Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have decided against reopening schools to girls above the sixth grade, reneging on a promise and opting to appease their hard-line base, at the expense of further alienating the international community. The surprise decision is bound to disrupt Taliban efforts to win recognition from potential donors abroad at a time when Afghanistan is mired in a worsening humanitarian crisis. U.S. Special Representative Thomas West tweeted his ``shock and deep disappointment'' about the decision, calling it ``a betrayal of public commitments to the Afghan people and the internat

A senior NATO military official is estimating as many as 15-thousand Russian soldiers have died in fighting in Ukraine.Separately, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has announced the alliance is deploying new multinational battlegroups to Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.Today marks four full weeks of fighting, with Russia bogged down in a grinding military campaign and its economy crippled by Western sanctions.U-S President Joe Biden, who's on his way to Brussels for tomorrow's meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other NATO leaders, warns there is a ``real threat`` Russia c

A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board has crashed in southern China in the country's worst air disaster in nearly a decade. The Civil Aviation Administration of China says the crash occurred Monday near the city of Wuzhou in Teng county. China Eastern's flight No. 5735 had been traveling at around 30,000 feet when suddenly, just after 2:20 p.m., the plane entered a deep dive. The data suggests the plane crashed within a minute and a half of whatever went wrong. Chicago-based Boeing Co. said it was aware of the initial reports of the crash and was ``working to gather more inf

China Eastern Airlines has grounded its fleet of Boeing 737-800 jets after China's worst air disaster in nearly a decade.A flight with 132 people aboard plunged into a forested area in southern China, causing a fire big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images.Data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24-dot-com shows the plane went into a deep dive from its cruising altitude of about 30-thousand feet and crashed about 90-seconds later.

A National Transportation Safety Board spokesman says a 13 year old was driving the pickup truck that struck a van in West Texas in a fiery collision that killed nine people. NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said Thursday the truck's left front tire, which was a spare tire, also blew out before impact. One must be 14 in Texas to start taking classroom courses for a learner's license and 15 to receive that provisional license to drive with an instructor or licensed adult in the vehicle. The pickup crossed into the opposite lane on a darkened, two-lane highway before colliding head-on with a

The Texas Department of Public Safety says nine people were killed in a head-on collision in West Texas, including six students and a coach from a New Mexico university who were returning home from a golf tournament. Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Steven Blanco says a pickup truck crossed the center line of a highway and crashed into a van carrying members of the University of the Southwest men's and women's golf teams. They had been playing in a tournament in Midland, Texas. Blanco says six students were killed, along with a faculty member. The driver of the pickup and his 13 year ol

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged members of the U-S Congress and all Americans to remember Pearl Harbor and September 11th.Zelenskyy used his video address to play an emotional video of the destruction and devastation in his country, saying Ukraine needs the U-S to do more to help it fight Russia.U-S President Joe Biden has insisted there will be no American troops in Ukraine and has resisted Zelenskyy's relentless pleas for warplanes as too risky, saying it could lead to World War Three.

Two journalists working for Fox News were killed in Ukraine after their vehicle came under fire outside of Kyiv, the network said Tuesday. The incident on Monday that took the lives of videographer Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra `Sasha' Kuvshynova's also injured reporter Benjamin Hall, who remains hospitalized. Their vehicle was struck while reporting in Horenka. Zakrzewski was a veteran war photographer who had covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria for Fox. Kuvshynova was a 24 year old journalist helping the Fox crews navigate the country. They were the seco

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told M-Ps and senators that Russia is trying to annihilate his country.He used an address via video link to plead with Canadians to imagine the terror and horror of having cities bombed and destroyed and homes burned.Zelenskyy says he's grateful to the Canadian government for its support, but says sanctions so far have not been enough.He says what's needed is a no-fly zone to stop Russian planes and missiles.