NEW YORK (AP) – You can dunk Samsung’s new smartphones in water, but don’t drop them on a sidewalk, a new study finds. SquareTrade, a company that offers extended-protection plans for gadgets, said the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge still functioned after being submerged in water for 30 minutes. Audio …

BEIRUT (AP) – After five years of bloodshed – after a quarter of a million deaths, and the flight of millions of refugees – Syria has arrived at a critical juncture: A diplomatic framework is in place to end the carnage, a two-week-old partial cease-fire is holding, and peace talks …

As the war in Syria enters its sixth year with no clear end in sight, here is a glance on what has been the cost of the war: DEAD AND INJURED – There are no reliably precise statistics on the number of people killed in Syria’s war due to an …

As Syrians mark the fifth anniversary of the uprising against President Bashar Assad, here are some of the key events in the conflict: – March 2011: Protests erupt in the city of Daraa over security forces’ detention of a group of boys accused of painting anti-government graffiti on the walls …

PIRAEUS, Greece (AP) – Clutching an English phrase book, Mohammed Sawadi is preparing to head north. The 23-year-old university student traveled from Damascus with his two cousins. They knew Greece’s borders were closed before leaving home but say nothing will stop them getting to northern Europe. “We made a vow: …

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea said Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and “liberate” the South if it sees signs that American and South Korean troops involved in annual joint military drills are attempting to invade the North. The declaration from General Staff of the North’s …

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (AP) – Japanese gathered in Tokyo and along the country’s ravaged northeast coast to observe a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. Friday, exactly five years after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck offshore, triggering a devastating tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and sent reactors at the Fukushima …

HAVANA (AP) – Dozens of uniformed and plainclothes police watch silently every Sunday morning as white-clad dissidents file into Mass at Santa Rita Church in a leafy Havana neighborhood of mansions overlooking the Florida Straits. The officers stand by until the women shout “Freedom!” and try to sit on the …

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) – A longtime confidant of Aung San Suu Kyi was confirmed Friday in a parliamentary vote as one of the three final candidates to be Myanmar’s next president, albeit as a proxy for the Nobel laureate. Htin Kyaw of the National League for Democracy party was approved …

JOHANNESBURG (AP) – A South African teenager may have found part of a wing from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 during a beach vacation in Mozambique, the boy’s father said Friday. Liam Lotter found the piece on Dec. 30 on a beach in southern Mozambique, near the resort town of …