Breaking News

By Emmanuel Braun and Paul-Marin Ngoupana BANGUI (Reuters) - France rushed troops to Central African Republic on Friday, its second major African intervention in a year, but clashes between Muslim and Christian militias continued unabated, spilling into widespread killings of civilians. "This horrific cycle of violence and retaliation must stop immediately," a United Nations spokesperson said, citing cases of rival Seleka and "anti-balaka" militias raiding homes and killing adults and children. "Civilians must be protected." The Red Cross said it had collected 281 bodies from two days of fighting in Bangui, but many more had been killed. In Paris, French President Francois Hollande told a meeting of African leaders that the CAR crisis proved the urgent need for the continent to create its own regional security force.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africans erupted in song, dance and tears on Friday in public and emotional celebrations of the life of Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who bridged this country's black-white divide and helped avert a race war.

NEW YORK (AP) — Maya Angelou, who first met Nelson Mandela in the early 1960s, praised him as a great man worthy of comparison to another icon she knew — the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.