World News

An old car with the Cuban flag painted on the trunk is seen near the Capitol of Havana, on January 7, 2015 More »

Condemnation poured in Friday of the Islamic State group's bulldozing of the ancient city of Nimrud, the jihadists' latest attack on Iraqi cultural treasures that the UN termed a "war crime". More »

Unemployment in the U.S. has dropped to a seven-year low of 5.5 percent — the level normally considered the mark of a healthy job market. Yet that number isn't as encouraging as it might sound. The jobless ... More »

BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State extremists trucked away statues as they damaged the irreplaceable remains of an ancient Assyrian capital, a local resident and a top UN official told The Associated Press Friday. More »

Members of a landless peasant group, some wielding sticks or knives, attacked a cellulose factory in a violent protest against its use of genetically engineered eucalyptus plants, video released by organizers showed. More »

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush on Friday stepped up his criticism of Hillary Clinton, calling it "baffling" that she stored official U.S. State Department emails on a personal server rather than safer government systems. "It's a dangerous world, and security would mean that you couldn't have a private server," the former Florida governor said in an interview with Radio Iowa on Friday morning. "It's a little baffling, to be honest with you." Bush and other Republicans have pounded Clinton, the early front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, for using a personal email account for work during her four years as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. More »

Wall Street stocks finished sharply lower Friday after a strong US jobs report raised expectations that the Federal Reserve will soon lift interest rates More »

U.S. stocks and bonds fell sharply as a strong jobs report led investors to anticipate higher U.S. interest rates. The Standard & Poor's 500 lost 29 points, or 1.4 percent, to close at 2,071 Friday. It ... More »

By Euan Rocha TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian pastor detained in North Korea has done only humanitarian work there, his church said on Friday as it denied a media report that he had ties to a purged and executed uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The Rev. Hyeon Soo Lim, 60, the leader of the 3,000-member Light Korean Presbyterian Church in suburban Toronto, was last heard from on Jan. 31 and is believed to be the Canadian who diplomats have confirmed is being detained by North Korean authorities. Church spokeswoman Lisa Pak denied a media report that Lim's projects were linked to people who knew Jang Song-Thaek, the purged and executed uncle of Kim Jong-un. More »

By Euan Rocha TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian pastor detained in North Korea has done only humanitarian work there, his church said on Friday as it denied a media report that he had ties to a purged and executed uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The Rev. Hyeon Soo Lim, 60, the leader of the 3,000-member Light Korean Presbyterian Church in suburban Toronto, was last heard from on Jan. 31 and is believed to be the Canadian who diplomats have confirmed is being detained by North Korean authorities. Church spokeswoman Lisa Pak denied a media report that Lim's projects were linked to people who knew Jang Song-Thaek, the purged and executed uncle of Kim Jong-un. More »

Incoming students at Ohio State University's Columbus campus will be required to provide proof of vaccinations for measles and a number of other communicable diseases starting in August, a school spokesman said on Friday. Ohio State will continue to allow the roughly 12,000 new students to seek vaccination exemptions based on religious, medical or philosophical grounds similar to those in Ohio elementary and secondary schools, spokesman Gary Lewis said. More »

By Richard Leong NEW YORK (Reuters) - A robust U.S. jobs report raised concern in markets on Friday that the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates sooner than previously thought, hammering U.S. stock ... More »

Rival Libyan factions said Friday they were upbeat about the course of UN-mediated talks under way in Morocco aimed at brokering a deal on a national unity government. More »

Astronomers observed four versions of a supernova thanks to the gravity of a cluster of galaxies, which magnified and bent the exploding star's light to create multiple images, scientists said Thursday. More »

By Gabriela Baczynska MOSCOW (Reuters) - Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny walked out of a Moscow detention centre on Friday and said Russia's opposition would continue to challenge President Vladimir Putin, uncowed by last week's killing of prominent opposition figure Boris Nemtsov. Wearing a dark jacket and jeans, his face unshaven, Navalny was released after serving 15 days for handing out leaflets in the Moscow metro to promote a protest rally. This act of terror has not achieved its goal in this sense," Navalny said after leaving the detention centre through a green metal gate, carrying his belongings in a black sports bag. More »

Ferguson, Missouri, has fired three city employees and is pursuing other reforms to reach a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department after a federal investigation accused the city of illegal practices targeting African-Americans, the mayor said on Friday. Three employees working in the police department and municipal court system were terminated due to evidence of "egregious racial bias," documented in emails and detailed in the Justice Department report released on Wednesday, said Mayor James Knowles. The firings come as the St. Louis suburb of 21,000, which has a mostly black population but a mostly white police force and city leadership, reels from the charges levelled by the Justice Department. The investigation started after a white Ferguson police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager on Aug. 9, triggering nationwide protests and illuminating long-held complaints in Ferguson and elsewhere about police treatment of minorities. More »

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats on the House committee investigating the deadly 2012 Benghazi attacks are demanding that the panel's Republican chairman withdraw a subpoena for Hillary Rodham Clinton's personal emails and schedule a hearing for Clinton to testify immediately. More »

By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations, the United States and Britain demanded during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday that Russia release Ukrainian military pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, but Russia defended her detention as legal. Pro-Russia forces captured Savchenko eight months ago and handed her over to Russia, where she is being held on charges of aiding the killing of two Russian journalists in east Ukraine. The 33-year-old, who has been on a hunger strike since December, has become a national hero in Ukraine and a symbol of resistance to Russian aggression. More »

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCAU.N) (FCHA.MI) Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne earned 31.3 million euros ($34 million) last year, including a bonus for cementing a deal that created the world's seventh-largest carmaker, a regulatory filing showed. Marchionne received a salary of 2.5 million euros, annual incentives of 4 million euros plus other compensation to bring his pay package to about 6.6 million euros, FCA said in a filing with U.S. regulators. As part of the extraordinary incentives, Marchionne will also receive a grant of 1.6 million restricted shares, subject to approval by shareholders, and a special bonus of 12 million euros that he will receive only when his mandate ends. Marchionne has said he will stay at the helm of FCA through the end of a five-year plan ending in 2018 that includes expansion of the Jeep and Alfa Romeo brands. More »

Jordan's Queen Rania on Wednesday branded the Islamic State (IS) militant group a "bunch of crazy people" who were staining the name of Islam. More »

A man previously convicted of harassing Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer has been arrested by Austin police on suspicion of sending her sexually graphic emails, according to police records released on Friday. Gregory Calvin King, 30, was booked on Thursday into the Travis County Jail with bond set at $100,000. More »

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Islamic State group's rampage through the ancient city of Nimrud in northern Iraq is an act of "cultural cleansing" that amounts to a war crime, and some of the site's large statues have already been trucked away for possible illicit trafficking, the head of the U.N.'s cultural agency said Friday. More »

An investigation into what caused Hollywood star Harrison Ford to crash the single-engine plane he was piloting will take about a year to complete, US aviation officials said on Friday. More »

Iraqi forces have cleared Islamic State fighters from the town of al-Baghdadi near a key base where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi military troops, recapturing the police station and three bridges over the Euphrates, the U.S. military said on Friday. Iraqi Security Forces and tribal militia from the Anbar region also pushed the Islamic State fighters from seven villages northwest of al-Baghdadi on the road to Haditha, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement. Al-Baghdadi is located about 3 miles (5 km) northeast of Ain al-Asad air base, where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi military forces to help them confront Islamic State militants who overran part of northwestern Iraq last year. Islamic State militants seized the bridges around al-Baghdadi in September. More »

By Alistair Scrutton and Aija Krutaine RIGA (Reuters) - Steps to bolster a fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine gathered momentum on Friday as support within the European Union for more economic sanctions¨on Russia appeared to wane. Russia and Ukraine have agreed to double the number of ceasefire monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to 1,000 from 500, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who chaired an EU foreign ministers meeting in Riga, said the ceasefire was "not perfect" but it was improving. More »

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis arrives to present his ministry's new secretaries at a press conference in Athens on March 4, 2015 More »

LETPADAN, Myanmar (AP) — Police chased down student protesters and dragged them onto trucks Friday in Myanmar's third such crackdown on public demonstrations in as many days, drawing criticism from the United States. More »

Apple Inc (AAPL.O), the largest U.S. company by market value, will join the Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI), replacing AT&T Inc (T.N), in a change that reflects the dominant position of the iPhone maker in the U.S. economy and society. The decision to nudge aside AT&T, which has been part of the Dow for the better part of a century, is a recognition of the way in which communications and technology have evolved over the last several decades. The action, by S&P Dow Jones Indices, had been widely expected since Apple split its shares seven-for-one in June of last year. The Dow industrials is the oldest U.S. stock average, first been published in 1896. More »