World

GENEVA,  (Reuters) – Malaria is spreading rapidly in crisis-hit Venezuela, with more than an estimated 406,000 cases in 2017, up roughly 69 percent from a year before, the largest increase worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – A steep drop in U.S. travelers to Cuba after a tightening of travel restrictions by President Donald Trump helped drive a 7 percent slide in foreign visitors to the Caribbean island in the first three months of 2018, Cuban official data showed yesterday.

NORRISTOWN, Pa.,  (Reuters) – Evidence of being a serial rapist finally caught up with Bill Cosby after decades of assaulting women and hiding behind his kindly television persona, prosecutors told a Pennsylvania jury yesterday in closing arguments of his sexual assault trial.

TORONTO,  (Reuters) – A driver deliberately plowed his white Ryder rental van into a lunch-hour crowd in Toronto yesterday, killing 10 people and injuring 15 along a roughly mile-long (1.6-km) stretch of sidewalk thronged with pedestrians, police said.

MANAGUA,  (Reuters) – Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in the capital of Nicaragua yesterday to demand the resignation of the country’s president after a violent crackdown by police on protests that have left at least nine dead.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Britain’s upper house of parliament handed the government its third defeat over Brexit in less than a week on Monday, voting down plans not to retain EU rights in national law before Britain leaves the bloc.

SEOUL,  (Reuters) – South Korea yesterday halted the propaganda broadcasts it blares across the border with North Korea, aiming to set a positive tone ahead of the first summit in a decade between their leaders as the U.S.

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to make Mexican immigration control a condition of a new NAFTA trade deal yesterday, even as ministers from Canada, the United States and Mexico readied a fresh push to finalize a revamped accord this week.

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW,  (Reuters) – The United States yesterday gave American customers of Russia’s biggest aluminum producer more time to comply with sanctions, and said it would consider lifting them if United Company Rusal Plc’s major shareholder, Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, ceded control of the company.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Britain will compensate some Caribbean immigrants who have lived legally in Britain for decades and have wrongly been labelled illegal immigrants because of trouble documenting their status, interior minister Amber Rudd said today.

MANAGUA,  (Reuters) – Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said yesterday a planned overhaul of the welfare system that sparked days of deadly protests had been canceled, as he attempted to end the biggest crisis of his administration.

WASHINGTON/SEOUL,  (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday the North Korean nuclear crisis was a long way from being resolved, striking a cautious note a day after the North’s pledge to end its nuclear tests raised hopes before planned summits with South Korea and the United States.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China this week for an informal meeting with President Xi Jinping, as efforts at rapprochement gather pace following a testing year in ties between the two giant neighbours.

SINGAPORE,  (Reuters) – Asian oil demand will hit a record in April just as global crude values are lifted to levels not seen in three years by Middle East supply risks and top exporter Saudi Arabia withholding output and noisily pushing for prices at $80 to $100 per barrel.

NASHVILLE, Tenn., (Reuters) – A nearly nude gunman killed four people at a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, early on Sunday and then fled after a patron saved lives by wrestling the assault-style rifle from his hands.

KABUL,  (Reuters) – A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a voter registration centre in the Afghan capital Kabul yesterday, killing at least 57 people and injuring more than 100, in the most serious attack yet on preparations for elections scheduled for October.

ASUNCION,  (Reuters) – The candidate from Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party won yesterday’s presidential election, according to official results with 96 percent of ballots counted, pointing to another five years of pro-business policies in the major soy producer.

MUMBAI, (Reuters) – One of India’s best known politicians, former finance and foreign minister Yashwant Sinha, quit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party was undermining democratic institutions.

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – India’s cabinet yesterday approved the death penalty for rapists of girls below the age of 12, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an emergency meeting in response to nationwide outrage in the wake of a series of cases.

HOUSTON,  (Reuters) – Former first lady Barbara Bush was remembered at her funeral yesterday as a formidable but caring figure whose devotion to her family was matched only by her commitment to public service.