French citizens vote in an uncertain race that could determine Europe's future and other top stories.

• French citizens vote in an uncertain race that could determine Europe's future

  

  Voters arrive at a polling station Sunday in Paris. (Emilio Morenatti/AP) PARIS — French voters cast their votes Sunday in an unsettled race for the presidency that had the power to make or break the alliances underpinning the West’s post-World War II order. In a year of populist drama, the closely watched election offered citizens sharply differing choices about France’s role in the world. The front-runners ranged from an ex-Trotskyist campaigner who wants to impose a maximum income to a..

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• At least 140 dead after Taliban attack on a key Afghan army base, officials say

  

  KABUL — The nerve center of Afghan and NATO combat activities in northern Afghanistan is a sprawling military base in Balkh province. There, thousands of Afghan National Army troops live and train, regional deployments and attacks are planned, and U.S.-supplied helicopters and fighter planes are launched to support Afghan troops battling the Taliban. On Friday, in a stunning blow to the Western-backed war effort, the base on a sun-baked plain near the city of Mazar-e Sharif became the target o..

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• March for Science Demonstrators Say They're the Real Patriots

  

  It's not often that bugs get whoops and cheers. Lovers of science got their day in the rain Saturday as they rallied around their passions, delivering applause for the technology that brought their smart phones to the obvious theme of climate change on Earth Day. And while the March for Science was on the surface nonpartisan, politics bubbled up again and again. "Insects don't see borders and they can climb walls," Jessica Ware, an evolutionary biologist at Rutgers University, said to ap..

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• Amid North Korea crisis, Pence becomes Trump emissary abroad

  

  SYDNEY — As tensions rose on the Korean peninsula, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who has President Donald Trump’s trust but little diplomatic experience to go with it, became the top American official headed to the region after North Korea again failed to successfully launch a ballistic missile. Days later, the mild-mannered former governor stood along the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea and stared back at soldiers from the North. In Australia, Pence’s mission was to sooth..

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• North Korea threatens to strike US aircraft carrier to show 'military's force'

  

  North Korea threatened Sunday to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier to demonstrate its military prowess as two Japanese navy ship joined a U.S. strike group for exercises in the Philippine Sea. “Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a single strike," according to North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party’s newspaper, the Rodong Sinmum. The paper also likened the USS Carl Vinson to a “gross animal” and said a strike on the carrier would be “an actual ..

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