YOKOSUKA, Japan (AP) -- The search for seven US Navy sailors who went missing after their destroyer collided with a container ship off the Japanese coast was called off after several bodies were found Sunday in the ship's flooded compartments, including sleeping quarters. Navy divers found "a number of" bodies in the USS Fitzgerald, a day after the destroyer collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship four times its size, said Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the Navy's 7th Fleet.

Defense June 18, 2017

WYOMING, Ohio (AP) -- Over and over, Otto Warmbier apologized and begged -- at first calmly, then choking up and finally in tears -- to be reunited with his family. North Korean officials seated at long tables watched impassively, with cameras rolling and journalists taking notes, as the adventuresome, accomplished 21-year-old college student from suburban Cincinnati talked animatedly about the "severe crime" that had put him there: trying to take a propaganda banner for someone back home, suppo

North Korea June 18, 2017

AVELAR, Portugal (AP) -- Raging forest fires in central Portugal killed at least 58 people, many of them trapped in their cars as flames swept over a road, in what the prime minister on Sunday called "the biggest tragedy of human life that we have known in years." Nearly 60 other people were injured, including four firefighters and a seriously injured minor, Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes told state broadcaster RTP. A lightning strike is believed to have sparked the blaze in the Pedrogao

World June 18, 2017

PARIS (AP) -- French voters are casting ballots Sunday in the final round of parliamentary elections that could clinch President Emmanuel Macron's hold on power, as his fledgling party appears set to rout mainstream rivals and turn politics as usual on its head. Pollsters say that after its dominant performance in last week's first-round vote, Macron's Republic on the Move! party could win up to 450 seats Sunday in the 577-seat National Assembly, the powerful lower chamber. If the steamroller ef

World June 18, 2017

LONDON (AFP) -- Britain begins historic talks Monday on leaving the European Union while still mourning the victims of a devastating fire and reeling from an election that has badly weakened the government.Brexit minister David Davis will travel to Brussels to meet Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, to kick off hugely complex withdrawal negotiations that are expected to conclude within two years.Worried by immigration and loss of sovereignty, Britain last year voted to end its decades-ol

World June 18, 2017

Efforts to end a two-week-old crisis in the Persian Gulf shifted to the US, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson canceling a trip to Mexico to try to end a Saudi-led coalition’s isolation of Qatar.The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the coalition, affirmed a need for a strong Western role in resolving the dispute, telling the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. that any agreement would have to be overseen by "Western allies."Kuwait and Turkey have been trying to mediat

World June 18, 2017

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's foreign minister says there may now be a chance of a "soft" British exit from the European Union that keeps the U.K. in the bloc's single market, but is warning that Britain couldn't pick and choose its conditions. Brexit negotiations start on Monday, with question marks over Britain's approach after Prime Minister Theresa May lost her parliamentary majority in an election meant to strengthen her hand in the talks. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Sunday's Wel

World June 18, 2017

PARIS (AFP) -- French voters went to the polls on Sunday in a parliamentary election set to hand a landslide victory to the centrist party of President Emmanuel Macron which would complete his stunning reset of national politics.The new assembly is due to be transformed with a new generation of lawmakers -- younger, more female and more ethnically diverse -- winning seats in the afterglow of Macron's success in last month's presidential election.The scale of the change is forecast to be so large

World June 18, 2017

Pakistan has revoked the visa of a South Korean national and launched an investigation into him in connection with two Chinese citizens who were recently abducted and killed by the Islamic State, according to local and foreign media reports. The South Korean, only identified as Su, runs a language school in Pakistan where the two Chinese in their 20s are believed to have worked until they were abducted, according to local daily Dawn and other media. Su, who has stayed in Pakistan since 2011 on a

Social Affairs June 18, 2017