As of Thursday, July 9, 2009, at least 647 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT.

Chanting a bitter new rallying cry, thousands of Iranians marched through Tehran Thursday in the latest protest over last month's disputed presidential election, but riot police fired tear gas and blocked them from reaching their intended goal of Tehran University.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office announced Thursday that it is launching a federal investigation into the killing of a Mormon anti-crime activist, calling it a high-impact crime that appears related to the arrest of a gang of gunmen.

As of Thursday, July 9, 2009, at least 4,323 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Talks to resolve the leadership crisis in Honduras began Thursday, with both sides holding closed-door meetings with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to discuss a coup that has re-awoken fears of political instability in the region.

Mass bombings continued for a second day Thursday throughout Iraq, killing dozens of people and wounding more than 130 in at least three cities a week after the U.S. military withdrew combat forces from Iraq's major cities.

President Hugo Chavez's government is imposing new regulations on cable television while revoking the licenses of more than 200 radio stations, the top telecommunications official said Thursday.

Mass bombings continued for a second day Thursday throughout Iraq, killing dozens of people and wounding more than 130 in at least three cities a week after the U.S. military withdrew combat forces from Iraq's major cities.

An appeals court found insufficient evidence to warrant the trial of a Guatemalan whose Twitter message led to his arrest on charges of inciting financial panic.

Construction worker Zhang Binkun was seething over the death of his mother, whom he believes was killed by a mob of Uighurs with sticks and stones.

The chasm between rich and poor on how to address climate change burst into the open at the G-8 summit Thursday, showing how difficult it will be to persuade the world to make lifestyle and economic sacrifices needed to save the planet from global warming.

The United States deported a key figure in Bolivia's last military dictatorship back home Thursday to serve a 30-year prison sentence for crimes including genocide and political assassinations.

Two brothers in Rio are living over the edge - literally: sleeping, working and eating on the side of a building 33 feet (10 meters) up in the air. Twenty-seven-year-old Tiago Primo and his 20-year-old brother Gabriel spend 12 hours a day in the bed, hammock, chair and dining table they've attached to a bright red-and-yellow wall as part of an art exhibit in Rio's old center.

A moderate earthquake rocked southwest China Thursday evening, injuring at least 336 people and collapsing 10,000 homes, state media said. The magnitude-6.0 temblor, centered in Yunnan province's Yao'an county, damaged another 30,000 homes, the Xinhua News Agency said.

Despite a request for a wives' boycott of this week's G-8 summit to protest the personal behavior of the Italian prime minister, first lady Michelle Obama and other spouses came as planned - and found themselves touring with a former topless model-turned-government minister filling in as the official hostess for the prime minister's soon-to-be ex-wife.

Dumisani Rebombo wasn't circumcised, did chores considered girls' work and was sick of being taunted for not being a man. So at age 15, he took the only course considered "manly" in his rural South African village: He raped a girl.

A Paris hospital says a 12-year-old girl who was the only known survivor of the Yemenia Airways flight that crashed in the Indian Ocean has undergone facial surgery.

Police in western Mexico found four mutilated bodies in plastic bags on the side of a highway Thursday.

The next challenge for Indonesia's president, after winning re-election in a likely landslide, will be assembling a government that is bold enough to take on persistent corruption, poverty and human rights violations seen to be holding back the young democracy.

Bombs killed nearly 60 people in Iraq on Thursday in the worst violence since U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban areas last week, and American forces released five Iranian officials suspected of aiding Shiite insurgents.

U.S. military authorities on Thursday released four Iranian diplomats it had held prisoner for the past two years as anti-government insurgents staged mass bombings for a second consecutive day, killing dozens and wounding about 100.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Thursday he will soon propose sweeping changes to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that would require states suspected of seeking to build nuclear weapons to prove that they are not.

Along the shores of artificial Inya Lake, the empty compound of Aung San Suu Kyi lies within plain sight as couples stroll the path. Her home also is a curious attraction to onlookers from a hotel a minute's walk away.

Sweden will extradite a man accused of taking part in mass slaughter in Rwanda to his homeland, marking the first time an EU nation has sent back a suspect to face charges in the 1994 genocide, officials said Thursday.