KIEV,  (AFP) -- Gunmen have taken over a police station in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Kremlin militants are already holding state buildings in several cities, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Saturday."Armed men in camouflage fatigues have taken the police station in Slavyansk," Avakov wrote on his Facebook page, adding that "the reaction will be very strong." He did not provide any other details.

KUALA LUMPUR, (AFP) - The co-pilot of missing Malaysian airliner MH370 attempted to make a mid-flight call from his mobile phone just before the plane vanished from radar screens, a report said Saturday citing unnamed investigators.The call ended abruptly possibly "because the aircraft was fast moving away from the (telecommunications) tower", The New Straits Times quoted a source as saying.But the Malaysian daily also quoted another source saying that while Fariq Abdul Hamid's "line was reattac

TOKYO (AFP) -- A Japanese cabinet minister visited a controversial war shrine in Tokyo on Saturday, in a move likely to cause anger in China and South Korea, which see it as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.Yoshitaka Shindo, minister for internal affairs and communications, paid homage Saturday morning at the Yasukuni shrine, Jiji Press and other news reports said.Shindo, a regular visitor to the shrine, insisted that it was a "private matter", playing down the potential for diplomatic fallou

HAMILTON, New Zealand, (AFP) - The Duchess of Cambridge carried out her first solo engagement Saturday on her New Zealand tour for a fact-finding visit to a children's hospice where she told the curious youngsters that even royals have to eat all their vegetables.The Duchess of Cambridge carried out her first solo engagement Saturday on her New Zealand tour leaving husband Prince William and baby Prince George for a fact-finding mission to a children's hospice.Catherine was welcomed by more than

NEW YORK (AP) -- President Barack Obama said the Republican Party is threatening voting rights in America more than at any point since the passage of a historic 1965 law expanding rights at the ballot box to millions of black Americans and other minorities.Obama's critique of Republicans on Friday came as he seeks to mobilize voters ahead of the November congressional elections, when Democratic control of the Senate is at stake, as is the president's already limited ability to push his agenda th

SYDNEY, (AFP) - The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will likely continue for "a long time", Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned Saturday, a day after voicing confidence that signals from the black box had been detected.The Australian-led search for the Boeing 777, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is racing to gather as many signals as possible to determine an exact resting place before a submersible is sent down to find wreckage."We do have a hi

 BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese authorities say a Cathay Pacific flight from New York to Hong Kong was stranded for more than 16 hours in a Chinese city because of bad weather and limits on the crew's work hours.Flight 831 was diverted to the southern city of Zhuhai on the night of March 30 because of a hail storm. According to the customs district in Zhuhai, the plane was left sitting on the tarmac for hours until Cathay Pacific sent it a new flight crew because of work-hour limits on the first crew.A

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sylvia Mathews Burwell, nominated to run President Barack Obama's much maligned health care overhaul, would bring a wealth of expertise in economics and government management to one of Washington's toughest jobs, even though she has little direct experience in the health care industry.In selecting Burwell to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Obama chose a veteran technocrat who members of both parties say is up to the challenge of running a $1 tril

NEW YORK (AP) -- Two reporters central to revealing the massive U.S. government surveillance effort returned to the United States on Friday for the first time since the story broke and used the occasion to praise their exiled source: Edward Snowden.Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras of The Guardian became a story of their own amid speculation they could be arrested upon arriving at Kennedy Airport. They were instead confronted by only reporters and photographers before fighting through traffic en

NEW YORK (AP) -- Tickets to watch Denzel Washington on Broadway in "A Raisin in the Sun" are hard to come by, but one man managed it -- President Barack Obama.The president and the first lady caught the American masterpiece Friday night at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where it first opened more than 50 years ago. They took their seats to huge applause.There was a 20-minute delay in the beginning of the show when an alarm flooded the theater with a piercing sound. A huge ovation greeted its end.L

HOUSTON (AP) -- A woman was sentenced to life in prison Friday for fatally stabbing her boyfriend with the stiletto heel of her shoe, striking him at least 25 times in the face and head.Ana Trujillo was convicted of murder Tuesday by the same jury for killing 59-year-old Alf Stefan Andersson, a native of Sweden who became a U.S. citizen, during an argument last June at his Houston condominium.Defense attorneys argued that Trujillo, 45, was defending herself from an attack by Andersson, who was a

South Korean President Park Geun-hye met bilaterally with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Monday and discussed ways to expand economic cooperation and exchanges between the two countries, her office said.The meeting took place in The Hague on the sidelines of a global leaders' summit on anti-nuclear terrorism opening later Monday for a two-day run. South Korea hosted the biennial Nuclear Security Summit in 2012 that was initiated by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2010.Park and Rutte noted tha

LONDON (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel began a visit to Britain Thursday, where she will make a historic speech to parliament, hold talks on the EU and Ukraine with Prime Minister David Cameron and take tea with the queen.The eyes of Europe will be on how the continent's most powerful politician deals with Cameron's efforts to win her support for his bid to reform the bloc ahead of a referendum on Britain's membership.Merkel is expected to speak in German when she addresses lawmakers fro