HAVANA

Cuba will nix requirement that citizens get exit visa

The Cuban government announced Tuesday that it will eliminate a half-century-old restriction that requires citizens to get an exit visa to leave the country.

The decree that takes effect Jan. 14 will eliminate a much-loathed bureaucratic procedure that has kept many Cubans from traveling or moving abroad.

Under the new measure announced in the Communist Party daily Granma, islanders will only have to show their passport and a visa from the country they are traveling to.

It is the most significant advance this year in President Raul Castro’s five-year plan of reforms.

COLUMBUS, Ohio

Democrats win a battle in war over early voting

The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for voters in the battleground state of Ohio to cast ballots on the three days before Election Day, giving Democrats and President Obama’s campaign a victory three weeks before the election.

The court refused a request by the state’s Republican elections chief and attorney general to get involved in the battle over early voting.

Ohio is among 34 states, plus the District of Columbia, where people can vote early without giving any reason.

Ohio Republicans appealed to the Supreme Court after Democrats had won lower court rulings that struck down changes in state law that took away the three days of early voting for most everyone except for military personnel.

WASHINGTON

Astronomers find planet like Earth in size, location

Astronomers say that just outside our solar system they’ve found a planet that’s the closest you can get to Earth in location and size.

It is the type of planet they’ve been searching for across the Milky Way galaxy and they found it circling a star right next door — 25 trillion miles away. But the Earth-like planet is so hot its surface may be like molten lava.

The team of European astronomers who found it say it’s likely there are other planets circling the same star. And those planets could fit the not-too-hot, not-too-cold description that astronomers sometimes call the Goldilocks Zone.

The star system is Alpha Centauri B. The research was released online Tuesday in the journal Nature.

BEIRUT, Lebanon

Syrian military’s airstrikes kill at least 90 in the north

The Syrian military unleashed heavy airstrikes and artillery bombardments targeting rebel strongholds in the north on Tuesday, killing at least 90 people, activists said.

The barrage came as the U.N. food agency warned that more and more Syrians are depending on aid from the World Food Program to stay alive with the civil war worsening.

The airstrikes hit northern Idlib and Aleppo provinces, both bordering Turkey. Activists described them as some of the worst since rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad took over the key city of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib on Oct. 10.

– From news service reports