Simultaneous car bomb attacks in Niger
NIAMEY, Niger (AP) -- Attackers in Niger detonated two car bombs, one in the city of Agadez where a military barracks was targeted and one in Arlit where a French company operates a uranium mine, injuring more than a dozen people....

US, Israel raise hopes for Mideast peace restart
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The United States and Israel raised hopes Thursday for a restart of the Middle East peace process, despite little tangible progress so far from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's two-month-old effort to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table....

Car bomb kills 12 in southwest Pakistan
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) -- A car bomb targeting a police vehicle killed 11 policemen and one civilian Thursday in an area of southwest Pakistan wracked by a separatist insurgency and Islamic militancy, police said....

UK emergency committee meets after attack
LONDON (AP) -- The British government's emergency committee is set to meet Thursday after two attackers butchered a man in a brutal daylight attack in London that raised fears terrorism had returned to the capital....

Q&A: What is known about London attack
A look at the key known facts about the Wednesday attack in south London, when two men hacked another to death near military barracks....

Stricken Japan nuke plant struggles to keep staff
TOKYO (AP) -- Keeping the meltdown-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in northeastern Japan in stable condition requires a cast of thousands. Increasingly the plant's operator is struggling to find enough workers, a trend that many expect to worsen and hamper progress in the decades-long effort to safely decommission it....

Japan stocks dive as benchmark bond yield spikes
BANGKOK (AP) -- Japanese stocks plummeted Thursday after a spike in government bond yields and unexpectedly weak Chinese manufacturing spooked investors sitting atop months of massive gains in share prices. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo nosedived 7.3 percent to close at 14,483.98, its worst drop since the 2011 tsunami....

Bangladesh: Owners' many failings led to collapse
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- The defects and errors that led to the world's deadliest garment-industry accident extend from the swampy ground the doomed Rana Plaza was built on, to "extremely poor quality" construction materials, to the massive, vibrating equipment operating when the eight-story building collapsed, a committee appointed by Bangladesh's government concluded....

Japanese climber, 80, becomes oldest atop Everest
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- An 80-year-old Japanese mountaineer became the oldest person to reach the top of Mount Everest on Thursday - although his record may last only a few days. An 81-year-old Nepalese man, who held the previous record, plans his own ascent next week....

Submerged structure stumps Israeli archaeologists
TIBERIAS, Israel (AP) -- The massive circular structure appears to be an archaeologists dream: a recently discovered antiquity that could reveal secrets of ancient life in the Middle East and is just waiting to be excavated....