GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel is releasing 550 Palestinian prisoners in the second and final phase of a swap with Hamas militants that brought home an Israeli soldier after five years in captivity. Their release Sunday night completed the deal to exchange 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who was captured by Gaza militants in June 2006. Schalit returned home in October when Israel freed the first batch of prisoners. That group included many Palestinians serving life sentences for involvement in bus bombings and other deadly attacks on Israeli civilians that killed hundreds. Most of the prisoners released in the second phase were serving light sentences. They were...

AT THE IRAQ-KUWAIT BORDER (AP) — Outside it was pitch dark. The six American soldiers couldn't see much of the desert landscape streaming by outside the small windows of their armored vehicle. They were hushed and exhausted from an all-night drive — part of the last convoy of U.S. troops to leave Iraq during the final moment of a nearly nine-year war. As dawn broke Sunday, a small cluster of Iraqi soldiers along the highway waved goodbye to the departing American troops. "My heart goes out to the Iraqis," said Warrant Officer John Jewell. "The innocent always pay the bill." When they finally crossed the sand berm that separates Iraq from Kuwait, illuminated by floodlights and crisscrossed...

Kuwait will hold parliamentary elections on February 2, an official statement said on Sunday, the fourth poll in under six years for the OPEC Gulf state as it seeks political stability. Education and Justice Minister Ahmad al-Mulaifi said after a cabinet meeting that the government approved a decree calling on an estimated 400,000 Kuwaiti voters to elect a new parliament on February 2, according to the statement. The move comes just four days after Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah swore in a new cabinet with only minor changes to the government that resigned in November over allegations of corruption. Kuwait has been rocked by a series of almost non-stop political disputes since Sheikh...

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's ruling military and the revolutionaries who demand they immediately step down battled for a third day in the streets on Sunday — and competed fiercely for the support of a broader public that has grown tired of turmoil since the fall of Hosni Mubarak 10 months ago. The generals appear to be winning the fight for the public, despite a heavy-handed crackdown on protesters around Cairo's Tahrir Square using a roughness that rivals even that of Mubarak's widely hated police force. The protesters have tried to drum up Egyptians' anger at the military by spreading videos and photos of military police savagely beating young men and women to the ground with sticks and truncheons...

Marseille's Ghana international midfielder Andre Ayew has extended his contract until 2015, the Ligue 1 giants announced on Sunday. The 21-year-old attacking midfielder was named Marseille's player of the season for 2010-11 and was crowned BBC African Footballer of the Year on Friday. "OM will depend on him in the years to come," said Marseille coach Didier Deschamps. "It's a very good thing that he's extended (his contract)." Ayew, the son of former Marseille star Abedi Pele, is a graduate of the OM academy and has been named in the Ghana squad for the Africa Cup of Nations in January and February. After loan spells at Lorient and Arles-Avignon, Ayew broke into the Marseille first team last...

PARIS (Reuters) - Canadian-Austrian auto supplier Magna Steyr is set to build an entry-level car for Japanese automaker Nissan's Infiniti premium brand based on Daimler's Mercedes A-class cars, Automotive News reported on its website on Sunday, citing several sources close to the companies. Daimler will supply several pre-assembled parts to Infiniti, the sources said, in a move that shows a deepening of the German automaker's partnership with the Renault-Nissan alliance. Magna Steyr and Nissan are expected to finalize a contract for production at Magna's factory in Graz, Austria, in early 2012, Automotive News said. No one at Daimler, Magna Steyr and Nissan was immediately available for...

Chicago Bears wide receiver Johnny Knox was taken off the field on a board and cart and transported to a hospital during the first quarter of Sunday's game with what...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel began seeking tenders to build more than 1,000 homes in the occupied West Bank Sunday,...

AMMAN (Reuters) - Gulf officials expressed hope Sunday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would finally sign an...

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A journalist with a Somali television channel was shot dead in the capital Sunday by a man wearing a government...

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congo's top opposition figure Sunday urged the armed forces to obey him after losing elections he said were fraudulent and added he would...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Freshman Andre Drummond scored a season-high 24 points and grabbed eight rebounds as...

CINCINNATI (AP) — Dominique Morrison scored 19 points Sunday, leading Oral Roberts to a 64-42 victory...

LIMA, Peru - Peru's anti-terrorism attorney said Sunday he will seek misconduct charges against the three judges who granted paroled U.S. activist Lori Berenson permission to leave the country for the first time since her 1995 arrest. Julio Galindo said he would ask prosecutors on Monday to charge the judges with violating anti-terrorism laws by clearing Berenson to travel to New York City with her toddler son to spend the holidays with her family. Despite the court's approval, the 42-year-old Berenson was prevented from boarding a flight on Friday. Today's news video Her lawyer, Anibal Apari, told The Associated Press that Berenson presented the court's authorization, which stipulates she...

Prague: Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright who was jailed by Communists and then went on to become Czech president and a symbol of peace and freedom after leading the bloodless "Velvet Revolution," died at age 75 on Sunday. The former chain smoker, who survived several operations for lung cancer and a burst intestine in the late 1990s that nearly killed him and left him frail for the rest of his life, died after a long respiratory illness. He was with his wife Dagmar and a nun who had cared for him at his country home in Hradecek, north of Prague. "On Sunday Vaclav Havel has left us," his secretary, Sabina Tancevova, said in a statement. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on Twitter:...

Beirut: Armed clashes erupted in Syria on Sunday, killing at least 14 civilians and six government troops in central and northern Syria, activists said, the latest sign that the nation's uprising may be deteriorating into civil war. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights...

Baghdad: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on lawmakers on Sunday to withdraw confidence from one of his deputies, a Sunni Arab who described him on television as "worse than Saddam Hussein". Maliki's push for Saleh al-Mutlak to be removed from his post comes amid a political deadlock with the deputy prime minister's Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, which announced a day earlier that it was suspending its participation in parliament in protest at the...

Jerusalem: Israel was on Sunday preparing to release 550 Palestinian prisoners who will be freed after nightfall to complete a swap deal which brought about the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. The release operation was expected to take place late in the evening, when the prisoners would be bussed to drop-off points near the West Bank city of Ramallah and along the Gaza...

Taipei: Taiwan received two upgraded early warning aircraft from the United States on Saturday, the island's airforce said, as part of an arms deal that upset China-US relations. The arrival of the E-2K aircraft in southern Kaohsiung city brings to four the number of such planes in Taiwan's air...

Washington: US President Barack Obama on Sunday faced a new congressional gridlock over a payroll tax cut after he signed into law a USD 1 trillion spending bill, averting a government shutdown. The US Senate passed the spending bill and a two-month payroll tax holiday extension on Saturday, punting that problem down the road, but not for long. Obama had initially sought a one-year extension for the tax cut and unemployment benefits. The compromise tax measure further dented...