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

BEIJING -- The top nuclear envoys of South Korea and China discussed North Korea's recent nuclear threat and agreed to bolster "strategic cooperation" to prevent Pyongyang from carrying out its fourth nuclear test, a Seoul diplomat said Saturday.Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul's chief envoy to the six-party talks that also involve the United States, North Korea, Russia and Japan, held talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, in Beijing on Friday. The meeting came on the heels of three-way talks with

North Korea launched scathing verbal attacks against South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Saturday, calling her unification initiatives unveiled in March in Germany "irrelevant and nonsensical."In her "Dresden Declaration" made last month in the former East German city of the same name, Park unveiled a package of proposals calling for bolstering exchanges with the North, including Seoul's humanitarian aid projects for the impoverished North, as she pushed to end the Korean Peninsula's six-dec

With less than 20 days to go, South Korea's southern island of Wando is putting the final touches to the country's first international seaweed-themed expo, organizers said Tuesday.The Wando Seaweeds Expo 2014 will be held on Wando, a remote island off the nation's southwestern coast, from April 11 for a month, organizers said. The expo, under the theme of "seaweeds and their role in mankind's future," will provide a chance to raise awareness of the importance of seaweed as an alternative food so

A group of North Korean defectors floated hundreds of thousands of propaganda leaflets into the communist nation Tuesday, denouncing Pyongyang for its deadly sinking of a South Korean warship four years ago.The event came on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the March 26 sinking that killed 46 South Korean sailors near the western sea border with North Korea."Now that four years have passed since the sinking of the Cheonan, the government has started to show less interest, while North Korea s

South Korean small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should brace for possible volatility in the currency market as economic uncertainties are growing, local observers said Tuesday.At a meeting of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), analysts said that currency risks have been rising due to the U.S. Federal Reserve's tapering of its bond-buying program, slowing growth in China and the weakening of the Japanese yen, posing a threat to SMEs here.Bae Min-keun, an economist at LG Economic Research

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye had her foreign minister attend on her behalf a banquet hosted by the Dutch king for world leaders participating in an international nuclear security summit as she was feeling unwell, her spokesman said.Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se attended Monday's banquet hosted by Dutch King Willem Alexander for leaders from 53 countries and four international organizations attending this week's Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, presidential

South Korean sci-fi thriller "Snowpiercer" took second place in the Chinese box office, posting a strong 8.2 billion won (US$7.5 million) in the opening week, the film's distributor said Tuesday.Released last Monday throughout China, the film was ranked No. 2 on the Chinese box office with 8.2 billion won, following 3-D Hollywood action film "Need for Speed," CJ E&M Corp. said, citing a Chinese box-office tracker.It marks the best opening for South Korean films released in China. "Snowpiercer" b