SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Salvadorans will choose Sunday from among a handful of presidential candidates all promising to end corruption, stamp out gang violence and create more jobs with the front-runner hoping to end three decades of two-party rule in the country.

03 Feb 2019; AFP: The head of the UN mission in Yemen launched talks between the government and Huthi rebels aboard a boat in the Red Sea on Sunday aimed at shoring up a ceasefire, a government official said.

Retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert chaired the meeting aboard a UN vessel docked off the coast of the flashpoint city of Hodeida after the rebels refused to hold talks in government-held areas, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The second in a string of powerful storms battered California on Saturday, shutting key highways after water and mud rushed into lanes from bare hillsides in wildfire burn areas where thousands of residents were under evacuation orders.

Flash flood warnings were issued for huge swaths of Southern California and forecasters said the system brought more than 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain at lower elevations and several feet of snow in the mountains, where whiteout conditions closed roads.

Palghar (Maha), Feb 2 (PTI) Two persons were Saturday arrested in Maharashtra's Palghar district for illegal transportation of 1200 kg red meat, suspected to be that of bulls, police said.

The arrests were made in Mokhada village at around 2 AM, following a tip-off by a Bajrang Dal functionary, an official release stated.

Police have impounded the vehicle carrying the meat, whose value has been estimated to be Rs 1.44 lakh.

ABUJA, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Saturday survived a helicopter crash while on an official trip to the country's central state of Kogi, a presidential spokesman has confirmed.

The six-seater helicopter, conveying Osinbajo and some of his aides, crash-landed in Kabba area of Kogi, presidential spokesman Laolu Akande said in a statement.

It was badly damaged but all the passengers and crew members were unhurt, the presidential aide said.

Nagpur, Feb 2 (PTI) Suspected naxals Saturday killed two villagers in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district, apparently on suspicion that they are police informers.

The incident occurred in the wee hours when some ultras dragged Girma Kadyami and Samru Kosni, both residents of Markegaon village in Dhanora taluka, out of their houses and shot them dead, said Gadchiroli superintendent of police Shailesh Balkawde.

03 Feb 2019; DW: Unrelenting torrential rain lashed parts of the northeastern state of Queensland on Sunday, bursting river banks and inundating roads and homes.  

Local authorities issued a number of flash flood warnings for the area surrounding the coastal city of Townsville, which has just experienced its wettest seven days on record. Some 1,012 millimeters (40 inches) of rain was dumped there over the past week, compared to the previous high of 886 millimeters in 1998.

KANPUR: There is no perfect study or research on how does brain tumour grow?However, signs about its growth can be identified. The symptoms and signs of a brain tumour vary greatly and depend on the brain tumour’s size, location and rate of growth.

Raipur, Feb 2 (PTI) A journalist of a Raipur-based website was allegedly beaten up Saturday by BJP functionaries while he was recording a meeting of the party's district-level meeting here, police said.

Based on the complaint by journalist Suman Pandey, who sustained minor injuries to his head, a case has been registered against four persons, including BJP Raipur district president Rajeev Agrawal, a police official told PTI.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka is negotiating a $1 billion loan from China to construct a highway linking the capital Colombo to the hilly resort city of Kandy, even as the heavily-indebted South Asian island nation makes arrangements to pay down $5.9 billion in foreign loans this year.

Finance Ministry spokesman M.R. Hasan said Saturday that he’s waiting to hear whether terms of the loan for the highway project have been approved.

New Delhi, Feb 3 (PTI) A new book pieces together stories of people at the receiving end of mob violence and seeks to find out what triggers lynchers to flout laws with impunity.

In recent years, cases of mob lynching have increased to an alarming extent and the emergence of mobocracy has put India's secularity and democratic constitution to test, says Ziya Us Salam in his book "Lynch Files: The Forgotten Saga of Victims of Hate Crime".

He says the mob giving out instant justice is not the way our Constitution makers had planned.

03 Feb 2019; AFP: The Central African Republic government and 14 armed groups struck a deal Saturday to end years of fighting that has killed thousands, the parties and a mediator said.

The deal, the seventh since 2012, was announced on Twitter by the government of President Faustin-Archange Touadera just a day after the African Union and UN-sponsored talks in Khartoum were suspended amid disagreements over amnesty.

"A peace agreement has been reached," said the tweet.