Yannis Behrakis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, has died. He was 58.
His death Saturday was confirmed by his employers, Reuters, where he had worked since 1987. Behrakis had long been ill with cancer.
Born in Athens in 1960, Behrakis studied photography at a private school and worked at a studio before fulfilling his lifelong dream to become a photojournalist. Since early 1989, he had been on assignments across Europe, the Mideast, Asia and Africa, often in conflict zones.
In 2000, he was ambushed in Sierra Leone, likely by rebels, and barely escaped along with Reuters' co-worker Mark Chisholm. Their Reuters colleague Kurt Schork, Behrakis' close friend, and AP cameraman Miguel Gil Moreno were killed.
Behrakis led a team of Reuters photographers to the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, covering the refugee crisis.
One of his photos from that assignment, a Syrian carrying his young daughter in his arms during a storm and kissing her, was one of his favorites. He used it as a background ..

Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Yannis Behrakis dead at 58

PTI Automatic

South Korea and the US are eliminating their massive springtime military drills and replacing them with smaller exercises in what they call an effort to support diplomacy aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis.
The decision announced by both countries Sunday came after President Donald Trump complained about the cost of joint drills even as his high-stakes second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un collapsed last week.
The drills' cancellation is an olive branch to North Korea, which has viewed them as an invasion rehearsal. But some experts say it will likely weaken the allies' military readiness amid worries that tensions erupt again in the wake of the failed nuclear summit in Vietnam.
The Pentagon said in a release that the U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs decided to conclude the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle series of exercises. It said the allies agreed to maintain firm military readiness through newly designed command post exercises and revised field ...

US, South Korea end spring military drills to back diplomacy

In a slashing speech packed with braggadocio and grievance, President Donald Trump denounced Democrats as the party of "the socialist nightmare," relitigated his crowd sizes back to the inauguration and took on "sick," ''lunatic" and "dirty" foes at every turn, earning him the unvarnished adoration of cheering conservatives.
After a trying week of tumult and setbacks, Trump delivered a stemwinder Saturday that extended beyond two hours and hardly left him winded.
Trump let loose against House Democrats, who are broadening their investigations of him, predicted he would win re-election by a greater margin than his 2016 victory, taunted his potential White House challengers and sounded themes that are staples of his rallies.
He complained often of getting "no credit" for his achievements as he proudly drifted "off script" at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
His remarks capped a week that saw his nuclear summit with North Korea's leader collapse without an agreement, his ...

Trump delivers a slashing speech that rouses the right

SpaceX's new crew capsule has arrived at the International Space Station, acing its second milestone in just over a day.
No one was aboard the Dragon capsule launched Saturday on its first test flight, only an instrumented dummy. But the three station astronauts had front-row seats as the Dragon neatly docked Sunday morning and became the first American-made, designed-for-crew spacecraft to pull up in eight years.
If the six-day demo goes well, SpaceX could launch two astronauts this summer under NASA's commercial crew program. Both astronauts were at SpaceX Mission Control in California, observing all the action.
While SpaceX has sent plenty of cargo Dragons to the space station, crew Dragon is a different beast. It docked autonomously, instead of relying on the station's robot arm for help.

SpaceX's new crew capsule aces space station docking

Malaysia's transport minister says the government is open to proposals to resume the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, as families of passengers marked the fifth anniversary of the jet's disappearance.
The US firm Ocean Infinity mounted a "no cure, no fee" search for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean in January 2018 that ended in May without any clues.
But Ocean Infinity's CEO, Oliver Plunkett, said in a video shown at the public remembrance event Sunday in Kuala Lumpur that the company hopes to resume the search with better technology obtained in the past year.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the government "is waiting for specific proposals, in particular from Ocean Infinity," to resume the search for the plane, which vanished March 8, 2014, with 239 people aboard.

5 years on, Malaysia open to proposals to resume MH370 hunt

A new photo of an Iranian opposition leader and his activist wife who have been held under house arrest for eight years is spreading on social media in the country.
The Twitter account of the reformist Etemad daily published the image early on Sunday of Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, without a story. The photo was not published in the paper's Sunday edition.
Authorities have banned media from publishing their images after they were put under house arrest in 2011. Mousavi emerged as opposition leader during Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, already under fire by hard-liners for his unraveling nuclear deal, faces criticism from reformists over failing to free the two as he had pledged during his election campaigns in 2013 and 2017.

Photo of Iran opposition leader, wife shared despite ban

A UN humanitarian agency says at least 20 people died as heavy rains and flooding over the past few days swept away their homes and cars in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Saturday night that at least 10 people, including children, remain missing.
OCHA's statement says up to 2,000 homes are believed to have been damaged.
The local governor's office says the flooding was the worst in Kandahar in at least seven years and that heavy snowfall continues, hampering rescue efforts.
Heavy snowfall across Afghanistan this winter has cut off many areas and raised fears of severe flood in the spring. So far this year, nearly 50 people died in floods.

UN says heavy rains, floods kill 20 in southern Afghanistan

Authorities say two people have been killed and six injured after being struck by a vehicle on a busy New Orleans thoroughfare.
Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson tells local media that a suspect is in custody following the incident that happened about 8 pm Saturday along a multiple-block stretch of Esplanade Ave.
Ferguson says the suspect is being tested to determine whether he was intoxicated. His identity was not released.
EMS spokesman Jonathan Fourcade says a man and a woman  both about 30 years old  were killed. The injured ranged in ages from 28 to 65.
The incident happened not far from the Endymion parade, one of the city's biggest Mardi Gras parades.

New Orleans police: 2 killed, 6 injured after car hits crowd

The acclaimed Irish-born architect Kevin Roche has died, leaving his mark on world-class buildings from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the city's Museum of Jewish Heritage to airports in New York and Washington.
A spokesman for his architectural firm says Roche died Friday at 96 of natural causes at his home in Guilford, Connecticut.
Roche designed more than 200 buildings around the world, winning the Pritzker prize  the equivalent of the Nobel for architecture.
His work includes corporate headquarters, scientific research facilities, plus theaters, a zoo, and various new wings for the Met museum along with a master plan.
In his native Ireland, he created the Convention Centre Dublin.  Roche studied with another architectural luminary, Mies van der Roe, and collaborated with the Finnish-born Eero Saarinen.

Pritzker Prize, Irish-born architect Kevin Roche dies

Taliban insurgents targeted an Afghan army corps at their camp in the southern Helmand province, killing at least 23, officials said Saturday.
Omar Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, said 20 other troops were wounded in the attack that began Friday and ended Saturday evening after a 40-hour battle in the Wahser district.
The death toll could rise after a final assessment, added Zwak.
As many as 40 security forces may have been killed, according to a provincial official who spoke anonymously as he was not authorized to brief the media.
Zwak added that military vehicles and offices were damaged by blasts and shooting in the attack.
Qari Yusouf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said in a statement that the insurgent group was responsible for the attack, which came even as Taliban negotiators met for talks with a U.S. peace envoy in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar.
He said Taliban fighters engaged both Afghan and foreign forces inside the camp and killed "scores."
Zwak said U.S. ...

Official: Taliban target army corps, killing 23 soldiers

It has been a wrenching season for three of America's largest religious denominations, as sex-abuse scandals and a schism over LGBT inclusion fuel anguish and anger within the Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist and United Methodist churches.
There's rising concern that the crises will boost the ranks of young people disillusioned by organized religion.
"Every denomination is tremendously worried about retaining or attracting young people," said Stephen Schneck, a political science professor at Catholic University.
"The sex-abuse scandals will have a spillover effect on attitudes toward religion in general. I don't think any denomination is going to not take a hit."
For the U.S. Catholic church, the clergy sex-abuse scandal that has unfolded over two decades expanded dramatically in recent months. Many dioceses have become targets of investigations since a Pennsylvania grand jury report in August detailed hundreds of cases of alleged abuse.
In mid-February, former Cardinal Theodore ...

3 big US churches in turmoil over sex abuse, LGBT policy

Thousands of French yellow vests protested Saturday for a 16th straight weekend in Paris and other cities to show they are keeping up momentum against the government's economic policies they see as favouring the rich.
In Paris, more than a thousand protesters marched peacefully through well-off western neighbourhoods of the capital, starting from the Arc de Triomphe monument to reach a southern plaza. The demonstration was placed under tight security.
Police forces were dispersing dozens of protesters who remained near the Champs-Elysees avenue.
Many other rallies were organized across the country. Some brief scuffles between protesters and police broke out in the cities of Lyon, Lille and Nantes, but no serious injuries were reported.
Organizers said they want to maintain pressure on the government as a two-month "grand debate" initiated by Macron to let ordinary French people express their views on the country's economic and democratic issues is ending this month.
Sophie Tissier, a .

French yellow vests protest for 16th straight weekend

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that the head of the European Union's executive branch has her full support in the face of a new Hungarian government campaign alleging that EU headquarters has purposely weakened the bloc's external borders to let in more migrants.
The campaign by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government, launched ahead of European Parliament elections in May, has added to long-running tensions between Budapest and Brussels.
Government posters featuring EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Hungarian-American financier George Soros have recently started appearing in Hungary and in the country's newspapers and magazines.
They claim that EU leaders, who Orban says are carrying out instructions from Soros, "are launching experimental immigration projects with African countries; want to introduce mandatory settlement quotas; want to reduce financial assistance for countries opposed to migration."
EU leaders have rejected the claims, ...

Germany's Merkel offers Juncker solidarity in Hungary spat

A little indigo, a handful of ash and time.
The dye pits in Nigeria's ancient northern city of Kano are said to be the last ones of their kind after five centuries of existence.
Many pits at Kofar Mata appear to be abandoned as the sons who inherit the tradition decide to pursue government jobs or other business instead, forgetting the skills passed down through generations.
The men who remain, squatting over the pits with sturdy gloves and endless patience, produce the intensely blue fabrics that are internationally renowned.
The homespun cloth, hung to dry on razor wire topping the walls around the pits, ranges from sky blue to darkest night and comes in romantically named designs: moon and shadow, moon and star, three baskets (standing for wealth, education and power).
The dye pits, founded in 1498, attracted travelers and traders from across the vast Sahel region to the Kano emirate, helping to make the city one of the most prosperous in West Africa at the time.
The fabrics are ...

Indigo, ash and time mark Nigeria's centuries-old dye pits

Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg is joining Belgian students who are skipping classes for the seventh Thursday in a row to march through Brussels to draw more attention to fighting climate change.
The 16-year-old Thunberg first addressed a European Union conference, chiding adults for their inaction in the face of such climatic global dangers.
She said youngsters are being forced to skip school and protest because adults are not addressing climate issues quickly enough.
She told the European Economic and Social Committee plenary session that "we are school striking because we have done our homework" on the dangers facing the Earth.
Thunberg has become her generation's voice on climate change after inspiring students around the world to go on strike to express their anger and angst over global warming.

Swedish teen leads Belgian students on 7th climate march

US-backed Syrian forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria handed over more than 150 Iraqi members of the group to Iraq, the first batch of several to come, an Iraqi security official said Thursday.
The official said the IS militants were handed over to the Iraqi side late Wednesday, and that they were now in a "safe place" and being investigated.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the Kurdish-led Syrian fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, are holding more than 20,000 Iraqis suspected of IS membership in prisons in northern Syria.
The handover comes as the US-backed Syrian force is involved in a standoff over the final IS-held sliver of land in southeastern Syria, close to the Iraqi border.
Dozens of people, many of them women and children, were evacuated Wednesday from the group's tiny tent camp on the banks of the Euphrates River, signaling an imminent end to the territorial rule of the militants self-declared ...

More than 150 IS militants handed over to Iraq from Syria

German media report that two men have died after a shooting in Munich.
Police in the Bavarian capital said Thursday that the situation is "under control" and there is currently no danger to the public.
The Munich daily tz reported the shooting happened on a building site. It quoted an unnamed police spokesperson as saying authorities are working on the assumption that one man shot dead another and then killed himself.

2 killed in Munich shooting, police say no danger to public

Iran's navy says it will hold an annual drill in the strategic Strait of Hormuz as pressure mounts on the country months after the United States re-imposed sanctions on Iran, targeting its vital oil sector.
The strait is located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and is crucial to global energy supplies, with about a third of all oil traded at sea passing through it.
Iranian Adm. Hossein Khanzadi told state TV on Thursday the 3-day maneuvers will start on Friday and extend as far as the Sea of Oman and the fringes of the Indian Ocean.
He said submarines, warships, helicopters and surveillance planes will participate in the drill, dubbed as "Velayat-97."
The exercise will include missile launches from the vessels.
Iran regularly holds maneuvers in the strait.

Iran announces another navy drill in key Strait of Hormuz

A Japanese spacecraft is approaching the surface of an asteroid about 280 million kilometres from Earth.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said Thursday that Hayabusa2 began its approach at 1:15 p.m.
The start was delayed for about five hours for a safety check, but the unmanned craft is still is due to touch down as scheduled on Friday morning.
It will attempt to collect material from the asteroid that could provide clues about the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.
The landing will require precision. Hayabusa2 is aiming for a 6-metre-wide strip to avoid obstacles on the asteroid's surface.
The asteroid is about 900 metres in diameter. It is named Ryugu after an undersea palace in a Japanese folktale.

Japanese spacecraft to attempt landing on distant asteroid

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in China on Thursday on the latest stop of a sweep through Asia that aims to expand the kingdom's influence on the continent.
Prince Mohammed touched down in the morning following earlier visits to India and Pakistan.
He's due to meet officials including the Chinese president and ruling Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, on Friday, highlighting Saudi Arabia's importance as one of China's top oil suppliers and a market for its exports, including military drones.
Prince Mohammed's visit to Beijing follows one earlier this week by a high-powered delegation from Saudi Arabia's chief strategic rival Iran. At a meeting Wednesday, Xi told Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani that "China's resolve to develop a comprehensive strategic partnership with Iran will remain unchanged," regardless of the evolving international situation, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.
The trip comes five months after the crown prince came under ...

Saudi crown prince in China on latest stop of Asian tour

An Alabama woman who joined the Islamic State group in Syria won't be allowed to return to the United States with her toddler son because she is not an American citizen, the US said Wednesday.
Her lawyer is challenging that claim.
In a brief statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave no details as to how the administration made their determination.
"Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States," he said. "She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport nor any visa to travel to the United States."
But Hassan Shibly, a lawyer for the woman, insisted Muthana was born in the United States and had a valid passport before she joined the Islamic State in 2014. He says she has renounced the terrorist group and wants to come home to protect her 18-month-old son regardless of the legal consequences.
"She's an American. Americans break the law," said Shibly, a lawyer with the Florida chapter of the Council on ...

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