GAZA CITY (AP) ― Gaza residents said Saturday that Israel has eased some border restrictions as part of its truce with the Palestinian territory’s Hamas rulers, allowing farmers to visit land near its security fence and letting fishermen head further out to sea.The Egyptian-brokered cease-fire ended eight days of cross-border fighting that claimed 166 Palestinian and six Israeli lives, according to health officials.As part of the deal, Israel and Hamas are now to negotiate a further easing of th

CAIRO (AP) ― Egypt’s highest body of judges slammed on Saturday a recent decision by the president to grant himself near-absolute power, calling the move an “unprecedented assault” on the judiciary.The statement from the Supreme Judicial Council came as hundreds protested outside a downtown courthouse against Thursday’s declaration by President Mohammed Morsi. The president’s decision means that courts cannot overrule his decrees until a new constitution and parliament is in place, several month

SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts (AP) ― Preliminary investigations show more than 40 buildings were damaged in a natural gas explosion in Massachusetts that injured 18 people, building inspectors said Saturday.A strip club was flattened and a day care center was heavily damaged in the massive blast Friday night in Springfield, one of New England’s biggest cities.Investigators were trying Saturday to figure out what caused the blast that could be heard for miles, left a large hole in the ground where t

CAIRO (AFP) -- Defiant Egyptian judges hit back at President Mohamed Morsi on Saturday, demanding he reverse a decree giving himself sweeping powers that put him beyond judicial oversight and calling for a nationwide strike.Egypt's Judges Club, a body that represents judges throughout the country, called for "the suspension of work in all courts and prosecution administrations," after several hours of emergency talks in response to what they called Morsi's "ferocious attack on Egyptian justice."

A bomb exploded near a Shiite religious procession in northwest Pakistan on Saturday killing seven people including four children, hospital officials said.At least 30 people including five other children were also wounded when the remote controlled bomb packed with ball bearings exploded on the outskirts of Dera Ismail Khan city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.The blast went off as people from the minority Shiite Muslim community were gathering to mark the anniversary of the death of the Prophet

GAZA CITY (AP) _ Israeli troops fired on Gazans surging toward Israel's border fence Friday, killing one person but leaving intact the fragile two-day-old cease-fire between Hamas and the Jewish state.The truce, which calls for an end to Gaza rocket fire on Israel and Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, came after eight days of cross-border fighting, the bloodiest between Israel and Hamas in four years.In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, the Palestinian U.N. observer Riyad Mansour called the situa

LONDON (AP) ― The BBC chose a former head of its news division Thursday to lead the broadcaster through a “long, hard look” at itself as it struggles to recover from a scandal stemming from its coverage of child sex abuse. Tony Hall, currently chief executive of the Royal Opera House, will start his new job as BBC’s new director-general in March, Chris Patten, chairman of the governing BBC Trust, said. Hall, 61, worked at the BBC for 28 years, including a decade as director of news before taking

Japanese police rescued four hostages from a bank Friday and arrested the knife-wielding man who had held them captive for more than 12 hours while demanding the prime minister resign, officials said.In a televised news conference, a police spokesman said the hostage-taker, identified as Koji Nagakubo, was arrested on suspicion of taking a total of five people captive, including one person whom he had released earlier.All the hostages were safe and in protective custody following the pre-dawn po

Argentina has finally run out of wiggle room in a billion-dollar showdown over foreign debts unpaid since the country's world-record default a decade ago, and the stakes couldn't be higher for President Cristina Fernandez. Late Wednesday, a U.S. federal judge in New York ordered Argentina to pay immediately and in full everything it owes to what Fernandez calls ``vulture funds'' that she blames for much of her country's troubles. That adds up to $1.3 billion, due by Dec. 15. The judge also barre

JERUSALEM (AFP) ― Israel and the United States have agreed to work together to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Iran to militant groups in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday. “Israel cannot sit idly by as its enemies strengthen themselves with weapons of terror so I agreed with President (Barack) Obama that we will work together ― Israel and the United States ― against the smuggling of weapons to terror organizations, most of which comes from Iran,” he said

GOMA (AFP) ― Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday claimed control of a town outside the captured city of Goma and threatened to continue their push all the way to Kinshasa, as the U.N. accused them of carrying out summary executions.“We are not going to stop at Goma, we will go as far as Bukavu, Kisangani and Kinshasa,” M23 spokesman Vianney Kazarama told a crowd massed at a stadium in Goma a day after the rebels overran the eastern city with little or no resistance from U.N.