Syria’s U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force has handed over to Baghdad two Islamic State militants suspected of involvement in mass killings of Iraqi soldiers in 2014, a war monitor said Friday. The report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights came a day after the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said it had brought back to the country three IS members from outside Iraq. The Islamic State group captured an estimated 1,700 Iraqi soldiers after seizing Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in 2014.
A zoo in China has been accused of trying to deceive visitors with a pair of dogs dyed black and white to look like panda bears.
Two hikers who never returned to their camp at Mount Whitney were found dead near the more than 14,500-foot tall peak.
Truck drivers stuck at Egypt's border with Gaza say the food they are taking to the Palestinian enclave could spoil as they wait, exacerbating a hunger crisis among Gazans as war rages on. Israeli forces seized control of the Rafah border crossing this week and are preparing for a widely expected assault on the city next to the frontier where about 1 million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering. Humanitarian workers sounded the alarm this week over the closure of both the Rafah crossing with Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza for aid and people.
The Canadian government is moving to push back the start of a possible strike by railway workers at Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC), an official said on Friday. Workers represented by the Teamsters union last week voted overwhelmingly to strike as early as May 22. Railways are critical to Canada's economy, due to its vast geography and exports of grain, potash and coal.
European stock markets struck fresh record highs Friday on growing hopes that central banks are close to cutting interest rates.The European Central Bank is expected to cut its rates in June.
A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by Democrats that challenged Wisconsin’s witness requirements for absentee voting, a ruling that keeps the law in place with the presidential election six months away. The rules for voting in Wisconsin are of heightened interest given its place as one of a handful of battleground presidential states. Four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point, including the past two.
High interest rates lead more people to borrow money from family. Tech tools can reduce the risks and grief.
A bus veered off a bridge in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, killing at least three people and leaving six others injured on Friday, officials said. The Emergencies Ministry said that rescuers removed nine people from the water, and three of them died. It said four others were in critical condition, and two more were in serious condition.
A campaign video for South Africa’s opposition party showing the country’s flag in flames has stoked tensions just weeks ahead of national elections that are seen as the most pivotal since the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation 30 years ago. The opposition Democratic Alliance says the ad is a symbolic depiction of what it claims will befall the country if the ruling African National Congress, or ANC, forms a coalition with two other parties to remain in power after the May 29 election.
A top Philippine security official demanded Friday the immediate expulsion of Chinese diplomats allegedly behind a reported leak of a phone conversation between one of the diplomats and a Filipino admiral about South China Sea disputes that have strained diplomatic ties. National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said he was backing a call by the Philippine defense chief for Manila's foreign office to take actions against Chinese embassy individuals in Manila "who claim to have recorded an alleged phone conversation between a Chinese diplomat and a military official" in violation of Philippine laws and international diplomatic protocols.
A new generation can learn how to paint happy trees and to make happy accidents with a TV series teaching the Bob Ross -method of painting using some of the prolific artist's work that have never been seen before. Before Ross died in 1995 from cancer, he had completed seven paintings to use in season 32 of “The Joy of Painting." “He was so sick, but he was still working on his next series because he wanted to be able to keep going,” said Joan Kowalski, President of Bob Ross, Inc. Her parents, Annette and Walt Kowalski, co-founded the company with Ross.
Investors are listening out for a parade of Fed speakers to test a growing confidence that a rate cut is on the way.
People in southern Brazil, already reeling from deadly floods, are bracing for more disruption as meteorologists warned of 12 straight hours of heavy rain Friday and more throughout the weekend.
CHICAGO — On the week of her due date, Elibexis Alvarez, a Venezuelan migrant, was preparing to give birth to her first child far away from her parents and the home country she never thought she’d leave.
Malmo, the Swedish city hosting this year’s song contest, is increasingly divided by Eurovision, as protesters prepare to demonstrate over Israel’s war in Gaza.
Russia launched a surprise ground offensive into Ukraine's northeast Kharkiv region on Friday, putting its forces on the attack in a border zone Moscow's troops were pushed back from nearly two years ago.The attack was launched around 5:00 am (0200 GMT), with Russia trying to break through Ukraine's lines under the cover of armoured vehicles, the Ukrainian defence ministry said.
Pro-Palestinian encampments were cleared from at least three college campuses early Friday, marking some of the latest examples of schools using law enforcement to respond to demonstrations that have popped up across the country in recent weeks. Here are the latest developments:
A resignation letter from Miss USA criticizes the leader of the pageant organization.
A European naval force detained six suspected pirates on Friday after they opened fire on an oil tanker traveling through the Gulf of Aden, officials said, likely part of a growing number of piracy attacks emanating from Somalia. The attack on the Marshall Islands-flagged Chrystal Arctic comes as Yemen's Houthi rebels have also been attacking ships traveling through the crucial waterway, the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting them. The pirates shot at the tanker from a small ship “carrying weapons and ladders,” according to the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, which oversees Mideast shipping routes.