Legislators in Puerto Rico on Friday approved a heavily debated bill that outlaws employment discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.

Mexico's top security official said Friday that far fewer people disappeared during Mexico's drug war than were feared when the government released a list of about 26,000 cases.

A tweet posted by the wife of Britain's parliamentary speaker about a politician wrongly linked to child sex abuse was libelous, the High Court ruled Friday.

Hezbollah's deputy chief says the European Union would be making a "big mistake" to label the Lebanese Shiite militant group "terrorist."

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad unleashed on Saturday their heaviest artillery and rocket barrage in a week-long battle to dislodge rebels from a strategic western town, activists said.

Israel has reversed its assessment about the staying power of Syrian President Bashar Assad and now thinks he’ll remain in control of at least part of his country for some time to come – a conclusion that makes it likely, a growing number of officials think, that an escalation of violence between the two countries may be inevitable.

Jabhat al Nusra, the al Qaida-allied Syrian rebel group that’s also known as the Nusra Front, remains integral to efforts to topple the government of President Bashar Assad despite reported rifts within the group over its terrorist ties and claims by other rebels that Nusra’s assassinated rebel leaders in eastern Syria to consolidate its hold on oil fields and other strategic infrastructure there.

Amina Tyler, the 19-year-old Tunisian woman who scandalized many in the country by posting topless photos of herself online as a protest, could face six months in prison for her latest arrest, her lawyer said Friday.

Both of the suspects accused of butchering a British soldier during broad daylight on a London street had long been on the radar of Britain's domestic spy agency, though investigators say it would have been nearly impossible to predict that the men were on the verge of a brutal killing.

Venezuela's president has ordered the creation of a new workers' militia to defend the country's "Bolivarian revolution" at a time when the government faces economic problems and political turmoil.

Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the United States to face charges of laundering $70 million in Guatemalan funds through U.S. bank accounts.

The woman who prosecutors allege had sex with Silvio Berlusconi while he was Italy's premier in exchange for money spent her second day on the witness stand Friday, denying her own sworn descriptions of racy escapades at his "bunga bunga" parties and long lists of expensive jewelry and watches received from the media mogul. Karima el Mahroug, a Moroccan known as Ruby, dismissed a series of sworn statements she made to investigators in the summer of 2010 as "all stupid things" that she now regrets saying. "I apologize to the prosecutors. They were all nonsense," she said.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, a candidate in next month's presidential elections, vowed Friday he will pursue a policy of resistance against the West if elected.

Nigeria's military says it has rescued women and children taken hostage by Islamic extremists after an attack on a police barracks.

Official silence surrounded the case of a Canadian businessman targeted by a corruption probe in Cuba on Friday, as the initial trial of several foreigners suspected of graft entered its second day.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged African leaders to implement a peace plan that the U.N. hopes will stabilize eastern Congo, a region long plagued by violence and which now is back on edge.

The Catholic archdiocese in Madrid says it needs more exorcists to help some of its faithful cope with the devil.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford denied that he smokes crack cocaine and said he is not an addict, breaking a week of silence over reports of a video purportedly showing him using the drug. Critics were not appeased, with one city councilor questioning whether the mayor told "the whole truth" and another calling on him to resign.

An American man killed his uncle, aunt and cousins in the Czech Republic and then flew to the United States, where he was arrested at an airport, authorities said Friday.

A security official says al-Qaida gunmen attacked a military position in a southern province, touching off fighting that left three militants and two soldiers dead.

Ecuador's Rafael Correa is starting a third term as president under seemingly ideal conditions: extremely high popularity, a more than two-thirds majority in Congress, a stable economy and a badly splintered opposition.

World stocks edged lower on Friday, a day after markets around the world dropped sharply on concerns global growth is slowing and the Federal Reserve could start scaling back its monetary stimulus.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is in Switzerland to seal a free trade pact with the Alpine nation - the first comprehensive agreement his country has reached with a major western economy.

Patients at Kenya's only psychiatric hospital are often confined and immobilized using drugs that put them in a comatose-like state, factors that may have led to the recent escape of 40 male patients, an advocacy group said Friday.

The French government is trying to woo executives and entrepreneurs, amid concerns that it has antagonized the businesses needed to reinvigorate the economy.