NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — With the help of French special forces, Niger's military on Friday killed the last two jihadists holed up inside a dormitory on the grounds of a military garrison in the desert town of Agadez, and freed at least two soldiers who had been held hostage by the extremists, according to French and Nigerien officials.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A spokesman for an international aid organization says that four of its staff were injured in an attack on a guest house it uses in the Afghan capital.

LONDON (AP) — A person with knowledge of the situation says FIFA's new anti-racism task force will ask soccer's governing body next week to approve a mandatory five-match minimum ban for any player found guilty of racist abuse.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Patients at Kenya's only psychiatric hospital are often confined and immobilized using drugs that put them in a comatose-like state, factors that may have led to the recent escape of 40 male patients, an advocacy group said Friday.

ATLANTA - Authorities say 18 people have been taken to the hospital following a crash between a hotel shuttle bus and a tractor-trailer near Atlanta's airport.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged African leaders to implement a peace plan that the U.N. hopes will stabilize eastern Congo, a region long plagued by violence and which now is back on edge.

MADRID (AP) — The Catholic archdiocese in Madrid says it needs more exorcists to help some of its faithful cope with the devil.

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey rolled out some of its big guns Friday to proclaim that the shore is back following Superstorm Sandy, using Gov. Chris Christie and the cast of MTV's "Jersey Shore" to tell a national audience the state is ready for summer fun.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A look at legislation passed in Turkey's parliament early Friday that would ban all alcohol advertising and tighten restrictions on the sale of such beverages, and how such a law could affect tourists and liquor companies in the mainly Muslim but secular country.

CANNES, France (AP) — Academy award-winner Marion Cotillard gave her all and even learned another language to play a Polish woman struggling with the realities of 1920s New York in James Gray's terse offering, "The Immigrant."

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) — A truck hauling an oversized load struck an overhead bridge girder on the major interstate between Seattle and Canada, sending a section of the span and two vehicles into the Skagit River below. All three occupants suffered only minor injuries.

By Jason Lange WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods rose more than expected in April, a hopeful sign that a sharp slowdown in factory output could soon run its course. New orders for durable goods, which range from toasters to aircraft, increased 3.3 percent last month, the Commerce Department said on Friday. The data was the latest to show the U.S. economy exhibiting surprising resilience in the face of harsh fiscal austerity measures enacted this year. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Few have explored the remote volcanic islands of the Galapagos archipelago, an otherworldly landscape inhabited by the world's largest tortoises and other fantastical creatures that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

LONDON (AP) — Denis Oswald declared his candidacy for IOC president Friday, becoming the fifth member and second European to enter the race to succeed Jacques Rogge.

By Ilze Filks and Mia Shanley STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Police in Stockholm called in reinforcements on Friday after youths set cars and a school ablaze in a fifth night of rioting, the worst to hit Sweden for years. Pupils at a primary school in Kista - an IT hub that is home to the likes of telecoms equipment maker Ericsson and the Swedish office of Microsoft - arrived to find the inside of the small red wooden building had been completely burnt out. ...

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A security official says al-Qaida gunmen attacked a military position in a southern province, touching off fighting that left three militants and two soldiers dead.

By Rhys Jones and Peter Griffiths LONDON (Reuters) - British fighter jets escorted a Pakistan International Airlines passenger plane to Stansted Airport near London on Friday, where police went on board and arrested two men on suspicion of endangering an aircraft. Passengers were leaving the plane and no one was hurt in the incident, a spokesman for the airport said. Flight PK709 from Lahore in Pakistan had been due to land at Manchester in northern England with 297 passengers on board, but was diverted shortly before arrival. ...

By Rhys Jones and Peter Griffiths LONDON (Reuters) - British fighter jets escorted a Pakistan International Airlines passenger plane to Stansted Airport near London on Friday, where police went on board and arrested two men on suspicion of endangering an aircraft. Passengers were leaving the plane and no one was hurt in the incident, a spokesman for the airport said. Flight PK709 from Lahore in Pakistan had been due to land at Manchester in northern England with 297 passengers on board, but was diverted shortly before arrival. ...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone on Friday to discuss efforts to bring Syria's warring parties to a peace conference, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "The situation in Syria was discussed in the context of an international conference for a political settlement in the country," the ministry said in a statement on its website. Kerry and Lavrov last met on May 7 in Moscow and agreed to try to get the Syrian government and opposition to discuss an end to the more than 2-year-old civil war. ...

MIAMI (AP) — During a hurricane, storm surge is one of the greatest threats to life and land, yet many people don't understand the dire warnings from forecasters to get out of its way. So this season, they hope to offer easy-to-understand, color-coded maps and change the way they talk to the public.