Mexico's most-wanted drug lord escaped prison by hiding in a laundry truck nearly a decade ago, and his legend and fortune seem to grow with each passing day he eludes capture. Read More

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped nearly 46 percent from August 2008 to July 2009 _ the biggest annual decline in two decades, the government said Thursday. Read More

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who last week said he didn't want to run for re-election, may get to stay in office without a single ballot being cast. Read More

The husband of an internationally known dissident Cuban blogger is challenging the presumed state security agents who roughed up his wife to a verbal duel on a Havana street corner. Read More

President Barack Obama is in Alaska for his first visit ever to the state, albeit a very short one. Read More

A day-by-day look at President Barack Obama's trip to Asia: Read More

Authorities have dropped the case against a Tennessee father arrested in Japan when he snatched his children from his ex-wife, the man's spokesman said Thursday. Read More

In Washington, the ultimate Pakistani nightmare is that the country's nuclear arsenal could fall into the hands of Taliban militants or rogue soldiers. Read More

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday vowed support for the Philippine fight against al-Qaida-linked militants and highlighted the U.S. military's role in helping the country recover from deadly typhoons. Read More

The deputy head of the U.N. children's agency said Thursday that a famine is looming in southern Sudan because of scarce rainfall and inadequate foreign funds for the region. Read More

Government leaders are defending the reliability of Brazil's power grid after a huge blackout left nearly 60 million people in the dark and raised concerns about its ability to guarantee electricity for a surging economy. Read More

President Barack Obama's delay in deciding U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan has found an echo chamber in Europe, where coalition leaders in NATO are weighing whether to send more help or bow to public demands for a speedy exit. Read More

A Norwegian freelance journalist kidnapped a week ago in eastern Afghanistan has been released along with his Afghan interpreter, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday. Read More

Otty Sanchez got two weeks in a state mental hospital after she was found wandering around a drug store last year, shopping for an imaginary trip to China. Read More

The Australian government on Thursday approved the extradition of an alleged Nazi collaborator accused by Hungary of a World War II killing. Read More

Denmark's premier sent invitations Thursday asking 191 world leaders to attend next month's U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, saying their presence was "pivotal" to its success. Read More

A female Palestinian student who says she was handcuffed, blindfolded and hauled off to the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army in the middle of the night late last month asked Israel's supreme court Thursday to let her return to her studies in the West Bank. Read More

Iran's recently revealed uranium enrichment hall is a highly fortified underground space that appears too small to house a civilian nuclear program, but large enough to serve for military activities, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday. Read More

North Korea threatened to punish South Korea following their brief-but-bloody naval firefight, though analysts said Thursday that chances of retaliation appeared slim ahead of planned talks between the U.S. and Pyongyang. Read More

Pretrial hearings in the case of a Serb accused of beating a fellow student into a coma in the United States will begin in December, a Serbian court said Thursday. Read More