World News

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping will make a state visit to North Korea this week, state media announced Monday, as U.S. talks with North Korea on its nuclear program are at an apparent standstill.

BEIJING — A strong earthquake that hit Sichuan province in southern China late Monday night killed 11 people and injured 122, the local government said. The Yibin city government posted the casualty toll on its social media accounts Tuesday morning.

NEW YORK — The 275-year-old auction house Sotheby's is being sold to a French Israeli businessman for about $3.7 billion. Sotheby's, founded in London in 1744, is the oldest company traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

NEW YORK — A decade after seemingly wrapping up "The Hunger Games," Suzanne Collins is bringing readers back to Panem. A prequel, set 64 years before the beginning of her multimillion-selling trilogy, is coming next year.

CHICAGO — Another "Empire" actor has been arrested in Chicago, but this time on a traffic-related offence .

NEW YORK — Gloria Vanderbilt, the intrepid heiress, artist and romantic who began her extraordinary life as the "poor little rich girl" of the Great Depression, survived family tragedy and multiple marriages and reigned during the 1970s and '80s as a

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court decided Monday against a high-stakes, election-year case about the competing rights of gay and lesbian couples and merchants who refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings.

LONDON — Prince Harry has offered his support to a new initiative to clear land mines from a wilderness area in Angola, saying it will protect lives and help communities.

ISLAMABAD — An Italian diplomat and two mountaineering workers in Pakistan said on Monday that an avalanche had stranded a group of four Italian and three Pakistani climbers on a mountain in the country's north.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian insurgents fired rockets into residential parts of the government-held northern province of Aleppo, striking a wedding party and killing at least 12 civilians and wounding 15, state media said Monday.