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Thailand's military government lifted a curfew nationwide on Friday, citing the absence of any violence and the need to support the country's tourism sector. _0"> "As the situation has improved and there have been no incidents that can lead to violence ... and in order to improve tourism, the curfew will be lifted in all remaining provinces," the ruling military council said in a televised announcement. The curfew had been in place from midnight to 4 a.m. in 47 provinces including the capital Bangkok. It had lifted the curfew in 30 provinces, which include the country's main tourist hotspots, over the past week. (Reporting by Amty Sawitta Lefevre; Writing by Maertin Petty; Editing by Ron Popeski)

The Ukrainian flag fluttered over the regional government headquarters in the strategic port city of Mariupol on Friday after government forces reclaimed the city from pro-Russian separatists in heavy fighting and said they had regained control of a long stretch of the border with Russia. The advances are significant victories for the pro-European leadership in a military operation to crush the rebellion, which began in east Ukraine in April, and hold the country together. Parallel peace moves are moving slowly, however, and Russia is threatening to cut gas supplies to Ukraine from Monday in a row over prices. In central Mariupol, police cordoned off several streets, where roadblocks of sandbags and concrete blocks, once manned by rebels, were riddled with bullet holes, and the burnt-out hulk of an armoured personnel carrier with rebel insignia smouldered. "At 10:34 a.m. (0734 GMT), the Ukrainian flag was raised over City Hall in Mariupol," Interior Minister Arsen Avakov

Israeli forces are searching for three Jewish teenagers who went missing in the occupied West Bank late on Thursday, the military said on Friday. As media speculated that the three youths might have been abducted, large numbers of Israeli soldiers scoured the countryside around the flashpoint city of Hebron, carrying out house-to-house searches in neighboring villages and blocking roads. Local media said the three youngsters had last been seen trying to hitch-hike home from a religious seminary in the Jewish settlement of Gush Etzion, to the north of Hebron. "Forces are conducting a widespread operation to locate the individuals," the military said in a statement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a special meeting of security ministers and said in a statement that Israel held President Mahmoud Abbas's Western-backed Palestinian Authority responsible for the safety of the three. But Adnan al-Dmairi, a spokesman for Palestinian security services in the West

Tunisia is set to hold separate parliamentary and presidential elections at the end of the year after political parties resolved a dispute over the election date on Friday, political sources told Reuters. _0"> Tunisia's national assembly approved a new electoral law in May to help the country move to full democracy after the 2011 uprising that inspired the "Arab Spring" revolts. Boussairi Bou Abdeli, a politician who participated in a dialogue between the parties, told Reuters they had "agreed to hold parliamentary before presidential (elections) this year". Another source confirmed the agreement. Whether the presidential and parliamentary elections should be held separately or together was the last point of disagreement between the Islamists and secularists. The agreement allows electoral authorities to set an official date for the first election since the North African state adopted a new constitution that has been praised as a model of democrati

Wisconsin county clerks who issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples over the past week could face charges for breaking the state's marriage laws, the state's attorney general said on Thursday. The warning from Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, comes six days after U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb declared Wisconsin's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. The ruling was followed by hundreds of same-sex couples rushing to county offices throughout the state to wed. County Clerks who issue the licenses are doing so without proper authority, said attorney general spokeswoman Dana Brueck in an email. "It is, and has been, the attorney general's position that Wisconsin's marriage law is still in full force and effect," Brueck wrote. Milwaukee County Deputy Clerk George Christenson said his office was told by its lawyers it had legal authority to issue the licenses based on Crabb's ruling. "The court has ruled. He should cal

Federal officials in Utah are deciding whether to outlaw the increasingly popular daredevil pastime of swinging on ropes dangled from towering sandstone arches and cliffs after one man died and another was badly hurt in the activity. The U.S. Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management also is taking into account growing complaints from hikers angry at having the solitude of Utah's deserts disturbed by the whoops and hollers of thrill-seekers swinging from the landmark arches. Corona Arch, near the Colorado River in east-central Utah, has become a particularly popular spot for the rock-swinging crowd, and also the scene of a fatal accident involving one enthusiast in 2013 and a more recent mishap that left another man with a severe head injury. In both cases, the victims jumped from the arch with ropes that had too much slack. “We're trying to determine if these activities are appropriate in these places,” Rock Smith, supervisory outdoor recreation planner at the

A Texas man has filed a lawsuit seeking more than $1 million in damages from two doctors he said were responsible for removing his healthy kidney and leaving a cancerous one in his body. _0"> According to a lawsuit filed this week in Tarrant County, Glenn Hermes underwent surgery last year at a Fort Worth hospital and was informed after the procedure that doctors had removed the wrong kidney. Hermes was "greatly shocked, stunned and depressed," court documents said. He will likely need to be on dialysis or receive a kidney transplant, his lawyer said. About a month after the initial surgery, Hermes underwent surgery at a Dallas hospital to remove the cancerous growth. (Reporting by Jana J. Pruet in Fallas; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Sandra Maler)