Updated: Tue, Apr 30, 2013

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A civilian cargo plane owned by an American company crashed at Bagram Air Field, north of the Afghan capital, soon after takeoff on Monday, killing all seven people aboard, the U.S.-led military coalition said. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for downing...

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

ROME (AP) — Italy's new government easily passed its first confirmation vote Monday in Parliament after Premier Enrico Letta made concessions to his uneasy coalition allies, promising to ease part of a slate of austerity measures that have weighed on Italians impatient at the slow pace of...

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's prime minister narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in the heart of the heavily defended capital Monday, state media said, laying bare the vulnerability of President Bashar Assad's regime. The bombing, which killed several other people, highlights an...

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

DAHSHOUR, Egypt (AP) — Egyptian youths protested Monday at a key historic site, demanding that authorities put a stop to looting and construction that threatens one of the nation's oldest pyramids and burial grounds. Illegal construction of a new cemetery has been going on for months in part...

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured stunning views of a monster hurricane at Saturn's North Pole. The eye of the cyclone is an enormous 1,250 miles across. That's 20 times larger than the typical eye of a hurricane here on Earth. And it's spinning super-fast....

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African President Jacob Zuma said he found Nelson Mandela "in good shape and in good spirits" Monday, but a video of his encounter with the ailing anti-apartheid icon belies those cheery words, showing him with a vacant look on his face. It's been more than three...

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix thanked her people Monday and urged them to support her son, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, in a final address before she abdicates and he takes over as king. Beatrix, 75, is to sign the papers enacting the once-in-a-generation change of royal...

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

PARIS (AP) — A member of the French special forces has been killed by a roadside bomb in Mali, the sixth Frenchman to die since the Jan. 11 start of France's military campaign to rid the west African country's north of al-Qaida-linked militants. A Defense Ministry statement says that two...

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

DUBLIN (AP) — A paralyzed Irish woman who wants to die cannot legally commit suicide with her partner's help, Ireland's Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case that moved some in the courtroom to tears. The seven-judge court said nothing in the country's Catholic-influenced 1937 constitution...

Updated: Mon, Apr 29, 2013

BAGHDAD (AP) — A wave of car bomb blasts tore through Shiite areas south of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 36 and deepening fears that Iraq is rapidly spiraling back out of control. The attacks capped a week of turmoil that is posing the greatest test of Iraq's stability since U.S....