnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. On Thursday a spokesman for rebel …

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino Roman Catholic priest who was held by Islamic State group-linked militants last year says airstrikes gave the military the crucial edge in crushing a siege by the extremists. The Rev. Teresito Soganub said Friday that his captors forced him and other hostages to gather …

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Protesters decrying this week’s fatal shooting of an unarmed black man marched from Sacramento City Hall and onto a nearby freeway Thursday, disrupting rush hour traffic and holding signs with messages like “Sac PD: Stop killing us!” Hundreds of people rallied for Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old …

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Residents startled awake by loud noise and smoke signaled for help with lit mobile phones and crawled onto cranes from their balconies to escape a fire Friday at a large condominium complex in southern Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. At least 13 people were killed and …

New Delhi, March 22, 2018 (AFP) -An Indian court has sentenced 11 men to life in prison for killing a Muslim meat trader they suspected of transporting beef, in the first convictions over so-called “cow vigilantism”. The men, including a worker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, were found …

KIBBUTZ ZEELIM, ISRAEL (AP) — Hawks, vultures and storks circle overhead as Christopher Sveen points at the heap of refuse rotting in the desert heat, calling it “the mine of the future.” Sveen is chief operations officer at UBQ, an Israeli company that has patented a process to convert household …

MANILA, March 22 (Reuters) – Philippine police killed 13 suspected drug dealers and arrested more than 100 people in dozens of anti-narcotics operations on Wednesday in a province north of the capital, its police chief said. More than 4,000 Filipinos have been killed by police during President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial …

Bangkok, March 22, 2018 (AFP) -At least 18 people were killed and dozens wounded when a bus travelling in northeastern Thailand veered off the road and smashed into a tree, authorities said Thursday. The accident occured Wednesday evening in Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province with the double decker bus carrying around …

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21 (Reuters) – Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized on Wednesday for mistakes his company made in how it handled data belonging to 50 million of its users and promised tougher steps to restrict developers’ access to such information. The world’s largest social media network is …

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani official says security forces have shot and killed a would-be suicide bomber after he opened fire on a security convoy on the outskirts of the southwestern city of Quetta. Local police official Abdul Hakim says Thursday’s attack on paramilitary forces was foiled because of …