World briefs

CUBA and the United States have agreed to establish diplomatic relations and open economic and travel ties, marking the most significant shift in U.S. policy toward the communist island in decades, American officials said yesterday.

CHINA secured a deal yesterday to construct a high-speed train link between the Belgrade and Budapest that will cut travel time between the Serbian and Hungarian capitals from eight hours to less than three.

VIETNAM Rescuers drill a hole through a collapsed tunnel in central Vietnam and are communicating with 12 trapped workers who say they’re safe.

EGYPTIAN prosecutors swiftly referred 26 men to trial yesterady on charges connected to their suspected homosexuality after they were arrested in a much publicized raid on a Cairo bathhouse, an official said.

JAPAN Only small fries with that? McDonald’s in Japan has begun limiting the serving size of fries as stocks of spuds run short due to labor disruptions on the U.S. West Coast.

AUSTRALIA’s prime minister acknowledges the nation’s security system failed to keep track of a gunman responsible for a deadly siege at a Sydney cafe, and promises a transparent investigation into why the man was not on any terror watch list despite having a long criminal history.

UK The Church of England yesterday named the first female bishop in its 500-year history, promoting saxophone-playing, soccer-loving vicar Libby Lane (pictured) to bishop of Stockport. The announcement came five months after the church ended a long and divisive dispute by voting to allow women to serve as bishops.

USA An American Airlines jet encounters severe air turbulence shortly after taking off from Seoul, South Korea, prompting an unscheduled landing at Narita International Airport in Tokyo after 14 people asked for medical attention.

USA Los Angeles prosecutors decline to file any charges against Bill Cosby after a woman recently claimed the comedian molested her around 1974

USA NASA’s Mars rover, Curiosity, has detected spikes of methane in the planet’s atmosphere. Most of Earth’s atmospheric methane comes from animal and plant life, and the environment itself. So the Martian methane raises the question of past or present microbial life. That suggests something is producing or venting the scientifically tantalizing gas, but no one knows what.