International

WENATCHEE, Wash. Blanketed by winter snow, orchards are mostly idle around central Washington, the production hub of the nation’s top apple producing state.

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama signed legislation Wednesday that would extend some U.S. privacy protections to citizens of allied countries and let foreigners sue the U.S. government if their personal data is unlawfully disclosed.

FLEA BAY, New Zealand Blindy the little blue penguin was born without functioning eyes and developed the unusual habit of swimming in tight circles.

So to prevent the bird from continually crashing into the side of the small pond where it swims, Shireen Helps began tossing it out into deeper water. Penguins are flightless but Blindy, for a few moments anyway, gets to be airborne.

OXFORD, Miss. It wasn’t your usual foot chase. Oxford police caught a homeless emu, with help from some barbed wire.

The Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department had been getting calls about a loose emu for days. Each time they tried to catch the big, flightless bird, it got away.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand Fijians were finally able to venture outside Monday after authorities lifted a curfew but much of the country remained without electricity in the wake of a ferocious cyclone that left at least six people dead and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Officials were scrambling to restore services and assess damage in remote parts of the Pacific Island chain.

KALAMAZOO, Mich. A gunman who seemed to choose his victims at random opened fire outside an apartment complex, a car dealership and a restaurant in Michigan, killing six people in a rampage that lasted nearly seven hours, police said.

CHARLESTON, S.C. The American presidential race is now being fought in a state so renowned for below-the-belt, tire-iron-to-the-kneecap politics that its most famous political operative wound up writing a death-bed mea culpa.

Welcome to South Carolina.

“We play hardball,” says David Woodard, a campaign veteran who now teaches at Clemson University.

Thrusting himself into the heated American presidential campaign, Pope Francis declared Thursday that Donald Trump is “not Christian” if he wants to address illegal immigration only by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump fired back ferociously, saying it was “disgraceful” for a religious leader to question a person’s faith.

SAN DIEGO The federal government is using eye scans and facial recognition technology for the first time to verify the identities of foreigners leaving the United States on foot a trial move aimed at closing a longstanding security gap, officials announced Thursday.

HILLSDALE, N.J. A postmaster seems dumbfounded in a 911 call he made to get help for a New Jersey letter carrier who was trapped inside his truck by several wild turkeys.

The incident played out Tuesday in Hillsdale. The audio was released Wednesday.