Politics

  Bloomberg Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is expected to win backing for her plan to pursue a second independence referendum in a parliamentary vote that comes a day before the UK triggers two years of talks on withdrawing from the European Union. Lawmakers in Edinburgh will vote around 5 p.m. local tine on Tuesday, with the Greens already saying ...

  BERLIN / AP German officials on Tuesday warned Turkey against spying on its territory, after Ankara allegedly sought Berlin’s help in eavesdropping on hundreds of Turks in Germany thought to be supporters of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. The Turkish government claims Gulen supporters were behind a July coup attempt and has arrested 41,000 people in a crackdown on the ...

  SANAA / AP Yemeni security officials say a suicide bomber likely from al-Qaida has attacked a government building in the southern Lahj province, killing five soldiers and wounding ten, including civilians. They say the Monday attack in the provincial capital, al-Houta, could have been worse, but that guards managed to shoot the attacker before he drove his explosives-laden vehicle ...

  Bloomberg The worst cyclone in six years is set to smash into the coast of Queensland on Tuesday morning, forcing thousands of Australians to evacuate or seek emergency shelter and prompting some of the world’s biggest miners to halt coal operations. Cyclone Debbie is forecast to intensify before it makes landfall north of the city of Mackay with winds ...

  GENEVA / AP Swiss and Turkish prosecutors announced separate investigations on Monday after protesters hoisted a banner in Switzerland’s capital showing a gun pointed at an image of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan next to the words, “Kill Erdogan.” Bern regional prosecutors opened a probe for alleged “public provocation of crimes or violence,” Bern police spokesman Dominik Jaeggi said. ...

  Bloomberg Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was jailed for 15 days after the largest anti-government demonstrations for at least five years energized President Vladimir Putin’s critics as presidential elections loom. Navalny was imprisoned by a Moscow court on Monday after being convicted of disobeying police and fined 20,000 rubles ($352) for organizing an unsanctioned protest after more than 1,000 ...

  Bloomberg Bulgarians are voting in early parliamentary elections, with former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s Gerb party neck-and-neck with the Socialists in a contest that may strengthen Russia’s foothold in the region. In the third snap vote in five years, polls opened at 7 a.m and was to close at 8 p.m. While affirming their commitment to the European Union, ...

  MOSCOW / AP Thousands of people crowded into Moscow’s Pushkin Square on Sunday for an unsanctioned protest against the Russian government, part of a wave of demonstrations taking place throughout the country. Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is leading the opposition to President Vladimir Putin, was arrested while walking from a nearby subway station to the demonstration, according ...

  Baghdad / AP An airstrike targeting IS militants in the Iraqi city of Mosul that witnesses say killed at least 100 people was in fact launched by the US military, American officials said. US officials did not confirm the reports of civilian casualties but opened an investigation. In the days following the March 17 airstrike, US officials had said ...

  BEIRUT / AP The IS group ordered residents to evacuate the Syrian city of Raqqa on Sunday following reports that a dam contested by US-backed forces upstream on the Euphrates River could collapse, activists reported. The militants said coalition airstrikes had weakened the Tabqa Dam, some 40 kilometers west of Raqqa, and that the water level behind the dam ...