Restaurant torched in 4th night of Sweden riots
STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Groups of youths have burnt down a restaurant, torched more than 30 cars and injured three police in a fourth night of riots in suburbs of the Swedish capital that started following a fatal police shooting.... 5/23/2013 8:58 AM

5 dead in Lebanon clash of Assad foes, backers
BEIRUT (AP) -- Opponents and supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad traded heavy machine gun fire and mortar shells in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli, leaving five people dead in what was described as some of the heaviest fighting there in years, officials said Thursday.... 5/23/2013 8:58 AM

Father of man shot in Boston probe shares regrets
GROZNY, Russia (AP) -- The father of a Chechen immigrant shot dead by U.S. law enforcement agents while being questioned about his ties to a Boston Marathon bombings suspect said Thursday that he regrets allowing his son to go to the United States.... 5/23/2013 8:54 AM

El Salvador presses pope on Romero beatification
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- El Salvador's president gave Pope Francis a relic of assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero on Thursday amid mounting indications that the Vatican might soon move to beatify him.... 5/23/2013 8:49 AM

Britain: Soldier slaying suspects had been probed
LONDON (AP) -- Two men accused of butchering a British soldier had featured in previous investigations by security services, a British official said Thursday, as investigators searched several locations and tried to determine whether the men were part of a wider plot to instill terror on the streets of London.... 5/23/2013 8:48 AM

Russian court denies Pussy Riot's Alekhina parole
MOSCOW (AP) -- A Russian court has denied parole to a member of the Pussy Riot punk group.... 5/23/2013 8:47 AM

Russia wary of deeper nuclear arms cuts
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's top military officer has voiced skepticism about deeper nuclear arms cuts, saying they should require parallel cuts in non-nuclear precision weapons.... 5/23/2013 8:42 AM

Car bomb kills 12 in southwest Pakistan
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) -- A Taliban car bomb targeting a police vehicle killed 11 policemen and one civilian Thursday in an area of southwest Pakistan wracked by Islamic militancy and a violent separatist insurgency, police said.... 5/23/2013 8:38 AM

North Korea envoy awaits chat with China's leader
BEIJING (AP) -- On a visit to repair ties with China and waiting to meet its leader, a North Korean envoy Thursday paid deference to its chief ally's hopes for renewed multinational nuclear talks.... 5/23/2013 8:30 AM

20 killed in 2 simultaneous car bombs in Niger
NIAMEY, Niger (AP) -- Niger's defense minister announced that 20 Nigerien soldiers were killed and another 16 injured when a suicide bomber detonated a car loaded with explosives inside a military installation in the city of Agadez on Thursday.... 5/23/2013 8:23 AM

German opposition party marks bittersweet 150th
BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's main opposition party marked a bittersweet 150th birthday on Thursday - trailing badly in polls ahead of September elections and hearing praise for its efforts to reform Europe's biggest economy from French President Francois Hollande, a recent left-wing winner who has lost his luster.... 5/23/2013 9:04 AM

IMF head Lagarde in court in fraud probe
PARIS (AP) -- International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde is facing questions at a special Paris court Thursday over her role in the 400 million euro ($520 million) pay-off to a controversial businessman when she was France's finance minister.... 5/23/2013 7:57 AM

Brave woman tried to reason with London attackers
LONDON (AP) -- A brave scout leader who may have prevented further violence has emerged as an unlikely hero in the apparent terror attack that left one man dead on the streets of London.... 5/23/2013 7:57 AM

Bulgaria: Ex-PM fails to form new government
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) -- A former prime minister whose party won Bulgaria's May 12 election says his party doesn't have enough seats in parliament to form a stable government.... 5/23/2013 7:38 AM

Gunmen kill 4 Iraqi soldiers north of Baghdad
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraqi officials say gunmen have shot dead four soldiers at an army checkpoint north of Baghdad.... 5/23/2013 7:38 AM

Japanese climber, 80, becomes oldest atop Everest
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- An 80-year-old Japanese man who has had four heart operations in recent years became the oldest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest on Thursday - although his record may last only a few days. An 81-year-old Nepalese man, who held the previous record, plans his own ascent next week.... 5/23/2013 7:36 AM

Czech police seek US man suspected of 4 murders
PRAGUE (AP) -- An American man suspected of killing four people is on the run in the Czech Republic and likely armed, officials said Thursday.... 5/23/2013 7:27 AM

Japan gyrations underline economy's vulnerability
TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's financial markets gyrated wildly Thursday, underscoring the vulnerability of its economy to a loss of investor confidence as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attempts shock monetary easing to end two decades of stagnation.... 5/23/2013 7:25 AM

US family leaves Singapore frustrated with inquest
SINGAPORE (AP) -- The parents of an American software engineer found dead in his Singapore apartment last year left the city-state Thursday before the end of a coroner's inquest, saying they had lost faith in the process. Their lawyer said they would push for a U.S. congressional investigation.... 5/23/2013 7:05 AM

US, Israel raise hopes for Mideast peace restart
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The United States and Israel raised hopes Thursday for a restart of the Middle East peace process, despite little tangible progress so far from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's two-month-old effort to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.... 5/23/2013 7:02 AM