World News

LAHORE (AP):Indications are that a cough syrup led to the death of 33 people in eastern Pakistan in the past three days, the second time in recent months that suspect medicine is thought to have caused multiple deaths.The deaths from the cough syrup...

HAVANA (AP):Venezuela's vice-president arrived in Havana yesterday to visit President Hugo Chávez as he recovers from cancer surgery.

The law also calls for closure of non-governmental organisations receiving American funding if their activities are classified as political — a broad definition many fear could be used to close any NGO that offends the Kremlin.

Last week, Morgan called a gun advocate appearing on his "Piers Morgan Tonight" show an "unbelievably stupid man."

JOHANNESBURG (AP):Former South African leader Nelson Mandela will probably spend Christmas Day in a hospital because his doctors want to be satisfied his health has improved satisfactorily before sending him home, a South African media outlet reported...

NEW YORK (AP):A 19th-century Brooklyn church that was a hub for Superstorm Sandy volunteer efforts has been damaged in a fire days before Christmas.More than 100 firefighters were dispatched to the blaze around 4 a.m.

Looters ransacked supermarkets in several Argentine cities last Friday, causing two deaths and evoking memories of widespread theft and riots that killed dozens during the country's worst economic crisis a decade ago.

Pope Benedict XVI yesterday granted his former butler a Christmas pardon, forgiving him in person during a jailhouse meeting for stealing and leaking private papers in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.

Winners of Spain's cherished Christmas lottery - the world's richest - celebrated yesterday in more than a dozen locations where lucky tickets were sold, a moment of uplift for a country enduring another brutal year of economic hardship.

KIEV (AP):Ukrainian police are investigating the grisly murder of a judge and three family members whose decapitated bodies were discovered over the weekend in the judge's apartment, officials yesterday.

CONNECTICUT (AP):A grief-stricken Newtown began burying the littlest victims of the school massacre, starting with two six-year-old boys, one of them a big football fan, the other described as a whip-smart youngster whose twin sister survived the...

MIAMI (AP):Schools around the country are reviewing security plans and in some cases adding extra law- enforcement patrols to prepare for the first day of classes since a shooting massacre at an elementary school in Connecticut.