ROME (AP) — Organizers of the Taormina, Sicily, Film Festival are scrambling to put together a tribute to U.S. actor James Gandolfini, who had been expected to attend the festival's closing ceremony this weekend.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The Afghan Taliban are ready to free a U.S. army soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay as a conciliatory gesture, a senior spokesman for the group said Thursday.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqis in two Sunni-dominated provinces where provincial elections had been delayed over security concerns were casting ballots Thursday amid tight security measures aimed at thwarting insurgent attacks.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past two weeks, President Barack Obama has argued with Chinese President Xi Jinping over cybersecurity, consulted with world leaders over Syria and trade, declared his desire to reduce U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House-backed immigration legislation is gaining momentum in the Senate, where key lawmakers say they are closing in on a bipartisan compromise to spend tens of billions of dollars stiffening the bill's border security requirements without delaying legalization for millions living in the country unlawfully.

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Days after floods killed more than 100 people — possibly many more — rescuers used helicopters and climbed through mountain paths to reach nearly 4,000 people trapped by landslides in a narrow valley near a Hindu shrine in the northern Himalayas, officials said Thursday.

BEIJING (AP) — Astronauts struck floating martial arts poses, twirled gyroscopes and manipulated wobbling globes of water during a lecture Thursday from China's orbiting space station that's part of efforts to popularize the space program among young people.

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) — It was the worst disaster in the history of the garment industry. When the Rana Plaza factory building crashed down in April, 1,129 people were killed.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Al-Qaida's Iraq arm is gathering strength in the restive northern city of Mosul, ramping up its fundraising through gangland-style shakedowns and feeding off anti-government anger as it increasingly carries out attacks with impunity, according to residents and officials.

BEIJING (AP) — China's new leader Xi Jinping is commanding wayward Communist Party cadres to purify themselves of corruption, and he's summed it up in a pithy slogan as Mao Zedong might have done: Look in the mirror, take a bath.

TOKYO (AP) — On the Internet, no one can save you from yourself. That is a lesson many Japanese politicians have learned recently in painful, awkward and at times costly fashion.

SAO PAULO (AP) — With massive protests by middle-class Brazilians demanding wholesale government reforms, people all over this continent-sized country have reached a verdict on the streets and online: "The giant has awakened."

HAVANA (AP) — The United States and Cuba have agreed to resume bilateral talks on migration issues next month, a State Department official said Wednesday, the latest evidence of a thaw in chilly relations between the Cold War enemies.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Hopes dimmed for talks aimed at ending the Afghan war when an angry President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday suspended security negotiations with the U.S.

LONDON (AP) — A mysterious new respiratory virus that originated in the Middle East spreads easily between people and appears more deadly than SARS, doctors reported Wednesday after investigating the biggest outbreak in Saudi Arabia.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Seven al-Qaida-linked militants on a suicide mission attacked the U.N. compound Wednesday with a truck bomb and then poured inside, killing at least 13 people before dying in the assault.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday made his second call to the Afghan president in 24 hours to ease Hamid Karzai's anger over the rollout of the Taliban's new political office in Qatar — a rift that temporarily delayed U.S.

MILAN (AP) — Sophia Loren wore green silk and sunglasses for her date with the taxman, Luciano Pavarotti a suit and sneakers. Diego Maradona gave up his diamond stud earring to pay off a tax debt.

The zoo in Novosibirsk, Russia's third-largest city, is home to a unique animal — the liliger. That's a big cat breed where the father is a lion and the mother is a lion-tiger hybrid, called a liger.

BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah fighters joined Syrian forces in battling rebels in a Damascus suburb that is home to a revered Shiite Muslim shrine, in a push to secure the area around the ornate, golden domed mosque.

BERLIN (AP) — Summoning the harsh history of this once-divided city, President Barack Obama on Wednesday cautioned the U.S. and Europe against "complacency" brought on by peace, pledging to cut America's deployed nuclear weapons by one-third if Cold War foe Russia does the same.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — For Syrians, no visit to Damascus' Old City is complete without a stop at a more than century-old ice cream parlor in its main souq where you can watch them make their distinctive desert by pounding it into shape with giant wooden mallets, then enjoy a bowl of it sprinkled with pistachios.

ZAIN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan's military says infiltrators from Syria have clashed with Jordanian soldiers near the border. One infiltrator was killed and two wounded.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A senior police official says militants attacked a military convoy with rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy weapons in northwest Pakistan, killing six soldiers.