Month: August 2021

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — The head of a U.N. team reviewing progress in the cleanup of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant says too little is known about melted fuel inside the damaged reactors, even a decade after the disaster, to be able to tell if its decommissioning can be finished

WAVERLY, Tenn. (AP) — A funeral home manager says 20 people who died in a Tennessee flood have had their funerals paid for by an anonymous donor. Humphreys County Funeral Home manager William Brown told the Tennessean that a man who wished to remain unnamed walked in on Thursday and paid for nine funerals being

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa will this weekend receive 2.2 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses donated by the United States to add to the 5.6 million doses it received from the U.S. in July. The new doses come as South Africa continues to battle a resurgence of COVID-19 infections and is

By SIAN WATSON Associated Press LONDON (AP) — After a wildly successful career as a songwriter, the pandemic prompted Diane Warren to try a different approach to music. The result is her debut album, out Friday, that includes collaborations with friends old and new, including Celine Dion, John Legend, Ty Dolla Sign plus a bringing

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Growth in U.S. consumer spending slowed in July to a modest increase of 0.3% while inflation over the past 12 months rose to the fastest pace in three decades. The July increase in spending was down sharply from a 1.1% rise in June, the Commerce Department

BERLIN (AP) — The Swiss government has approved the extradition of a key figure sought by Germany in a massive tax evasion case. The Federal Office of Justice said Friday that it had given the green light on Aug. 20 for the extradition of German lawyer Hanno Berger. The lawyer, who was arrested in Switzerland

LONDON (AP) — A huge fire at an industrial park in the central England town of Leamington Spa is sending up dramatic plumes of dark smoke that can be seen for miles. The emergency services have evacuated nearby properties and told people living in the surrounding area to close their windows and doors. Local lawmaker

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Amsterdam municipality says it will return a valuable painting by Wassily Kandinsky to the heirs of a Jewish family that originally owned it. The decision ends years of legal wrangling over the work that was sold at auction in 1940. A lawyer who has

By CHINEDU ASADU and KRISTA LARSON Associated Press LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Authorities in northern Nigeria say three separate groups of kidnapped students have been freed within a 24-hour period. The dramatic development is prompting speculation that some kind of deal made have been made with the gunmen blamed for a spate of recent abductions

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MADRID (AP) — Spanish maritime rescue services say they have saved 27 migrants in a boat trying to reach the Canary Islands, but they also found four bodies on board. The craft was one of five small vessels carrying a total of 166 migrants, mostly men from sub-Saharan Africa, making their way to the Spanish

By ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez has criticized Turkey, saying that its current leadership is not committed to the principles of democracy and rule of law. Menendez, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, spoke after a meeting with the Greek foreign minister,

VIENNA (AP) — A Vienna court has convicted former Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of corruption for trying to change laws to favor a private hospital in exchange for donations to his party. Austrian public broadcaster ORF reported Friday that Strache received a 15-month suspended prison sentence for accepting two bribes totaling 12,000 euros ($14,100).

BANGKOK (AP) — A spokesman for Myanmar’s military-installed government says COVID-19 vaccines will be given to members of the country’s persecuted Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority. The Rohingya were the target of a fierce counter-insurgency campaign in 2017 that some critics charge amounted to ethnic cleansing or even genocide. Myanmar faces a devastating COVID-19 outbreak, although

LONDON (AP) — The U.K.’s defense chief is promising to investigate a security lapse that saw documents identifying Afghan staff members and job applicants left behind at the abandoned British embassy in Kabul. Times of London reporter Anthony Loyd said he found the papers scattered on the ground as he toured Kabul’s abandoned diplomatic district

By YAYAN ZAMZAMI Associated Press BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Three critically endangered Sumatran tigers, including two cubs, have been found dead in a conservation area on Indonesia’s Sumatra island after being caught in traps apparently set by a poacher. Officials say an examination determined they died from infected wounds caused by the traps. Scientists

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — A government spokesman says a massive fire broke out at a chemical factory in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi, killing at least 10 workers and injuring several others. It was not immediately clear what caused the blaze in the Mehran Town neighborhood on Friday. TV footage showed firefighters dousing the

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese regulators will exercise greater control over the algorithms used by Chinese technology firms to personalize and recommend content, in the latest move in a regulation spree across the internet sector. China’s internet watchdog on Friday released a draft proposal of “algorithm recommendation management regulations.” It aims to manage how technology companies

LONDON (AP) — A 37-year-old lawyer accused of injecting food items with syringes of blood at three London supermarkets has made a court appearance. Leoaai Elghareeb didn’t enter a plea during his preliminary hearing on Friday. Prosecutors said he was arrested after a man entered a Waitrose store in west London’s Hammersmith area on Wednesday

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria’s president has handed a mandate to form a government to the third-largest political party in parliament following the failure of two previous attempts. Socialist Party leader Kornelia Ninova, said Friday that her party would invite three groups that emerged from anti-corruption protests last year to discuss creating a coalition government.

PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) — Police in Montenegro say they have seized over 1 ton (2,000 pounds) of cocaine hidden in a shipment of bananas. Authorities said officers discovered the cocaine, which was divided into 1,250 packages, on Thursday night in Mojanovici, a village near the capital. Police tweeted on Friday that is the biggest seizure

By VANESSA GERA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A new exhibition at a Polish state museum features the works of provocative artists in what organizers describe as a celebration of free speech, and a challenge to political correctness and “cancel culture.” But some critics are accusing the show’s organizers of using arguments about artistic

By STEPHEN WADE AP Sports Writer TOKYO (AP) — There are 4,403 Paralympic athletes competing in Tokyo and each one has unique differences that have to be classified. Lines have to be drawn to group similar impairments or impairments that yield similar results in the quest for fairness. It’s a confusing maze. The Paralympics are

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.N. human rights investigators have asked North Korea to clarify whether it has ordered troops to shoot on sight any trespassers who cross its northern border in violation of the country’s pandemic closure. The border shared with China and Russia was a transit point for

By LLAZAR SEMINI Associated Press TIRANA, Abania (AP) — Albania is housing its first group of Afghan evacuees who made it out of their country despite days of chaos near the Kabul airport, including an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. A government statement said an Egyptian Almasria Universal Airlines plane landed at Tirana’s

By SAYED ZIARMAL HASHEMI, LOLITA C. BALDOR, KATHY GANNON and ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — American forces working under heightened security and threats of another attack are pressing ahead in the closing days of the U.S.-led evacuation from Afghanistan after a devastating suicide bombing. U.S. officials say they’ve used a drone strike

By KEMAL SOFTIC Associated Press BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Thousands of migrants, including many Afghans, are stranded in Bosnia and other Balkan countries while trying to reach wealthy European nations. From migrant camps thousands of miles from home, they are watching the chaos at Kabul airport as fellow Afghans try to flee the Taliban-controlled country

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The new Malaysian prime minister has retained mostly familiar faces in his Cabinet. But Ismail Sabri Yaakob vowed Friday his new government will be more sensitive to the people’s needs amid a worsening pandemic. The Cabinet lineup mirrors that of his predecessor, who resigned last week after less than 18