Maracaibo / AFP Carmela de la Hoz sent a customer away with his hair half cut when the power went off in her salon. The customer will be back — but so will the blackouts. The rolling electricity cuts the Venezuelan government ordered across the country starting this week have hit the city of Maracaibo hard. Security forces are patrolling the ...

  Aleppo / AFP Regime aircraft pounded rebel areas of Syria’s second city Aleppo, which was left out of a deal to “freeze” fighting from Saturday despite international outrage over renewed violence. Shelling and air raids in Aleppo over the past week have killed more than 230 civilians and pushed a landmark February 27 ceasefire to the verge of collapse. Crude ...

  Tehran / AFP Reformist and moderate politicians allied with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani won most seats in second round parliamentary elections, local media reported on Saturday. Unofficial and incomplete results said that of the 68 seats being contested at least 33 had gone to the pro-Rouhani List of Hope, with conservatives gaining 21 more MPs. The second ballot to complete ...

  BEIJING / AP China portrayed the visit Saturday by the Japanese foreign minister as an act of outreach to an angry Beijing, as the two sides try to repair relations bedeviled by disputes over territory, history and competition for influence in East Asia. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Fumio Kishida that the ties must be based on “respect ...

  Baghdad / AFP A car bomb targeting Shiite pilgrims killed at least 23 people near Baghdad on Saturday, as hundreds protested in the capital for reforms and parliament made another attempt to reshuffle the cabinet. Iraq has been hit by weeks of political turmoil surrounding Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi’s efforts to change the government. Both Washington and the United ...

  Kuwait City / AFP Yemen’s warring parties began face-to-face peace talks on Saturday on “key issues” in a bid to end the conflict in the impoverished Arab country, the United Nations said. “All delegations are present. Key issues will be addressed,” Charbel Raji, spokesman for Yemen’s UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said about the negotiations taking place in ...

  Kunduz / AFP Survivors of a US air strike on a hospital in Afghanistan have called for those responsible to go on trial and dismissed an American military investigation that said the bombardment did not amount to a war crime. The attack on the hospital run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders in the city of Kunduz last October ...

  Burlingame / AFP Hundreds of demonstrators jostled with police in riot gear outside a California hotel where Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump gave a speech, forcing the candidate to duck into a back entrance. At one point, several dozen protesters broke through barricades and attempted to storm the hotel where the California Republican Party Convention was taking place on Friday, ...

  Brussels / AFP The departure hall at Brussels airport, hit in March by a deadly double suicide bombing claimed by the IS group, will partly reopen on Sunday, the management said. The twin explosions on March 22 killed 16 people and devastated the departure hall, shattering the building’s glass facade, collapsing ceilings and destroying check-in desks. The airport was completely ...

  Denmark / AP A search continued on Saturday for the two missing bodies from the crash of Airbus EC-225 helicopter off western Norway, killing all 13 people on board. Police spokesman Per Angel said they also were working on identifying the 11 victims found so far. The helicopter carrying workers from an offshore rig in the North Sea went ...