FRANCE-PLANE CRASH;

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France — French investigators cracked open the mangled black box of a German jetliner and sealed off the rugged Alpine crash site where 150 people died when their plane slammed into a mountain. The recorder was being mined by investigators for clues into what sent the Germanwings Airbus 320 into a dive Tuesday after pilots lost radio contact. 

FRANCE-PLANE CRASH-VICTIMS

HALTERN, Germany — Lara Beer waited at the train station, looking forward to seeing her best friend returning from a 10th-grade exchange trip to Spain. The 14-year-old said the train came in Tuesday afternoon, but her friend Paula wasn't on it. By Kirsten Grieshaber. 

ITALY-KNOX

ROME — Italy's high court takes up the appeal of Amanda Knox's murder conviction Wednesday, considering the fate of the "very worried" American and her Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in the brutal 2007 murder of Knox's British roommate. 

RUSSIA-CRISIS-DRINKING

MOSCOW — As the economic crisis sweeps through Russia, a dangerous trend is emerging in this heavy-drinking country: the rise in consumption of potentially lethal moonshine, medical alcohol or even cleaning products. Layoffs, wage cuts and price increases are combining to worsen the problem of alcoholism, which has long been a major public health issue, by increasing the mix of dangerous products in the market. 

RUSSIA-CORRUPTION

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday fired the governor of a far-flung region who has been arrested on charges of corruption. Alexander Khoroshavin, governor of the island of Sakhalin just north of Japan, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of receiving a bribe for building a power station.

UKRAINE

KIEV, Ukraine — Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has dismissed the billionaire governor of the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk following a rancorous dispute over control over an oil and gas company.

UKRAINE-OFFICIALS ARREST

KIEV, Ukraine — Ukrainian police have interrupted a televised government meeting to detain the head of the state emergency service and his deputy on suspicion of fraud. The two officials were escorted out of Wednesday's meeting in handcuffs. 

TURKEY-SYRIA

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's military says it has fired shells at Syrian artillery positions near the border in retaliation for a Syrian rocket that landed close to a Turkish military unit and slightly wounded five people. 

GERMANY-ART-TROVE

BERLIN — Germany has signed an agreement to return to its rightful owner an Henri Matisse painting that was seized under Nazi rule. Matisse's "Woman Sitting in an Armchair" was part of a trove of artworks found in the apartment of late collector Cornelius Gurlitt. 

EUROPE-THREATENED FISH

BRUSSELS — Two studies from environmental groups show European Union nations continue to overfish their Atlantic waters despite commitments to fish sustainably and stay within safe scientific limits. The studies obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press ahead of their release show that almost two out of three limits for catches in the waters off north-western Europe were still set above the limits advised by scientific research. 

GREECE-INDEPENDENCE-DAY

ATHENS, Greece — Thousands of Greeks have lined a main central Athens avenue despite rain to watch the country's annual Independence Day military parade, with spectators allowed along the route for the first time in about three years.