World powers, Iran clinch nuke deal

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - Capping exhausting and contentious talks, Iran and world powers sealed a breakthrough agreement Thursday outlining limits on Iran's nuclear program to keep it from being able to produce atomic weapons. The Islamic Republic was promised an end to years of crippling economic sanctions, but only if negotiators transform the plan into a comprehensive pact.

They will try to do that in the next three months.

The United States and Iran, long-time adversaries who hashed out much of the agreement, each hailed the efforts of their diplomats over days of sleepless nights in Switzerland. Speaking at the White House, President Barack Obama called it a "good deal" that would address concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called it a "win-win outcome."

Al-Shabab gunmen kill 147 at university in Kenya

GARISSA, Kenya - Al-Shabab gunmen rampaged through a university in northeastern Kenya at dawn Thursday, killing 147 people in the group's deadliest attack in the East African country. Four militants were slain by security forces to end the siege just after dusk.

The masked attackers - strapped with explosives and armed with AK-47s - singled out non-Muslim students at Garissa University College and then gunned them down without mercy, survivors said. Others ran for their lives with bullets whistling through the air.

Amid the massacre, the men took dozens of hostages in a dormitory as they battled troops and police before the operation ended after about 13 hours, witnesses said.

When gunfire from the Kenyan security forces struck the attackers, the militants exploded "like bombs," Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said, adding that the shrapnel wounded some of the officers.

Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said fighters from the Somalia-based extremist group were responsible. The al-Qaida-linked group has been blamed for a series of attacks in Kenya, including the siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013 that killed 67 people, as well as other violence in the north. The group has vowed to retaliate against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants staging cross-border attacks.

Co-pilot researched suicide before crash

BERLIN - Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz spent time online researching suicide methods and cockpit door security in the week before crashing Flight 9525, prosecutors said Thursday - the first evidence that the fatal descent may have been a premeditated act.

As the browsing history on a tablet computer found at Lubitz's apartment added a disturbing new piece to the puzzle of the March 24 crash, French investigators said they had recovered the Airbus A320's flight data recorder - another step toward completing the picture.

Attention has focused on Lubitz since investigators evaluated the plane's cockpit voice recorder last week. They believe the 27-year-old locked his captain out of the cockpit during the flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf and deliberately plunged the plane into a French mountainside.

Three countries probing labor abuses, slavery

BENJINA, Indonesia - Officials from three countries are traveling to remote islands in eastern Indonesia to investigate how thousands of foreign fishermen were abused and forced into catching seafood that could be sent to the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

A week after The Associated Press published a story about slavery in the seafood industry - including video of men locked in a cage - delegations from Thailand and Indonesia visited the island village of Benjina. A government team from Myanmar is also scheduled to visit the area next week to try to determine how many of its citizens are stuck there and what can be done to bring them home.

The visits reflect how the problem stretches across several countries, and how difficult it has been to resolve. The migrant workers lured or even kidnapped into fishing are usually from Myanmar, also known as Burma, one of the poorest countries in the world, along with Cambodia, Laos and poor areas of Thailand. They are brought through Thailand to fishing boats in Indonesia, where many say they are beaten, made to work long hours with little or no pay, and prevented from leaving. Their catch is then shipped back to Thailand, where it enters global markets, the AP story documented.

Yemen's al-Qaida captures a major post city

SANAA, Yemen - Al-Qaida militants traveling in convoys flying black banners captured a major port city in southern Yemen on Thursday, seizing government buildings and freeing inmates from a prison, including a top Saudi-born leader, security officials said.

The fall of Mukalla - the capital of Yemen's largest province, Hadramawt - highlighted how al-Qaida is expanding its foothold in Yemen, taking advantage of the turmoil as a Saudi-led coalition backing the country's beleaguered president tries to fend off a takeover by Shiite rebels.

- The Associated Press