WASHINGTON (AP) ― The Pentagon is planning to restart programs that would fund military training and equipment in Yemen, nearly a year after they were shut down because of escalating chaos in the embattled country.While no agreements have been cemented, U.S. defense officials said as much as $75 million in military assistance could begin to flow later this year. The officials said the Pentagon and State Department are putting together a letter to send to Congress to request the aid be restarted.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) -- A leftist opposition led by one of the few leading politicians in Slovakia to escape voter anger over a major corruption scandal has been propelled back to power in an early parliamentary election, according to almost complete results on Sunday.Smer-Social Democracy of former Prime Minister Robert Fico is a clear winner with 44.8 percent of the vote, or 84 seats in the 150-seat Parliament, with the votes from 5,842 of the 5,956 polling stations counted by the Statist

VATICAN CITY (AFP) ― The Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Benedict XVI jointly prayed for the unity of Christianity in a rare gesture on Saturday despite simmering resentment over the Catholic Church’s move to recruit Anglicans.Anglican leader Rowan Williams and the pope celebrated vespers together in the monastery of San Gregorio al Celio near the Colosseum in Rome and a stone Celtic cross brought from Canterbury was put up in the ancient church.The late pope John Paul II had held ecumenical p

A distraught flight attendant disrupted an American Airlines flight Friday with warnings that it was going to crash, references to the September 11, 2001 attacks and a rant on the carrier's bankruptcy reorganization.Two flight attendants were injured in the incident, which began as the Chicago-bound

At least 145 people are missing and "presumed dead" after an avalanche hit a remote village in Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province last week, the United Nations said Saturday.Afghan officials had earlier in the day put the death toll from a series of avalanches in the province's Shekay di

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The Senate killed Republican-backed attempts to overturn several of President Barack Obama’s environmental and energy policies Thursday as lawmakers worked against a March 31 deadline to keep aid flowing to more than 100,000 transportation construction projects around the country.The two-year, $109 billion transportation bill before the Senate has wide, bipartisan support, but has become a magnet for lawmakers’ favorite causes and partisan gamesmanship. Among the amendments bat

LONDON (AP) ― Two Europeans held hostage in Nigeria by kidnappers claiming ties to al-Qaida were killed before rescuers could free them, authorities said Thursday.The men ― a Briton and an Italian ― were killed by their captors. A Nigerian official said the two died in the crossfire during the rescue attempt, Prime Minister David Cameron said.Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara were taken captive in May. The pair had been working on a bank construction project in Nigeria, a country that has seen

President Hamid Karzai‘s U.S.-backed government is under fire this International Women’s Day, accused of selling out on Afghan women‘s rights as it tries to woo the Taliban into peace talks.Lawmakers, rights organizations and analysts say that the Afghan leader, by endorsing an edict calling women second-class citizens, has endangered hard-won progress in women’s rights since the Taliban fell from power in 2001.The Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization denounced authorities for try

PARIS (AFP) ― Scientists on Wednesday said they had recorded the first real-time images of atoms moving in a molecule, a feat that captured movement lasting less than one millionth of a billionth of a second.The exploit entailed directing an ultra-fast laser onto molecules of nitrogen and of oxygen. Its pulse of light knocked a single electron out of its orbit around one of the atoms.The electron tumbled back onto the molecule, causing a tiny collision that, like ripples in a pond, proved a “bac