World News Headlines - Canadian Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - A rice vendor may have lived under the rubble of a flea market for 27 days with little more than water and possibly fruit, a doctor said Tuesday, in what would be a dramatic tale of survival four weeks after Haiti's devastating earthquake.

SEOUL, South Korea - A senior U.N. envoy pressed ahead Wednesday with international efforts to get North Korea back into nuclear disarmament talks, during the world body's first high-level visit to the reclusive state in nearly six years.

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif. - A new wave of winter rains washed over the wildfire-scarred foothill towns north of Los Angeles Tuesday, leaving some residents to flee their homes in bag-laden cars while others risked remaining to deploy shovels and buckets in an attempt to hold back the muddy deluge.

The head of UNICEF warned Tuesday that people may still be trying to smuggle children out of Haiti and said protecting youngsters who survived the earthquake is the top concern of the U.N. children's agency.

ALBANY, N.Y. - New York Gov. David Paterson, who got the job after his predecessor resigned in a prostitution scandal, is fighting unconfirmed rumours and news reports of womanizing and drug use.

WASHINGTON - A paralyzed U.S. capital braced for a second winter storm to hit in less than a week, closing down Congress, keeping federal workers home and even rescheduling a White House concert.

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan - U.S. and Afghan forces pushed to the edge of the southern Afghan town of Marjah, poised to seize the major Taliban supply and drug-smuggling stronghold in hopes of building public support by providing aid and services once the insurgents are gone.

DUBLIN, Ireland - Prominent Irish victims of Catholic clergy sexual abuse have written to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to take responsibility for the church's concealment of child molestation by forcing out bishops implicated in the decades of coverup.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Fourteen-month-old Abigail Charlot survived Haiti's cataclysmic earthquake but not its miserable aftermath. Brought into the capital's General Hospital with fever and diarrhea, little Abigail literally dried up.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Parents of some of the children who 10 U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake told a judge Tuesday that they freely handed over their kids, the Americans' lawyer said.

NEW YORK - The father of an airport driver accused of trying to cook up homemade bombs in a Colorado hotel for an attack on New York City pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges he tried to get rid of chemicals and other evidence, prosecutors said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Space shuttle Endeavour is on course to hookup with the International Space Station during the middle of the night.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian nuclear technicians set dozens of centrifuges spinning Tuesday to begin enriching uranium stocks to a significantly higher level, prompting President Barack Obama to warn of a "significant regime of sanctions."

BROCKTON, Mass. - A Massachusetts woman was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday in the fatal prescription drug overdose of her 4-year-old daughter.

VATICAN CITY - A scandal in Italy's Catholic Church has morphed into a tale of Vatican intrigue complete with forged documents, reports of dueling cardinals and a papal admonishment Tuesday to put the matter to rest.

WASHINGTON - Michelle Obama on Tuesday unveiled "Let's Move" - her national public awareness campaign against childhood obesity, a problem she says concerns her both as first lady and as a mom.

HAVANA, Cuba - Relatives in eastern Cuba claim to have held a 125th birthday party for a woman named Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez, but it is not clear if she is really that old.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has convicted another opposition activist on charges related to the country's post-election turmoil and sentenced him to death, the judiciary said Tuesday, bringing to at least 10 the number of those facing the death penalty for the unrest following June's disputed presidential election.

WASHINGTON - Even as Republicans publicly welcome President Barack Obama's call for a bipartisan summit on health care reform, some privately worry that he might be laying a trap to portray their ideas as flimsy.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Visitors on the observation deck of the world's tallest tower heard a loud boom, then saw dust that looked like smoke seeping through a crack in an elevator door 124 floors above the ground. The 15 people inside were trapped for 45 frightening minutes until rescuers managed to pry open the doors.

The man who took hostages at a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign office in 2007 cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet Tuesday, then fled, and he is considered dangerous, authorities said.

LOS ANGELES - There's no bloody glove this time, no smoking gun, no faded music icon showing up in court wearing a wig that made it look like he plugged his finger into an electrical socket.

WASHINGTON - Even the White House's top spokesman is getting in on the act of mocking former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin for looking to talking points written on her palm during a political speech.

WASHINGTON - In a first for U.S. diplomacy, the State Department has used the social network tool Twitter to announce an upcoming overseas trip by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

NEWARK, N.J. - A lawyer for a Chinese graduate student charged with a security breach at Newark Liberty International Airport that led to worldwide flight delays entered a plea of not guilty Tuesday and defended his client as "simply a lovesick man who made a mistake."

BOSTON - The death of the father of Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan was ruled a homicide Tuesday when an autopsy showed he died of a heart rhythm problem after a fight with his son in which he suffered a neck injury so severe it damaged his windpipe.

MUNICH, Germany - A top German investigator testified Tuesday that John Demjanjuk has given conflicting stories about where he spent the rest of World War II after being captured by the Germans in 1942.

MOSCOW - U.S. missile defence plans are a threat to Russian national security and have slowed down progress on a new arms control treaty with Washington, Russia's top military officer said Tuesday.