Politics

  KABUL / AP A suicide car bomb targeted a checkpoint in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, killing at least six members of an intelligence unit, an Afghan official said on Tuesday. Hayatullah Hayat, the governor of the province, said seven other members of the service were wounded in the attack, which took place late Monday near the provincial capital, Lashkar ...

  SEOUL / AP South Korean prosecutors grilled the country’s just-ousted president on Tuesday in a long-awaited investigation of corruption allegations that ended her rule and now threaten to put her in jail. The questioning of Park Geun-hye came 11 days after the Constitutional Court unanimously ruled to dismiss her over suspicions she colluded with a confidante to extort money ...

  BEIRUT / AP Syrian government forces on Monday regained control of parts of Damascus that were attacked and captured by rebels and militants the previous day, with dozens killed on both sides during the fighting, the military and an activist group said. The surprise rebel incursion, in which fighters sneaked into the city through hidden tunnels and set off ...

  LONDON / AP Britain will begin divorce proceedings from the European Union on March 29, starting the clock on two years of intense political and economic negotiations that will fundamentally change both the nation and its European neighbors. Britain’s ambassador to the EU, Tim Barrow, informed European Council President Donald Tusk of the exact start date on Monday morning. ...

  WASHINGTON / AP President Donald Trump on Monday accused Democrats of making up allegations that Russia interfered in last year’s election, and said Congress and the FBI should be going after media leaks instead. His tweets came just hours before a potentially politically damaging hearing in which FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers planned ...

  ANKARA / AP Opposition figures in Turkey say they have faced threats, violence, arbitrary detentions, a lack of TV airtime and even sabotage in the campaign for a referendum on expanding the president’s powers. The complaints come even as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself has slammed European countries for not letting his ministers campaign on their soil for ...

  CAIRO / AP Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi and US President Donald Trump will meet in Washington next month, Egypt’s leading state-owned newspaper said on Sunday. Al-Ahram said in a front-page report the two leaders will meet during the first week of April, in what will be El-Sissi’s first visit to Washington since taking office in 2014. El-Sissi and Trump ...

  BAGHDAD / AP Iraqi government forces have pushed into the area around a highly symbolic mosque in western Mosul where the IS group’s leader made his first and only public appearance. Black smoke billowed from the area around al-Nuri mosque, also known as the Great Mosque, Sunday as helicopters fired into the militants’ positions. At least two large mushroom ...

  NEW DELHI / AP A hard-line Hindu religious leader was sworn in on Sunday as the chief minister of India’s most populous state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders of India’s ruling party attended a ceremony in the Uttar Pradesh state capital of Lucknow, where Yogi Adityanath took the oath of office. Adityanath is a five-time member of ...

  BEIJING / AP The United States is looking forward to the first meeting between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Sunday, on the final day of a swing through Asia dominated by concerns over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. In talks with Xi in Beijing, Tillerson said Trump ...