International

(BBC) A five-mile (8km) section of the Mississippi River near St Louis, Missouri, has been closed to vessels as rising water levels caused "hazardous conditions", the US Coast Guard said. Storms and tornadoes have lashed the region in…

A Guyana-born cardiologist was sentenced to 20 years in prison on December 18, 2015, for performing unnecessary catheterizations, tests, stent insertions and causing unnecessary coronary artery bypass surgeries as part of a scheme to…

(BBC) A US grand jury has decided not to bring charges against a white policeman over the killing of a 12-year-old black boy armed with a toy gun. A local prosecutor in Ohio state, Tim McGinty, called the events that led to the death of…

(BBC) Israel has warned Brazil it will downgrade relations unless it accepts a former head of the Jewish settlement movement as its ambassador in Brasilia. Argentina-born Dani Dayan was appointed four months ago but his nomination has not…

(BBC) Carlos Rosales Mendoza, the founder of one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels, has been killed. Rosales Mendoza's body was found along with three other bodies by a motorway in western Mexico. All four victims had been shot dead,…

(BBC) Two journalists arrested in Ethiopia this month should be freed, an international press freedom group says. The detentions come amid deadly protests over a plan to expand the capital's administrative control into the Oromia region,…

(BBC) A Chicago police officer "accidentally struck and tragically killed" a mother of five after responding to a domestic disturbance, department officials say. Bettie Jones, 55, was killed along with her neighbour, 19-year-old Quintonio…

(BBC) At least 43 people have been killed over the past five days by severe storms across southern and western parts of the United States. Flash floods, tornadoes and now snow have destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses and snarled…

Eleven people have been killed in tornadoes in Texas, police say, raising the death toll to 29 in a week of storms across several US states. At least eight people died in Garland, near Dallas, five of them when their cars were blown off a…

Latest reports from southern Afghanistan suggest that Sangin District in Helmand Province is now almost entirely under Taliban control after days of fierce fighting. The police headquarters and the main government building fell to the…

Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says he is considering applying for political asylum in the UK and he feels safe in London. He was speaking in a BBC interview after a Russian…

(Antigua Observer) A fire at a hospital in Saudi Arabia killed 25 people and injured more than 100 others as it ripped through the intensive care unit and the maternity ward before dawn, the Saudi civil defense agency said. Details of the…

(Antigua Observer) Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, said on Thursday Russia had identified groups behind the explosion of a Russian plane in Egypt, which killed all 224 passengers on board in October,…

(Antigua Observer) A Thai court sentenced two Myanmar migrant workers to death on Thursday after convicting them of the 2014 murders of two young British tourists on a holiday island in a case mired in controversy and a dispute over DNA…

Colombia's President has signed a decree fully legalising medical marijuana in a shift away from preventing drug crop production. Juan Manuel Santos said the move put Colombia "in the group of countries that are at the forefront...in the…