BEIJING (AP) ― China’s missing leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, was mentioned Thursday in an official newspaper report, state media’s only reference to him since he dropped from sight 12 days ago, sparking rumors of illness.The Guangxi Daily referred to Xi in its report on the death last week of 102-year-old former general Huang Rong. It said Xi, President Hu Jintao and other top officials had expressed their condolences “through various means,” but gave no other details.Identical reports were car

(MCT)A Michigan woman whose daughter went missing in June 2011 says she will marry a man suspected of killing the child to get more information about her fate.Ariel Courtland told WOOD radio, Grand Rapids, Mich., she will marry Sean Phillips, who was convicted in April of unlawful imprisonment of his daughter with Courtland, Katherine Phillips, who has not been seen since disappearing from her Lud

An effort to posthumously restore the U.S. citizenship of a former autoworker convicted of Nazi war crimes has been dismissed.Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk lived in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. He was convicted in Germany on 28,000 counts of being an accessory to murder at a Polish death camp. He died in March at age 91.A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati rejected the citizenship bid filed by his estate in June, upholding a judge’s ruling in Cleveland. The pan

CAIRO (AP) -- A movie attacking Islam’s prophet Muhammad sparked assaults on U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday. A Libyan security official reported an American was shot to death as protesters burned the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, and in Cairo, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy walls and replaced an American flag with an Islamic banner. 　 It was the first such assaults on U.S. diplomatic facilities in either country, at a time when both Libya and Egypt are stru

SANAA (AFP) ― Yemeni Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed survived a car bomb that hit his convoy on Tuesday killing 12 people, a day after the army announced killing al-Qaida’s branch No. 2.More than 200,000 Yemenis, meanwhile, rallied in the capital demanding the repeal of an immunity granted to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh under a Gulf-brokered deal that eased him out of power in February.The defense minister “escaped an assassination attempt using a bomb-laden car that targeted his

ALEPPO, Syria (AFP) ― Syrian guns pounded rebel positions in Aleppo and heavy fighting rocked the Old City amid a flurry of diplomatic activity Tuesday, as world powers pressed on with the formidable task of seeking an end to the bloodshed.After an eerily quiet morning, a resident reported renewed bombardments of the Kalasseh and Bustan al-Qasr districts in the south, Suleiman al-Halabi in the centre and Bustan al-Basha in the north.“There are clashes now in the Old City,” a mainly Christian are

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The massive teachers’ strike in Chicago offers a high-profile test for the nation’s teachers’ unions, which have seen their political influence threatened as a growing reform movement seeks to improve ailing public schools.The reforms include expanding charter schools, getting private companies involved with failing schools and linking teacher evaluations to student test scores.Union leaders are taking a major stand on teacher evaluations, one of the key issues in the Chicago d

BEIJING (AP) ― Where is president-in-waiting Xi Jinping? Is he nursing a bad back after pulling a muscle in a pick-up soccer game (or maybe in the swimming pool)? Has he been convalescing after narrowly escaping a revenge killing by supporters of ousted local Communist Party boss Bo Xilai? Was he in a car accident? Or is he just really busy getting ready to lead the world’s No. 2 economy ahead of an expected leadership transition next month? Chinese micro-bloggers and overseas websites have come

SANAA, Yemen (AP) ― An airstrike killed al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader in Yemen along with six others traveling with him in one car on Monday, U.S. and Yemeni officials said, a major breakthrough for U.S.-backed efforts to cripple the group in the impoverished Arab nation.Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi national who fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, was killed by a missile after leaving a house in the southern province of Hadramawt, according to Yemeni mi