ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The Afghan Taliban are ready to free a U.S. soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay as a conciliatory gesture, a senior spokesman for the group said today. The offer follows this week’s official opening of a Taliban political office in […]

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will honor its controversial contract to deliver S-300 airdefense missile systems to Syria, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said today. “We respect all our contracts and are honoring all our contractual obligations,” Lavrov said in an interview with state-run Rossiya 24 TV. “As yet, the contracts are not finished, they have not […]

DUBLIN (AP) — A torch lit from the eternal flame at President John F. Kennedy’s graveside has arrived in Ireland ahead of ceremonies planned to mark the 50th anniversary of his 1963 visit. The flame was flown from the United States and arrived today in a specially designed miner’s lamp identical to the one used […]

PARIS (AP) — France is giving Google three months to be more upfront about the data it collects from users — or be fined. The legal action accelerates a Europe-wide fight against Google over its use of personal data. While the fines threatened are small by the standards of one of the world’s richest companies, […]

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Norway’s Parliament has opened up a new area on the fringe of the Arctic Ocean to offshore oil drilling despite protests from opponents who fear catastrophic oil spills in the remote and icy region. Most of the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea, which the Nordic country shares with Russia, is already […]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A domestic situation apparently prompted the midweek shooting at a condominium complex in an upscale Louisville neighborhood that claimed three lives and left a fourth person badly wounded, police said. Louisville Metro Police spokesman Dwight Mitchell identified the dead from the shooting Wednesday afternoon as a girl, a 38-year-old woman and […]

EVERGREEN, Colo. (AP) — Dozens of homes were evacuated near Denver as a winddriven wildfire flared, one of many in the western states where hot and windy conditions were making it easy for the wild land blazes to start and spread. The fire in the foothills about 30 miles southwest of Denver forced evacuations Wednesday […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI uses drones for surveillance of stationary subjects, and the privacy implications of such operations are “worthy of debate,” FBI Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday. He said the law enforcement agency very seldom uses drones now, but is developing guidelines that will shape how unmanned aerial vehicles are to be used. […]