Four U.S. service members were killed in the past 24 hours in Afghanistan, NATO forces said Monday.

American and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan.

Relatives of victims of a blast at a Chinese coal mine scuffled demanded answers from the owners as state media put the toll from the latest in a series of mine disasters at 104.

A new report records 17,650 species living below 656 feet, the point where sunlight ceases. The findings were the latest update on a 10-year census of marine life.

Iran on Sunday began large-scale air defense war games aimed at protecting the country's nuclear facilities against any possible attack, state television reported.

Russian spaceship designer Konstantin Feoktistov, the only non-Communist space traveler in the history of the Soviet space program, has died at the age of 83.

Leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war, a newspaper reports.

Israeli aircraft attacks two suspected weapons-making factories and a smuggling tunnel in the Gaza Strip in what the military says was retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire.

Irish Republican Army dissidents left a 400-pound car bomb outside police reform headquarters in Belfast but the device failed to detonate, Northern Ireland's police commander says.

Rescuers saved more than 240 people aboard an Indonesian passenger ferry that sank Sunday in rough waters off Sumatra island, but at least 29 people have died, officials said.