Yemeni security forces struck suspected al-Qaida hide-outs and training sites Thursday, and officials said at least 34 militants were killed, in an unusually heavy assault as Washington presses the deeply unstable country for tougher action against the terror network. Read More

A New Jersey father who won a new round in a five-year-long international child custody fight said Thursday he hopes this time to return home with his son, who lives in Brazil with relatives of his deceased ex-wife. Read More

Archaeologists on Thursday hoisted a 9-ton temple pylon from the waters of the Mediterranean that was part of the palace complex of the fabled Cleopatra before it became submerged for centuries in the harbor of Alexandria. Read More

COPENHAGEN (AP) _ The United States and China took steps Thursday toward a broad agreement that could be sealed by President Barack Obama and Premier Wen Jiabao when they arrive at the flagging U.N. climate talks. Fresh off a plane from Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the U.S. would join others in raising $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with global warming. Read More

A senior Lebanese army officer says a ship carrying 83 crew members has sunk off the Lebanese coast in stormy weather. Read More

The stepfather of a 2-year-old boy found with 42 needles in his body confessed to jabbing them into the toddler during weeks of rituals with a woman he claimed received instructions through trances, Brazilian police said Thursday. Read More

Two U.S. missile strikes pummeled targets inside the main sanctuary used by al-Qaida and the Taliban along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, killing 17 people Thursday, local intelligence officials said. Read More

Hard numbers tell the story of Col. Jonathan Neumann's soldiers and the hard times they have endured as part of the United States' refocused fight against the Taliban. Read More

A car bomb exploded outside a popular restaurant in central Baghdad on Thursday night, killing three people and wounding 16 as diners were out enjoying the start to their weekend, police and hospital officials said. Read More

Greek authorities say a boulder has fatally crushed an Italian engineer who was inspecting a rockfall-damaged highway in central Greece. Read More

Four days after being attacked at a political rally, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was whisked away from a Milan hospital with his face covered in bandages, an unusual sight from a politician and media mogul long obsessed with controlling his image. Read More

A Kurdish father was convicted and sentenced to life in prison Thursday for murdering his 15-year-old daughter because she fell in love with a follower of a different branch of Islam. Read More

A storm-loosened wave of mud and rocks has rolled through the streets of Ayacucho in the Peruvian Andes, killing at least eight people while destroying homes and cars. Read More

The killing of pro-democracy demonstrators by Guinean troops in September appears to have been premeditated, then covered up in organized fashion, and was not the work of rogue soldiers, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday. Read More

Millions of people in drought-stricken East Africa face hunger and poverty after seasonal rains failed again, withering crops, killing livestock and drying up ponds and streams, an aid group said Thursday. Read More

A Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland has resigned after an investigation into child sex abuse by clergymen accused him of ignoring reports of crimes by priests in his diocese, the Vatican said Thursday. Read More

The launch of a French military satellite from French Guiana has been delayed. Read More

The Vatican moved Thursday to thwart renegade African Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo from ordaining more bishops in defiance of the pope, stripping him of his priestly functions so any future ordinations by him would be invalid. Read More

Madagascar's internal security minister says the country's former leaders are allowed to return. Read More

A suicide car bomber attacked a group of police and soldiers in Russia's restive North Caucasus Thursday, wounding at least 23 people, while two security officers were killed in a drive-by shooting, officials said. Read More