BILLINGS, Mont. U.S. officials plan to block new mining claims outside Yellowstone National Park as the Obama administration races in its last days to keep industry out of pristine and environmentally sensitive areas. Mining claims on 30,000 acres north of the nation’s first national park would be prohibited for at least two years while a […]

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN A suicide bomber killed at least 28 people inside a Shiite mosque in the Afghan capital, Kabul, officials and eyewitnesses said. Ismail Kawasi, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry, said today that at least 45 others were wounded in the attack. Kawasi added that at least one small child is among the dead. […]

VIENNA Iran has begun to export excess quantities of a material that could be used in the process to make atomic arms as it moves to end a small but significant violation of a landmark nuclear deal, two diplomats told The Associated Press on today. At issue is heavy water, which is used to cool […]

MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi troops fighting Islamic State militants in the eastern outskirts of Mosul regrouped today in the city’s neighborhoods they recently retook from the extremist group, conducting house- to-house searches and looking for would-be suicide car bombs, a top Iraqi commander said. Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi military’s special forces told The […]

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis is allowing all priests to absolve women of the “grave sin” of abortion, extending indefinitely special permission he had granted for the duration of the just-ended Holy Year of Mercy. Francis wrote in the Apostolic Letter made public by the Vatican today that “there is no sin that God’s mercy cannot […]

JUBA, South Suda Japanese peacekeepers, with a broader mandate to use force, landed in South Sudan today, the first overseas deployment of the country’s troops with those expanded powers in nearly 70 years. Dressed in green camouflage uniform, Squad leader Yoshino Tanaka stepped off the plane at the head of the Japanese group. He was […]

LOS ANGELES As hundreds of names scrolled up the screen after 2012’s “The Avengers,” moviegoers who remained glued to their seats for a taste of the next treat in Marvel’s superhero universe didn’t know one name was missing — that of John Suttles, a truck driver who died helping make the $1.5 billion blockbuster. Every […]

PUKHRAYAN, India The death toll from India’s worst train accident in years rose to 146 today after rescuers used cranes to lift the last of the twisted metal wreckage to check for bodies underneath. About 2,000 workers were clearing the tracks and checking for damage to the rail line in hopes of resuming traffic through […]