FREETOWN Sierra Leone released its last confirmed Ebola patient from hospital on Monday and began a 42-day countdown to being declared free of the virus, medical sources said. The world’s worst known Ebola epidemic has raged in West Africa for more than 18 mon... More »
Rapper Wiz Khalifa was handcuffed and then released by U.S. Customs officers after refusing to stop riding his hoverboard at Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said on Sunday. A video on Khalifa’s Instagram site shows three U.S. Customs and Border ... More »
BENICASSIM, Spain An American Jewish musician who was controversially barred from a reggae festival in Spain before being invited back to play performed to catcalls from some pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday, though the concert passed off peacefully after ... More »
MEXICO CITY Archeologists have discovered a massive ceremonial skull rack from the heyday of the Aztec empire in the heart of Mexico City, a find that could shed new light on how its rulers projected power by human sacrifice, the team said on Thursday. The sku... More »
Financial news agency Bloomberg plans to cut about 100 jobs in its editorial division, the New York Post reported. The announcement could come as soon as Labor Day in early September, the Post said, citing sources. Many of the layoffs will affect political and... More »
SEOUL His father was afraid to fly, but North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has taken to the skies, building a series of small runways long enough to land light, private aircraft next to some of his palaces, satellite imagery shows. Construction on Kim’s personal ... More »
ROME The museums that house masterpieces such as Michelangelo’s David and Botticelli’s Venus will soon be run by foreign directors for the first time as Italy overhauls what a senior official called its “sclerotic” museum management. Following an international... More »
Here is a list of euro zone parliaments that must approve the new 86 billion euro ($96 billion) Greek bailout this week. Here is a list: TUESDAY, AUG. 18 AUSTRIA – Parliament subcommittee to meet on the bailout. ESTONIA – Parliament holds extraordinary session... More »
HELSINKI Greece will be a headache for the euro zone for decades, Finland’s eurosceptic foreign minister said, and called for the International Monetary Fund to participate in the Greece’s new bailout package. “Unfortunately, this problem will be in front of u... More »
BRUSSELS/ATHENS Euro zone finance ministers have agreed to lend Greece up to 86 billion euros ($96 billion) after Greek lawmakers accepted their stiff conditions despite a revolt by supporters of leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Assuming approval by the ... More »
SHANGHAI China’s currency fell to a four-year low on Wednesday, slumping for a second day, after a central bank devaluation on Tuesday, and government sources believe the yuan may be allowed to slide even further to help the country’s exporters. The yuan trade... More »
VANCOUVER He rides a Canada goose, slays a dragon and fist bumps an alien – and that’s just in the first 30 seconds of Wyatt Scott’s campaign video for the upcoming Canadian federal election. Scott, an independent who is running to represent a region of rural ... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Tuesday attacked Democrat Hillary Clinton for her handling of Iraq as secretary of state, saying she must share the blame for the rise of Islamic State militants, in a prelude to a potential general elec... More »
BERLIN British artist and anti-surveillance activist James Bridle is illuminating Germany with artwork exploring the darkest state secrets, cover-ups and information blackouts. Bridle’s “The Glomar Response”, showing this month at the newly opened Nome gallery... More »
MUMBAI/ NEW DELHI The Indian government has filed a lawsuit against Swiss food firm Nestle’s Indian unit, seeking 6.4 billion rupees ($99 million) in damages on behalf of consumers after the country’s worst packaged food scare in a decade. Nestle, the first fo... More »
BEIJING China’s move to devalue its currency reflects a growing clamor within government circles for a weaker yuan to help struggling exporters, ensuring the central bank remains under pressure to drag it down further in the months ahead, sources said. The yua... More »
JAKARTA Indonesian President Joko Widodo put two experienced technocrats into economic management posts on Wednesday in a cabinet reshuffle designed to reassure investors worried about a policy drift that has allowed growth to slip to a six-year low. Widodo’s ... More »
HONG KONG Police raided the Hong Kong offices of taxi-hailing service Uber Inc on Tuesday and arrested five drivers for the “illegal use of vehicles for hire”, police said. A Hong Kong police senior inspector, Bruce Hung, said undercover police officers had us... More »
LEHIGH COUNTY, Penn./NEW YORK It’s easy to find female fans of Donald Trump in this cluster of former factory towns in the hills west of New York City even after his comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly that have been widely interpreted as referring to h... More »
NEW YORK A group of mainly U.S.-based stock traders and computer hackers in Ukraine made as much as $100 million in illegal profits over five years by conspiring to use information stolen from thousands of corporate press statements before their public release... More »
JAKARTA Indonesia’s chief economic minister, Sofyan Djalil, said on Wednesday he will leave that post and take over the national planning ministry. “I have been moved to the national planning ministry,” the 61-year old told reporters at the presidential palace... More »
KUALA LUMPUR A Malaysian opposition party on Wednesday filed a civil suit against Prime Minister Najib Razak and indebted state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), saying they had violated electoral rules and a new election should be held. 1MDB, whose ad... More »
YANGON Myanmar was evacuating parts of a city on Wednesday after mudslides wiped away hundreds of houses and torrential rain threatened further damage in the worst floods to hit the country in decades. The government in Hakha, the capital of impoverished Chin ... More »
TOKYO Seventy years after Japan’s defeat in World War Two, the conflict’s legacy haunts East Asia and reconciliation remains elusive. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may hope to lay the ghosts to rest with a statement on Friday marking the 70th anniversary of the wa... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday said China’s devaluation of the yuan would be “devastating” for the United States. “They’re just destroying us,” the billionaire businessman, a long-time critic of China’s currency policy, sa... More »
NEW YORK Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is giving the U.S. Justice Department her private email server and a thumb drive of work-related emails from her tenure as secretary of state, a spokesman for her campaign said on Tuesday. Clinton’s us... More »
NEW YORK A group of mainly U.S.-based stock traders and computer hackers in Ukraine made as much as $100 million in illegal profits over five years by conspiring to use information stolen from thousands of corporate press statements before their public release... More »
NEW YORK A U.S. criminal investigation into allegations that China’s ZTE Corp for sold banned U.S. computer products to Iran has spilled into a civil dispute with a New York-based patent licensing firm, as ZTE has refused to make one of its top executives avai... More »
WASHINGTON Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has instructed her attorney to give the U.S. Justice Department her private email server and a thumb drive of work-related emails from her tenure as secretary of state, CNN reported on Tuesday, quoti... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Tuesday will launch an attack on Democrat Hillary Clinton’s handling of Iraq when she was secretary of state, saying she must bear some of the blame for the rise of Islamic State militants. Bush is to de... More »
(Corrects fifth paragraph to delete reference to President Barack Obama acting by executive order) By Jeff Mason and Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama challenged America and the world to step up efforts to fight global warming on ... More »
ATHENS Greece and its international lenders reached a multi-billion euro bailout deal on Tuesday to keep the nation in the euro zone and prevent financial meltdown, officials said. Here are some of the details of what Greece is required to do for up to 85 bill... More »
DETROIT Melissa Gilbert, best known for playing Laura Ingalls Wilder in the 1970s television drama “Little House on the Prairie,” has thrown her bonnet in the ring for a U.S. congressional seat in Michigan. Gilbert, 51, who moved to Howell, Michigan, in 2013, ... More »
EPIDAURUS, Greece On a stiflingly hot summer night, the ancient Greek amphitheatre of Epidaurus is packed to capacity for a performance of a 2,400-year-old play by Aristophanes — testimony to Greeks’ enduring love of theater despite years of grinding economic ... More »
ATHENS Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Wednesday that Greece was close to concluding a deal with lenders on a multi-billion-euro bailout, which he said would end doubts over its place in the euro zone. The comments were the latest in a series of unusuall... More »
ATHENS Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Wednesday Greece is close to concluding a deal with lenders on a multi billion euro bailout, which he said would end doubts over the country’s presence in the euro zone. “We are in the final stretch of conclud... More »
NEW YORK A Russian art dealer accused by Polish authorities of illegally acquiring an 18th-century painting stolen during World War II by the Nazis cannot be extradited from the United States, a Manhattan federal judge ruled on Monday. U.S. District Judge Jed ... More »
ATHENS Greece’s stock market closed with heavy losses on Monday after a five-week shutdown brought on by fears that the country was about to be dumped from the euro zone. Bank shares plummeted 30 percent before loss limits kicked in to stop investors selling a... More »
ATHENS Greece’s stock market plunged nearly 23 percent on Monday when it opened after a five-week shutdown brought on by fears the country was about to be dumped from the euro zone. The main Athens stock index .ATG plunged in its worst ever one-day performance... More »
WASHINGTON, August 3 Women’s health group Planned Parenthood, under attack by anti-abortionists posting hidden-camera videos online, will be the focus of a partisan showdown on Monday in the U.S. Senate, with any wider influence on voters from the charge still... More »
KUALA LUMPUR The head of world athletics vigorously defended the IAAF’s anti-doping record on Monday, as global sporting bodies called for a thorough probe of the latest allegations to plunge international sport into crisis. Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper an... More »
SEOUL North Korea released video footage on Monday of a Canadian pastor confessing before a Pyongyang church congregation that he had committed crimes against the state. Hyeon Soo Lim, of the 3,000-member Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, traveled t... More »
DOHA U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry began talks with Gulf states in Qatar on Monday, seeking to convince them of the merits of last month’s nuclear deal with Iran and to discuss the battle against Islamic State militants and the war in Syria. Most Gulf Ara... More »
YANGON A death toll of 27 from flooding across Myanmar was expected to rise as rescue workers struggled on Monday to reach some of the hardest-hit and most remote inundated areas, officials said. More than 150,000 people have been affected by severe flooding a... More »
KUALA LUMPUR The head of world athletics said on Monday that any suggestion his organization had been negligent in drug testing of athletes was “laughable”. “There are allegations made, no evidence,” IAAF president Lamine Diack told Reuters in the Malaysian ca... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidates will test their messages in New Hampshire on Monday, with the exception of Donald Trump, in a pivotal week on the 2016 campaign trail that will be dominated by their first head-to-head debate on Thursday. Fourteen ... More »
CAIRO The United States and Egypt are returning to a “stronger base” in bilateral ties despite tensions and human rights concerns, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday after talks with his Egyptian counterpart. “Egypt remains vital … to engagement... More »
TAIPEI Protests in Taiwan over textbook revisions which students say aim to brainwash them into accepting a “one China” view of history underscore the island’s growing sense of independence from its vast neighbor and geopolitical foe. Hundreds of youths storme... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. backers of the Iran nuclear deal are increasingly confident of enough Democratic support to ensure it survives review by Congress, despite fierce opposition by majority Republicans and a massive lobbying drive. By the time the House of Represen... More »
MEXICO CITY A prominent Mexican news photographer was among five people found dead in a middle-class neighborhood of the capital on Friday, the city’s prosecutor told reporters at a Sunday press conference. Ruben Espinosa, who a month ago claimed in interviews... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama will unveil on Monday the final version of his plan to tackle greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, kicking off what is expected to be a tumultuous legal battle between federal environmental regulators and coal indust... More »
WASHINGTON The White House said it will launch the first ever rule on Monday to cut carbon emissions from power plants, a plan that opponents in the coal industry and their political allies will fight in the courts. In a fact sheet issued on Sunday, the White ... More »
WASHINGTON Donald Trump, the man to beat in this week’s first televised Republican presidential debate, said on Sunday he does not plan to attack his rivals and downplayed expectations for his performance, saying “I’m not a debater.” The combative real estate ... More »
BERLIN French finance minister Michel Sapin has criticized his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble for suggesting that Greece could temporarily leave the euro zone, but said the Franco-German relationship is “not broken”. In an interview with German business... More »
NEW YORK Verizon Communications Inc and the unions representing its wireline unit employees on the U.S. East Coast said work will go on and talks continue after their current contract expired. Since June, the unions have been in talks with Verizon over the com... More »
CHICAGO A political battle over the use of fetal tissue in medical research has been reinvigorated by the release of undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood officials. But the controversy comes just as interest in the use of fetal tissue is dwindling, s... More »
MUMBAI An Indian court has concluded hearing a case filed by Nestle India challenging a local regulator’s report that Maggi instant noodles contained excess lead, a lawyer for the company said. The Bombay High Court will give a judgment at a later date, Rajesh... More »
WASHINGTON The cybersecurity issues that led Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to recall 1.4 million vehicles this month could pose a problem for cars and trucks from other automakers, the top U.S. auto safety regulator said on Friday. Mark Rosekind, who heads the ... More »
NEW YORK Broadway hip-hop musical “Hamilton” is the hottest ticket in town this summer, and George Cox is, in a word, ecstatic. Cox, founder of Seattle-based Alexander Hamilton Scholars, is one of thousands of Americans who have toiled for years to promote the... More »
ATHENS Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, struggling to contain a revolt in his left-wing Syriza party, said on Wednesday that his government would not implement reform measures beyond those agreed with lenders at a euro zone summit this month. Tsipras faces... More »
ATHENS Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Wednesday that his government would not implement reform measures beyond what was agreed with lenders at a euro zone summit earlier this month. “I know well the framework of the deal we signed at the euro zone... More »
LOS ANGELES A large street mural painted on a derelict Detroit auto factory by elusive British artist Banksy is going up for auction in Beverly Hills and could fetch up to $400,000 dollars for a local non-profit group, Julien’s Auctions said on Wednesday. The ... More »
BERLIN A Greek exit from the euro zone would cause “utter chaos” but would have to be accepted if Athens was not willing to implement reforms, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian ally Horst Seehofer told German newspaper Die Welt on Wednesday. “No one can pred... More »
BAYREUTH, Germany A renovated Richard Wagner Museum opening in Bayreuth this weekend to coincide with the Bavarian city’s annual Wagner opera festival puts the composer’s anti-Semitism and his family’s later ties to Adolf Hitler center stage for the first time... More »
PARIS The prospect of Greece being forced to leave the euro zone has lifted, ECB governing council member Christian Noyer said in an interview with Le Monde newspaper published on Friday. Noyer, who is also governor of the Bank of France, said that Greece repr... More »
BUJUMBURA A policeman and an opposition official died in violence marring the start of Burundi’s presidential election, already hit by opposition boycotts and protests over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term. Blasts and gunfire echo... More »
ADEN, Yemen Yemeni fighters backed by Saudi-led air strikes battled to take back northern suburbs of Aden from Houthi opponents on Tuesday, residents said, a day after completing their capture of the center of the strategic port city. The country’s dominant Ho... More »
ATHENS The Greek government submitted legislation to parliament on Tuesday required by its international lenders to start talks on a multi-billion euro rescue package. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has until Wednesday night to get those measures adopted in the... More »
LONDON Lloyds (LLOY.L) is due to set out its dividend plans next week, including how and when it might return surplus capital to shareholders, making the stock more attractive ahead of a planned sale of some of the government’s shares to retail investors, indu... More »
LONDON Britain’s government is asking some departments to prepare to cut day-to-day spending by as much as 40 percent by the 2019/20 tax year, in a major spending review launched by Conservative finance minister George Osborne on Tuesday. The finance ministry ... More »
CAPE TOWN Veteran South African anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu was discharged from hospital on Tuesday after a week fighting a persistent infection that is not related to his prostate cancer, his daughter said. Tutu, 83, who has been living with prosta... More »
BRATISLAVA Slovakia will be among the first to ask Greece to leave the euro zone if it fails to adhere to agreed conditions of further, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Tuesday. Fico told reporters that Slovakia was fundamentally against allowing any ... More »
SHANGHAI Officials from the world’s largest emerging nations launched the New Development Bank (NDB) on Tuesday, the second of two new policy banks heavily backed by Beijing that are being pitched as alternatives to existing institutions such as the World Bank... More »
SEOUL South Korean tycoon Chung Mong-joon, one of the most influential figures in Asian soccer, said on Tuesday that leaving Sepp Blatter at the helm of FIFA until a new president is elected shows those in power at the scandal-hit governing body “have yet to c... More »
WASHINGTON Senator John McCain urged Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday to apologize to U.S. military families for saying prisoners of war are not heroes, in his first direct response to Trump’s remarks. Trump drew a barrage of criticism ... More »
NEW YORK U.S. presidential contender Hillary Clinton’s proposed plan to overhaul capital gains taxes aims to foster long-term growth by taxing some short-term investments at higher rates, an aide for her campaign said on Monday. Although details of the plan ha... More »
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. “Breaking Bad” actor and New Mexico native Steven Michael Quezada said on Monday he is running for a county commissioner seat in Albuquerque, where he grew up and the hit television show was set. Quezada, who grew up in a gang-plagued neighbo... More »
NEW YORK Fund companies and brokerage firms should be able to weather a proposal by Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that would increase capital gains taxes for some investors, but some fund holders could see higher costs, managers and an... More »
WASHINGTON Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, wrote to colleagues on Monday backing the nuclear agreement with Iran, as congressional Republicans railed against a U.N. vote on the deal. “As you may be aware, I believe tha... More »
NEW YORK U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would increase the incentives for corporate whistleblowers to come forward to report financial misconduct, she said on Monday. Answering questions from voters in an online chat, Clinton, the Democratic front... More »
HUSSEIN LOOKOUT, Israel As U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter walked along an Israeli lookout near the border with Lebanon, Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon turned to him and said: “Probably Hezbollah is watching us.” Israel warned during Carter’s visit o... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday welcomed the “new beginning” of ties between the United States and Cuba but said many differences remained between the two nations and that full normalization will be a long and complex process. Kerry, in... More »
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush vowed on Monday to cut government spending and more tightly limit lawmakers’ connections with lobbyists if he reaches the White House, part of an attempt to separate himself from a large pack of R... More »
ATHENS Once again Alexis Tsipras was struggling to make a decision. For hours on July 13, the Greek prime minister and Europe’s leaders had been trying to thrash out a new deal to bail out bankrupt Greece and keep the country in the euro zone. Now a clean copy... More »
PARIS French President Francois Hollande called on Sunday for the creation of a euro zone government and for citizens to renew their faith in the European project, which has been weakened by the Greek crisis. Reviving an idea originally put forward by former E... More »
BERLIN German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel criticized Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in a television interview to be broadcast later on Sunday for suggesting that Greece could quit the euro zone temporarily. Schaeuble has said that Greece could take a ... More »
BRUSSELS The latest paroxysm of Greece’s debt crisis has exposed growing rifts in the euro zone which, unless addressed soon, could lead to the break-up of European monetary union, the EU’s most ambitious project. The most worrying sign for European leaders is... More »
BERLIN More than half of Germans think the planned deal with Greece is bad and many would have preferred that the crisis-stricken country left the euro zone rather than getting the chance for further aid, according to an opinion poll. Lawmakers in Germany, the... More »
LONDON Buckingham Palace scolded Rupert Murdoch’s top-selling Sun tabloid on Saturday for publishing a previously unknown film from 1933 that appears to show Britain’s Queen Elizabeth performing a Nazi salute as a young girl. The black-and-white film from the ... More »
BERLIN German lawmakers gave their go-ahead on Friday for the euro zone to negotiate a third bailout for Greece, but a warning from Chancellor Angela Merkel that the alternative was chaos failed to prevent a hefty rebellion in her own party. The Bundestag, the... More »
BERLIN German lawmakers gave their go ahead on Friday for the euro zone to negotiate a third bailout for Greece, heeding a warning from Chancellor Angela Merkel that the alternative to a deal with Athens was chaos. The Bundestag lower house of parliament, whos... More »
LONDON Britain’s newly elected Conservative government signalled on Thursday it would cut back the BBC, the opening salvo in a battle over the future of the world’s biggest public service broadcaster. Any attempt to change the 92-year-old broadcaster provokes ... More »
NEW YORK Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday inadvertently tweeted a promotional photo featuring what appeared to be Nazi German soldiers superimposed on the U.S. flag alongside the controversial real estate magnate’s face. The... More »
SIEM REAP, Cambodia Pit, only two and with just one eye, needed only 11 minutes before he detected a deadly mine buried in a Cambodian field, work that humans with metal detectors could have taken up to five days to investigate. But Pit is not human. He is par... More »
BRUSSELS Euro zone leaders clinched a deal with Greece on Monday to negotiate a third bailout to keep the near-bankrupt country in the euro zone after a whole night of haggling at an emergency summit. “Euro summit has unanimously reached agreement. All ready t... More »
VIENNA A senior Iranian negotiator voiced hope on Monday that a nuclear deal with six major powers would be completed but cautioned that there was work to be done and he could not promise the talks would finish by Tuesday night, Iranian media reported. “I cann... More »
BRUSSELS Greece has secured debt restructuring and medium-term financing in a growth package worth 35 billion euros in a deal with its creditors that will allow the country to stay in the euro, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in Brussels on Monday. He said ... More »
