DAMASCUS (AFP) ― Israel carried out a rocket attack on the Jamraya scientific research center in Damascus overnight, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported Sunday.The agency did not say whether there were any wounded or dead.The “Israeli attack aims at loosening the noose around the terrorists in the eastern Ghouta” region, near Damascus, Syrian television added.There was no immediate comment from the White House in Washington on the reported attack.If confirmed, the attack would be Israe

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ The death toll from the collapse of a shoddily built garment-factory building in Bangladesh continued its horrifying climb, reaching 580 on Sunday with little sign of what the final number will be.It has been well over a week since the April 24 disaster, but each of the last several days has seen 20 or so bodies pulled from the mangled concrete, and sometimes much more than that.The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few indus

ATLANTA (AP) ― Actress Reese Witherspoon pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge and paid a $100 fine after berating a law enforcement officer while her husband was given a sobriety test ― an embarrassing exchange caught on a dashboard camera after the usually squeaky-clean Hollywood star had what she called “one too many’’ glasses of wine.The video, which was first obtained by TMZ and publicly released by authorities Friday, shows Witherspoon asking the Georgia state trooper after she

NEW YORK (AP) _ Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor and author, apologized on Saturday for saying economist John Maynard Keynes was less invested in the future because he was gay and had no children.The British-born Ferguson said his remarks at an earlier conference were ``as stupid as they were insensitive.''During a question-and-answer session after a prepared speech at the Altegris Strategic Investment conference in Carlsbad, California on Thursday, Ferguson was asked to comment about

Alone in the single-seat cockpit and high above the American Southwest, pilot Bertrand Piccard could hear only his plane's gear box and the quiet whine of four electric motors. No noisy jet engines.He's flying Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced sun-powered plane.Piccard piloted the craft for 20 hours, first cruising along the California coast after taking off from Moffett Field in Mountain View near San Francisco just after dawn Friday. He passed over Edwards Air Force Base, whe

A candidate running for Pakistan's national assembly at historic polls next week was shot dead on Friday along with his three-year-old son in Karachi, police said.It is the first time that a national assembly candidate has been killed in Pakistan's election campaign. Campaigning has been marred by Taliban threats and attacks, which have killed 62 people since April 11, according to an AFP tally.Saddiq Zaman Khattak was a candidate for the Awami National Party (ANP), the leading secular party in

Gunmen killed Pakistan's lead prosecutor investigating the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto as he was driving to court Friday, throwing a case that also involves the country's former ruler Pervez Musharraf into disarray.The killing in the capital, Islamabad, comes at a sensitive time in Pakistan, as the country prepares for nationwide elections on May 11 amid a spate of Taliban attacks on candidates. In the southern city of Karachi, gunmen on motorcycles killed an anti-Talib

VATICAN CITY (AFP) ― Two months after his historic resignation, Benedict XVI returned to the Vatican on Thursday, where he will live in a former monastery in an unprecedented arrangement that will see a pope and a former pope both housed in the tiny state.It was a relatively low-key return for the 86-year-old pope emeritus, off-limits to all but the Vatican’s own media service. The service announced shortly after his arrival that expected video coverage would not be provided, sparking doubts ove

More than 130 people have been killed in the latest outbreak of tribal fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region, a tribal leader said on Friday."Fighting was going on until last night and from our side we have 37 dead," said the leader of the Beni Halba tribe, who claimed that more than 100 members of the rival Gimir group were also killed.A Gimir official could not immediately be reached.The Beni Halba leader, who declined to be named, said a land dispute caused the fighting in Edd al-Fursan,

The United States said Thursday it was taking a fresh look at whether to arm Syria's rebels as the Damascus regime pressed an assault on opposition forces in the embattled city of Homs.After having rejected the idea previously, President Barack Obama's deputies were weighing the option of providing weapons to Syria's outgunned opposition, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters.Asked whether the U.S. government was rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels, Hagel replied with a firm "Y

NEW DELHI (AP) ― The platoon of Chinese soldiers slipped across the boundary into India in the middle of the night, according to Indian officials. They were ferried across the bitterly cold moonscape in Chinese army vehicles, then got out to traverse a dry creek bed with a helicopter hovering overhead for protection. They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in the barren Depsang Valley in the Ladakh region, a symbolic claim of sovereignty deep inside Indian-held territory. So st

ISLAMABAD (AP) ― A convicted Indian spy who was on Pakistan’s death row died from a head injury after two inmates attacked him with a brick, state TV said Thursday. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said his government would arrange to bring Sarabjit Singh’s remains home and for his last rites to be conducted in consultation with his family. The statement called it “particularly regrettable” that Pakistan did not heed pleas to take a humanitarian view of the prisoner’s case. It’s unclear how