Month: October 2021

PARIS (AP) — French lawmakers have unanimously backed proposed legislation that would ban so-called LGBT conversion therapy. Parliament’s lower house voted 115-0 on Tuesday night for the draft law proposed by members of President Emmanuel Macron’s party. The text now goes to the upper house for debate. It authorizes jail time and fines for practitioners

By YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s Holocaust memorial center has revealed the names of 159 Nazi SS troops who took part in the killing of Jews during the Babi Yar massacre in Ukraine eight decades after one of the most infamous Nazi mass slaughters of World War II. Nearly 34,000 Jews

By ASHRAF KHALIL Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is trying to prevent evictions from public housing for nonpayment of rent. It’s seeking to shore up protections following the end of the nationwide eviction moratorium that was a response to the coronavirus pandemic. Under a new rule from the Department of Housing and

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Police and prosecutors in southern Poland are investigating graffiti in English and German that appeared on multiple buildings at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, the site of the former Nazi German death camp. Police said a security guard found the graffiti Tuesday sprayed on nine wooden barracks in an area where there isn’t

By TRAVIS LANGNESS Edmunds The 2022 Nissan Frontier is completely redesigned with more power than any other midsize pickup truck and bold new looks to match. But does it have what it takes to compete against the reigning off-road king, the 2022 Toyota Tacoma? Writers from Edmunds put the two vehicles head to head in

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — A Vatican tribunal has absolved a former altar boy of charges that he molested a younger boy in the Vatican’s youth seminary. The court ruled Wednesday in the first clergy sexual abuse trial to be heard by the pope’s criminal court. The three-judge panel acquitted Rev.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Emirati court has sentenced five people to death who had been convicted in the first-degree murder and robbery of a businessman whose body was discovered in a refrigerator. State-run media in the United Arab Emirates says that a court in Ajman, a small, dusty emirate, delivered the rare

By HUIZHONG WU and DAVID RISING Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — With record numbers of military flights near Taiwan over the last week, China has been stepping up its harassment of the island it claims as its own, demonstrating a new level of threat as it asserts its territorial ambitions in the region. With

By ALANA BENSON of NerdWallet Investors can gain access to the booming cryptocurrency market without exposing their portfolios to high levels of risk. By investing in companies with cryptocurrency holdings or those that produce infrastructure that supports crypto, investors don’t have to buy the currency directly. The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to give

By RAHIM FAEIZ and SAMYA KULLAB Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban say they arrested four Islamic State militants north of the Afghan capital, while witnesses say two Taliban fighters were shot dead in the country’s northeast, raising the specter of a widening conflict. The Taliban spokesman said on Wednesday that an operation

By AYA BATRAWY Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s oil company Aramco closed just shy of a $2 trillion valuation the kingdom’s crown prince has long sought. Aramco’s market cap is being buoyed by high oil prices and increased demand for energy as economies recover from last year’s pandemic lockdowns. Aramco

LONDON (AP) — Facebook blamed a error during routine maintenance for causing a massive global outage that took down its services for hours. In an update late Tuesday, the company provided more details about the outage that left millions of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users in the dark.The problem occurred as engineers were carrying out

By LORNE COOK Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is urging member countries to provide relief funds to consumers and small businesses hit hardest by rising gas and electricity prices. The suggestion comes amid criticism that the bloc’s climate change fighting policies are fueling the problem. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said Wednesday that

By COLLIN BINKLEY AP Education Writer The Biden administration is temporarily relaxing the rules for a student loan forgiveness program that has been criticized for its notoriously complex requirements. The change could offer debt relief to thousands of teachers, social workers, military members and other public servants. The Education Department said Wednesday it will drop

By DARIA LITVINOVA Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s daily coronavirus death toll has surpassed 900 for the first time in the pandemic. The record reported Wednesday comes amid a low vaccination rate and the government’s reluctance to impose tough restrictions to control new cases. Russia’s state coronavirus task force reported 929 new COVID-19 deaths

By DAVID KEYTON, FRANK JORDANS and CHRISTINA LARSON Associated Press STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two scientists have won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for finding an “ingenious” and environmentally cleaner way to build molecules that can be used to make a variety of compounds, including medicines and pesticides. The work of Benjamin List and David W.C.

By ANDREW MELDRUM Associated Press CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — As South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu turns 90, recent racist graffiti on a portrait of the Nobel winner highlights the continuing relevance of his work for equality. Often hailed as the conscience of South Africa, Tutu was a key campaigner against South

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Assailants have shot and killed three men in Indian-controlled Kashmir in separate attacks blamed by police on militants fighting against Indian rule in the disputed region. The first two killings occurred in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar while the third was in the northern Hajin area. Police are calling the killings

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A court has agreed to lift a shroud of secrecy from the trial of a spy’s lawyer that could potentially confirm that Australia bugged East Timor’s government during multibillion-dollar oil and gas negotiations. The Australian government has refused to comment on allegations that the spy, known

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press ABOARD GEO BARENTS (AP) — The Libyan Red Crescent says at least 17 bodies, likely of Europe-bound migrants, have washed ashore in western Libya. They were found near the western Libyan town of Zawiya on Tuesday evening. That’s according to the Red Crescent’s branch in the town. The bodies were

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has expressed “shame” for himself and the Roman Catholic Church for the scale of child sexual abuse within the church in France. The pope spoke during his Wednesday regular audience at the Vatican about a report released a day earlier that estimated some 330,000 French children were abused by

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — The two parties that emerged as likely kingmakers from Germany’s election last month say they will hold talks on a possible new government under the leadership of outgoing center-left Social Democrats. If ultimately successful, the negotiations would send outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Union bloc into opposition

BERLIN (AP) — German police have carried out large-scale raids in 25 cities in connection with a suspected money-laundering network alleged to have funneled more than $162 million in ill-gotten gains abroad. Some of the money made its way to Islamic militant groups. Duesseldorf police said Wednesday’s raids involved more than 1,000 officers and took

By NINIEK KARMINI Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A Chicago woman convicted of assisting her boyfriend in her mother’s murder and stuffing the body in a suitcase on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali in 2014 is being released early from a 10-year prison sentence. A prison official confirmed that Heather Mack, who was 18

By AARON FAVILA and JIM GOMEZ Associated Press MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The son and namesake of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos has registered his candidacy for next year’s presidential elections. His move sparked a protest by more than 100 activists who recalled the widespread human rights atrocities that marked the martial law era under his

By KAREL JANICEK Associated Press PRAGUE (AP) — Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis is heading into a parliamentary election this week hit by yet another scandal that links him and hundreds of other wealthy people to offshore accounts. Findings by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists dubbed the “Pandora Papers” found that Babis put $22

By KATHLEEN RONAYNE and MATTHEW DALY Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Oil spilling into federal waters off California’s coast has prompted fresh calls for an end to offshore oil drilling in state and federal waters. But that’s easier said than done. Neither the longstanding ban on new drilling leases in state water nor an

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — A trove of leaked documents shows that for years, Lebanon’s politicians and bankers have stowed wealth in offshore tax havens and used it to buy expensive properties. It’s a galling revelation for masses of newly impoverished Lebanese, caught in one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns in

By SAMUEL PETREQUIN Associated Press BRDO CASTLE, Slovenia (AP) — European Union leaders have tried to reassure six Balkan countries that they could join the trading bloc one day if they met its standards. But the EU leaders failed to provide a credible signal on Wednesday that the enlargement process will be relaunched in a

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Britain is experiencing empty gas pumps, worker shortages and unavailable items on store shelves. None of that got a mention from Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday as he brushed off Britain’s economic bumps and said the country would emerge from Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares have gained, tracking a rally on Wall Street after signs of progress on resolving the standoff in Congress over the debt ceiling. Benchmarks in Japan, South Korea, Australia and Hong Kong are higher in early trading. Shanghai trading is closed for a Chinese national