Associated Press
Latest stories
Bolivia Festival Merges Catholic, Native Culture

Bolivia's mix of Roman Catholic and indigenous traditions are on display across La Paz as thousands of costumed dancers perform during the annual feast of the Great Power, a raucous street party that celebrates a rendering of Jesus Christ with native features and outstretched arms.

Brass bands marched and onlookers cheered over the weekend as the dancers performed elaborate routines in their quest for prizes.

W140 Full Story
Report: Schools for Canada First Nations 'Cultural Genocide'

Canada's decades-long government policy requiring Canadian First Nation children to attend state-funded church schools amounted to "cultural genocide," a long-awaited report has found.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission chair Justice Murray Sinclair said Tuesday the residential schools represent one of the "darkest and most troubling chapters in our collective history."

W140 Full Story
U.N. Chief Urges All Nations to Help End Ebola in West Africa

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned Tuesday that as long as there is one Ebola case in West Africa "all countries are at risk" and urged all nations to support the final battles to wipe out the deadly disease in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"We are on the home stretch now and what happens now is critical," the U.N. chief told a General Assembly meeting on efforts to end the Ebola epidemic that has killed over 11,100 people mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since it was first reported in March 2014.

W140 Full Story
New Mexico Couple Gets Back Wedding Rings Lost since 1960s

It's been decades since Ofelia Kirker lost her wedding rings, but she'll be wearing the treasured jewelry for her 64th wedding anniversary.

"It feels like we're getting married again," said her 83-year-old husband Robert Kirker.

W140 Full Story
Black and Jewish WWI Heroes Finally Getting Medal of Honor

President Barack Obama is posthumously bestowing America's highest military honor on two World War I Army veterans who may have been denied the honor because of discrimination.

Obama was holding a White House Medal of Honor ceremony Tuesday for Sgt. William Shemin, who was Jewish, and Pvt. Henry Johnson, from an all-black regiment.

W140 Full Story
With Law Expired, Senate Mulls Changes to Phone Collection

The Senate now will decide the fate of a House bill backed by President Barack Obama that would end the National Security Agency's collection of American calling records while preserving other surveillance authorities.

But whatever the outcome of a scheduled Tuesday vote, the last two days in Congress have made this much clear: The NSA will ultimately be out of the business of collecting and storing American calling records.

W140 Full Story
Report: War in Afghanistan since 2001 has Killed 100,000

A new study says war in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime has killed almost 100,000 people, and wounded the same number.

The study, called Costs of War and produced by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, looks at war-related deaths, injuries and displacement in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001 to last year, when international combat troops left Afghanistan.

W140 Full Story
Ex-Inmates Regret Destruction of Notorious Syrian Prison

For decades, the mere mention of Tadmur Prison was enough to send chills down a Syrian's spine.

The notorious facility in the desert of central Syria was where thousands of dissidents were reported to have been beaten, humiliated and systematically tortured for opposing the Assad family's rule.

W140 Full Story
Matt Dillon Puts Rare Celebrity Spotlight on Rohingya

American actor Matt Dillon put a rare star-powered spotlight on Myanmar's long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims, visiting a hot, squalid camp for tens of thousands displaced by violence and a port that has been one of the main launching pads for their exodus by sea.

It was "heartbreaking," he said after meeting a young man with a raw, open leg wound from a road accident and no means to treat it.

W140 Full Story
Sharapova Loses to Safarova in 4th Round of French Open

Defending champion Maria Sharapova's bid for a third French Open title in four years is over.

Coughing between points on an overcast day, the second-seeded Sharapova was outplayed throughout a 7-6 (3), 6-4 loss to 13th-seeded Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic in the fourth round Monday.

W140 Full Story