Month: October 2021

By JULIE CARR SMYTH and PATTY NIEBERG Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Races for local school board seats have emerged as intense political battlegrounds in the upcoming Nov. 2 elections across the U.S. Parental protests that started during COVID-19 lockdowns are evolving into full-fledged board takeover campaigns. National conservative groups offering training academies for

By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — Executions in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state face delays amid legal questions over Texas’ refusal to allow spiritual advisers to touch people as they are being put to death. It’s unclear when Texas may carry out another execution after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to

BEIRUT (AP) — Ali Atwa, a senior Hezbollah operative who was on the FBI’s most wanted list for his role in one of the most notorious plane hijackings in aviation history, has died. The Lebanese militant group said Saturday that Atwa, who was believed to be in his early 60s, died of complications related to

By JOHN HANNA AP Political Writer TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Roger Marshall won’t let people forget he’s a doctor. That’s clear because the obstetrician puts “Doc” in the letterhead of his U.S. Senate office news releases. But when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, other doctors and experts say the Kansas Republican sounds far more like

By LISA MASCARO AP Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — During the recent standoff over the nation’s debt limit, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell showed just how far he’ll go to stop President Joe Biden’s agenda. He engineered both the showdown and also its resolution this past week. But there’ll be another fight when funding to

BERLIN (AP) — A leader of the Greens say the multiparty talks on forming a new German government have “a long way to go” and will have to bridge significant policy differences. The center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats held their first round of talks Thursday on a possible coalition.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has recorded a new record-high daily death toll from COVID-19, continuing a persistent rise that has brought new records almost daily in October. The national coronavirus task force reported Saturday that 968 people in Russia died of COVID-19 over the past day. That’s about 100 more daily deaths than were recorded

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — A top British government official is backing a phone company’s proposal for a new tracking service to help protect girls and women walking alone. A phone company executive pitched the idea amid ongoing outrage over the slayings of two women who were targeted near their homes in

By SARAH EL DEEB and ANGELA CHARLTON BEIRUT (AP) — A Syrian pro-government newspaper says that President Bashar Assad has allowed his exiled uncle back into Syria to avoid a four-year prison term in France, where he spent more than 30 years. The 84-year-old Rifaat Assad was sentenced last year for illegally using Syrian state

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A peeling portrait of Polish piano composer Frederic Chopin purchased at a flea market hung modestly in a private house in Poland for almost three decades before an expert dated the painting to the 19th century. The small painting now resides in a bank vault somewhere

By KATHY GANNON Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban have ruled out cooperation with the U.S. to contain extremist groups in Afghanistan. A senior spokesman staked out the position ahead of the first direct talks between the former foes since America completed its chaotic withdrawal from the country. Senior Taliban officials and U.S. representatives

BERLIN (AP) — A former Israeli soldier has been assaulted in Germany’s capital in what police describe as an antisemitic incident. The assault took place Friday evening outside the Noeldnerplatz commuter train station in an eastern district of Berlin. Police said Saturday that the 29-year-old former soldier who lives in Berlin had a pullover on

By TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer Facebook has recently taken a harsher tone toward whistleblower Frances Haugen, suggesting that the social network could be considering legal retaliation after Haugen went public with internal research that she copied before leaving her job earlier this year. U.S. law protects whistleblowers who disclose information about potential misconduct to

By HALELUYA HADERO AP Business Writer A spotlight that has been thrown on how many of the rich and powerful shield their wealth is also intensifying a fear among philanthropy experts: That the tax havens being used by the wealthy will increasingly siphon money away from charitable causes. Wealthy Americans have long sought to use

By VANESSA GERA and JUSTIN SPIKE Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Hungary’s prime minister has signed a government resolution welcoming a Polish constitutional court ruling that challenges the primacy of European Union law. The resolution signed by Viktor Orban on Saturday accuses EU institutions of overextending their powers over EU member countries. It followed

By DAVID RISING Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — A spate of Chinese military flights off southwestern Taiwan in recent days has prompted alarm from the island, which Beijing claims as its own, and is increasing tensions in a region already on edge. The flights are just one piece of a complex puzzle in Asia, where

By KAREL JANICEK Associated Press PRAGUE (AP) — Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s centrist party has narrowly lost the Czech Republic’s parliamentary election, a surprise development that could mean the end of the populist billionaire’s reign in power. With all the votes counted, the Czech Statistics Office said Together, a liberal-conservative three-party coalition, captured 27.8% of

By AMIR VAHDAT and JON GAMBRELL Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran’s first president after the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution who fled Tehran after being impeached for challenging the growing power of clerics as the nation became a theocracy, has died. He was 88. His family and Iranian state television made the

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press ABOARD GEO BARENTS (AP) — U.N. officials say guards at a Libyan detention center for migrants have shot and killed at least six people amid chaos in the overcrowded facility. The development comes a week after authorities rounded up more than 5,000 migrants in a massive crackdown and after U.N.-commissioned

By MASHA MACPHERSON Associated Press PARIS (AP) — France’s ambassador to Australia says Australian officials lied to his face and raised the risk of confrontation in Asia by crafting a secret submarine deal with the United States and Britain. Ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault said in an interview with The Associated Press that the deal undermined trust

By ZEINA KARAM and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA Associated Press BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s elections on Sunday come with enormous challenges: Iraq’s economy has been battered by years of conflict, endemic corruption and more recently, the coronavirus pandemic. State institutions are failing, the country’s infrastructure is crumbling. Powerful paramilitary groups increasingly threaten the authority of the state,

By AMY TAXIN Associated Press HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — After a crude oil sheen was detected on the waters off the Southern California coast, environmentalists feared the worst. A week later, Orange County and its signature beaches have been spared a potentially calamitous fate, though the long-term toll on plant and animal life remains

By MARK SHERMAN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration will try to persuade the Supreme Court this week to reinstate the death penalty for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The administration will argue that a jury had no need to examine evidence that prosecutors themselves relied on at

By MAURICIO SAVARESE Associated Press SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil has topped 600,000 virus deaths as it bids to return to pre-pandemic normalcy. Relief in both COVID-19 cases and deaths have been particularly welcome given experts’ warnings that the delta variant would produce another wave of destruction in the country with the second-most victims. So

By ERIC TUCKER, MARY CLARE JALONICK, ZEKE MILLER and JILL COLVIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will not block the handover of documents sought by a House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. This sets up a showdown with former President Donald Trump, who has pledged to

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s newly-politicized government science board is now ordering researchers not to publicly criticize the body, and says they have to clear any public comments through it press office. Local media reported Friday the National Council on Science and Technology has issued a new set of rules telling employees and outside researchers

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The executive board of the International Monetary Fund says it is seeking more “clarifying details” in its investigation into allegations that the head of the IMF pressured staff at the World Bank to change business rankings for China in an effort to placate that country. IMF