SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Insurance claims have topped $12 billion for the November wildfires in California, making them the most expensive in state history.

The figure released Wednesday by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara covers the fire that largely destroyed the town of Paradise and two Southern California blazes. It’s up about $600 million from data released in January.

Most of the damages relate to the Paradise fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings.

9 May 2019; AFP: South Africa's ANC surged into the lead in early official results Thursday with 55 percent of the vote in the first electoral test of President Cyril Ramaphosa's bid to reinvigorate the ruling party.

With just over a fifth of voting districts tallied, the Election Commission put the African National Congress well ahead, with its closest rival the Democratic Alliance trailing with a distant 26 percent.

New York, May 9, IRNA – Nuclear weapons are the biggest threat to humanity and international security, said an Iranian diplomat in the United Nations, adding the only way to get rid of the danger is to fully annihilate the nuclear arms.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Rain swamping the nation’s midsection forced people from their homes in Kansas, stranded dozens of Texas children at school overnight and strained levees along the surging Mississippi River in Illinois, Missouri and elsewhere Wednesday prompting yet more flash flood concerns.

The flooding began in earnest in March, causing billions of dollars of damage to farmland, homes and businesses across the Midwest. Rivers in many communities have been above flood stage for more than six weeks following waves of heavy rain.

CHICAGO, May 8 (Xinhua): Death rates due to heart failure are increasing, and this increase is most prominent among younger adults under 65, considered premature death, said a study from Northwestern Medicine.

The study used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research data, which includes the underlying and contributing cause of death from all death certificates for 47.728 million individuals in the United States from 1999 to 2017.

ANKARA; 9 May 2019; AA: The coalition government in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) collapsed after the People's Party (HP) announced its withdrawal on Wednesday.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kudret Ozersay, who is HP leader as well, announced his party's decision to withdraw from the coalition on Wednesday, according to Turkish Agency Cyprus (TAK).

 9 May 2019; AFP: It's Saturday in Bhutan and Lotay Tshering has just completed urinary bladder repair surgery on a patient at the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital.

But Tshering is no ordinary doctor. During the week, he also happens to be prime minister in the Himalayan kingdom famous for measuring citizens' Gross National Happiness.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A gateway to illegal marketplaces on the darknet has been shut down, the FBI announced Wednesday, and two of its alleged operators have been arrested and accused of making millions of dollars in kickbacks for their services.

A grand jury in Pittsburgh returned indictments against the two Israelis on charges of money laundering conspiracy. They’re accused of receiving more than $15 million from the operation, which ran from Oct. 2013 through this week, prosecutors said.

Srinagar, May 8 (PTI) National Conference leader Omar Abdullah Wednesday said action must be taken in the alleged bribery of journalists by BJP leaders in Leh in Jammu and Kashmir.

"In light of the CCTV footage purported to show BJP leaders attempting to bribe journalists in Leh, I'm retweeting my original tweet with the letter of complaint by the Press Club Leh. Action must follow," Abdullah said in a tweet.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate intelligence committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., calling him in to answer questions about his 2017 testimony to the panel as part of its probe into Russian election interference.

That’s according to two people familiar with the subpoena who discussed it on condition of anonymity. It’s the first known subpoena of a member of President Donald Trump’s immediate family, and a new sign that the Senate panel is continuing with its own Russia investigation even after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the same subject.

New Delhi, May 8 (PTI) Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of blaming the Nehru-Gandhi family for his own failures, alleging that he was like a schoolboy who failed to do his homework and his excuses are Pandit Nehru has taken away his answer-sheet and Indira Gandhi has made a paper boat out of that.

Mumbai, May 8 (PTI) A city court Wednesday awarded life sentence to a man for murdering his wife and father-in- law over monetary issue in 2013.

During his deposition, a police official said he was on patrol duty in October 2013 when he came to know about the double murder in Sakinaka area of suburban Andheri.

The official said when he reached the spot near a housing society, he found two bodies lying in a pool of blood.