BEIRUT (AP) – The U.N. children’s agency said Friday that it witnessed the death of a teenager who died of starvation “in front of our eyes,” as well as several cases of severe malnutrition among children trapped in a besieged Syrian town near Damascus. Hanaa Singer, UNICEF’s representative in Syria, …

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Kenya’s president said on Friday that Kenyan troops were killed when al-Shabab Islamic fighters attacked an African Union base in Somalia. He gave no casualty figure but an al-Shabab spokesman said at least 63 soldiers died. President Uhuru Kenyatta described the loss as heartbreaking. “Regrettably, some …

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) – Samples taken from the body of a woman who died this week in Sierra Leone tested positive for Ebola, officials said Friday, the day after the Ebola epidemic was declared over. The World Health Organization, which on Thursday declared an end to the deadliest Ebola …

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – Taiwan appears all but certain to elect a female president on Saturday, underscoring the vast political gains women have made over the island’s decades-long transition from authoritarianism to thriving democracy. While the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen would hardly be the first Asian woman elected head …

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Attackers set off explosions at a Starbucks cafe in a bustling shopping area in Indonesia’s capital and waged gunbattles with police Thursday, leaving bodies in the streets as office workers watched in terror from high-rise buildings. Police said five attackers and two civilians were killed, while …

FLORENCE, Italy (AP) – Italian prosecutors say “decisive” DNA analysis of a condom and cigarette butt led them to arrest a Senegalese man in the death of an American woman who suffered two deadly fractures to her skull before being strangled in her Florence apartment. The naked body of Ashley …

CINAR, Turkey (AP) – Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says Turkish artillery have attacked Islamic State group positions in Iraq and in Syria in retaliation to the suicide bombing in Istanbul which killed 10 tourists. Davutoglu said Thursday Turkish military targeted 500 extremist positions along the border with Syria and …

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s 92-year-old former President Shimon Peres suffered a “mild” heart attack Thursday but was in “excellent” condition following a heart procedure, his personal physician said. Peres was rushed to a hospital near Tel Aviv from his home on Thursday morning after he fell ill with chest pains …

BOULOGNE-SUR-MER, France (AP) – A French court must decide whether a British man who went on trial Thursday is a smuggler or a hero after he tried to spirit a 4-year-old Afghan girl from a squalid migrant camp in the French city of Calais to family members in Britain. Just …

LOS ANGELES (AP) – David Bowie fans found a new way to be passing time after the pop star’s death: setting a single-day record for video views on Vevo. The music video service owned by Universal and Sony says views of Bowie videos hit 51 million Monday, the day after …