MONTECRISTI, Ecuador (AP) – A fresh tremor rattled Ecuador before dawn Wednesday morning, a 6.1 magnitude jolt that was the strongest aftershock since a lethal earthquake killed hundreds of people. There was no immediate report of further damage. The U.S. Geological Survey said the tremor was centered offshore, 25 kilometers …

CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR POWER STATION, Ukraine (AP) – Thirty years after the world’s worst nuclear accident, the Chernobyl power plant is surrounded by both desolation and clangorous activity, the sense of a ruined past and a difficult future. The plant is derelict. After the No. 4 reactor exploded in the early-morning …

TOKYO (AP) – The Roman Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal has stretched into one of the least Catholic countries: Japan, where former students at a prestigious all-boys parochial school allege they were molested or raped by religious brothers who taught there decades ago. Three former students at St. Mary’s International …

LANSING, Mich. (AP) – Michigan’s attorney general will announce criminal charges Wednesday against two state regulators and a Flint employee, alleging wrongdoing related to the city’s lead-tainted water crisis, according to government officials familiar with the investigation. The charges – the first levied in a probe that is expected to …

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Students and teaching assistants have arrived back in Juneau from a remote mountaineering class that was cut short when one of their professors was mauled by a brown bear. They said Tuesday night that they were tired and not yet ready to talk about Forest Wagner, …