New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the state's most powerful politicians for more than two decades, was charged on Thursday with pocketing $4 million from bribery and kickback schemes.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill permanently barring federal funding of abortions on Thursday after Republican leaders dropped harsher anti-abortion legislation due to opposition from some of the party's moderate lawmakers.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah died early on Friday and his brother Salman became king, the royal court in the world's top oil exporter and birthplace of Islam said in a statement carried by state television.
Schools in Sierra Leone will reopen in March, the West African nation's government said on Wednesday, eight months after students were sent home and classes shuttered following the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.
