Bus falls from Peru cliff, kills 44 riders
LIMA, Peru -- A double-deck bus ran off the Panamerican Highway and tumbled about 650 feet down a cliff in southern Peru on Wednesday, and police said at least 44 people died.
Highway Police Chief Jorge Castillo said the death toll had risen as officers counted more bodies and worked to rescue survivors. Some were flown to hospitals in military helicopters. About two dozen people were injured.
The bus operated by the Rey Latino line ran off the road shortly after midnight near the mouth of the Ocona River on Peru's southern Pacific coast.
The cause wasn't immediately known, but accidents caused by reckless driving on poorly maintained mountain roads claim dozens of lives every year in Peru. In January, 52 people were killed in the country's worst road fatality in four decades.
50 girls missing after attack in Nigeria
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- More than 50 girls in Nigeria are missing after Boko Haram militants attacked a school in the northeast Monday, according to the governor of Yobe state.
"Out of the 926 students in the school, over 50 are still unaccounted for," Abdullahi Bego, a spokesman for Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam, said in an emailed statement Wednesday. There's "no credible information yet as to whether any of the schoolgirls was taken hostage by the terrorists."
Government officials are working with the military and other security officials to find the students, Bego said in the statement. The girls disappeared after militants made an "incursion" into a science and technical college in the town of Dapchi, it said.
Yobe borders Borno state, the epicenter of Boko Haram's nine-year insurgency. While the government has said several times that the Islamist group is all but defeated, militants continue to carry out suicide and hit-and-run attacks. In April 2014, it kidnapped more than 200 girls from the Borno town of Chibok, causing an international outcry.
Activist sent to prison for Twitter posts
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- A prominent human-rights activist in Bahrain was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison over Twitter posts alleging prison torture in his country and misconduct in Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen.
Nabeel Rajab's sentencing marks the latest chapter in a yearslong crackdown on dissent in Bahrain, a tiny island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia that is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. He is already serving a two-year sentence handed down in July over television interviews he gave that included criticism of Bahrain.
Rajab has been hospitalized several times during his most recent incarceration over heart problems and ulcers.
Rajab's Twitter account posted a message Wednesday saying he entered the court with a "cheerful smile" before his sentencing. After his sentencing, he raised his hands making a peace sign and laughed.
Bahrain's constitution guarantees its citizens freedom of speech. However, Rajab was prosecuted under laws making it illegal to offend a foreign country, spread rumors at wartime or "insult" a government agency.
Responding to questions from The Associated Press, the government of Bahrain's National Communication Center said Rajab's convictions "did not, in any way, relate to any political views he may hold."
The court's decision drew immediate condemnation from human-rights organizations.
Sri Lanka bus explosion hurts 19 people
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- An explosion on a passenger bus in Sri Lanka injured 19 people, including 12 military personnel, the military said Wednesday.
Brig. Sumith Atapattu said the explosion occurred near Diyatalawa, a former garrison town about 120 miles from the capital, Colombo.
He said the cause of the explosion is still not known, but it is possible that someone was carrying a grenade that went off.
There were frequent bomb explosions on public transportation during the country's long civil war, but Atapattu said there was no evidence of terrorist involvement.
The military defeated separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009, ending more than a quarter-century of civil war.
A Section on 02/22/2018