Apple named Jeff Williams as its chief operating officer Thursday, a job that hasn’t been filled since Tim Cook left the position more than four years ago to become CEO. Williams has worked at Apple for about 17 years and supervised the launch of the Apple Watch, which went on …

MOSCOW (AP) – Russia is ready to improve ties with the United States and work with whomever is elected its next president, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. He said his talks with U.S. Secretary John Kerry earlier this week showed that Washington is ready to “move toward settling the issues …

HAVANA (AP) – The United States and Cuba are on the verge of a deal to restore regular airline flights, jumpstarting economic relations that have languished despite a year of rapid progress on the diplomatic front, Cuba’s top negotiator said on the eve of the anniversary of detente between the …

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Finance ministers from the 15 nations on the U.N. Security Council will meet Thursday to adopt a resolution aimed at disrupting the outside revenue that the Islamic State extremist group gets from selling oil and antiquities, from ransom payments and other criminal activities. The Islamic State …

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis entered his 80th year on Thursday amid hopes among his critics that it will be his last – at least as pope. While Francis remains enormously popular among most rank-and-file Catholics, a small but vocal group of conservatives who have never much cared for …

BRUSSELS (AP) – European Union leaders were gathering Thursday for a potentially divisive debate amid a migration crisis on whether to create a new border guard with powers to unilaterally deploy to countries unable to manage their borders. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have entered Greece this year, hopping into …

NEW YORK (AP) – Want even your younger kids to join the tech revolution by learning to code? Maybe you should get them a robot – or at least a video game. That’s the aim of entrepreneurs behind new coding toys for kids as young as 6. They’re spurred by …

BAGHDAD (AP) – Defense Secretary Ash Carter met with Iraqi leaders and his commanders Wednesday on an unannounced war zone visit aimed at broadening U.S. assistance to Iraq to defeat the Islamic State group. The Obama administration has been talking for days about “accelerating” the fight against IS, but that …

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – Human rights advocates have called for an investigation following the Nigerian army’s raid on a Shiite sect in which hundreds of people were reportedly killed. Details of the weekend violence in Zaria have been slow to emerge, with the three attacked areas of the northern town …

HARSHAM CAMP, Iraq (AP) – The Islamic State militants who stormed into the Iraqi town of Sinjar last year, massacring members of the Yazidi minority and forcing women into sexual slavery, are gone. But Sunni Muslims who lived alongside the Yazidis there for generations say their own nightmare is far …