Month: October 2021

By FRANCES D’EMILIO Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says Pope Francis has agreed to visit Canada to help reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples following shocking revelations of the Catholic church’s role in the abuse and deaths of thousands of native children. The Vatican said in a brief statement on Wednesday that the

By THOMAS ADAMSON Associated Press PARIS (AP) — A hike in the cost of wheat is alarming French households who fear a possible rise in the price of the prized baguette. Many boulangeries are warning customers that the long, crunchy French staple could be going up by 3 to 5 centimes. The president of the

By VANESSA GERA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Polish court has upheld the Warsaw mayor’s ban on an annual march organized by nationalists on Poland’s Independence Day. But organizers vowed on Wednesday to appeal and insisted they would march as planned. The Nov. 11 march has attracted large numbers of participants in recent

BY SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — EgyptAir says a Moscow-bound flight has returned to the Egyptian capital shortly after its takeoff after a threatening message was found onboard. The airline says EgyptAir flight MS729 has returned safely to Cairo International Airport around 22 minutes after takeoff. It says the written message was found

By LORNE COOK Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Operations John Manza says the military organization’s security operation in Afghanistan became a victim of “mission creep” that bogged it down in the country. The man leading the process of learning lessons from almost 20-years of operations says that NATO allowed itself to

By ALBERTO ARCE and RODRIGO ABD Associated Press PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Youri Mevs is not starving, not struggling for survival — in so many ways, she is unlike the migrants who are fleeing Haiti’s misery. She traces her roots to ancestors who came to Haiti generations ago and built fortunes. But like those emigrants,

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Ghosts and goblins can scratch the White House from their trick or treating routes this year. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will be in Europe on Halloween and won’t be around to help hand out candy and other treats. Instead, the first lady’s spokesperson

By RAF CASERT Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s top court has fined Poland $1.2 million a day to prevent what it called “serious and irreparable harm” to the EU’s legal order and values. The European Court of Justice imposed the penalty after a weeklong war of words in Poland’s standoff with the

LONDON (AP) — Pharmaceutical company Merck has agreed to allow other drug makers to make its COVID-19 treatment, the first pill that has been shown to be effective against the disease. The move aims at helping millions of people in poorer countries access to the drug. The U.N.-backed Medicines Patent Pool said in a statement

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — In a story published October 27, 2021, about Facebook and former President Donald Trump, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Trump sent posts about George Floyd on Twitter and Facebook at 9:53 a.m. on May 28, 2020. He tweeted the post at 9:53 p.m. on that date and repeated the comments

By MARGARETTE BURNETTE of NerdWallet With fewer outlets for in-person spending, many people have been saving more money over the last 18 months than before the pandemic started. If you were able to save, sustaining the habits that drove those savings can help you financially prepare for the future. Evaluate if pricey, nonessential purchases are

LONDON (AP) — Climate protesters have tried to block two major roads into London, despite court injunctions banning them from disrupting traffic. Activists from the group Insulate Britain want the government to better insulate homes in the country to cut carbon emissions. They targeted two busy roads leading into the capital during Wednesday’s morning rush

By ALBERTO ARCE The Associated Press A judge has ordered authorities in Spain to register a toddler who was born during her mother’s journey from Cameroon to Europe. According to court documents seen by The Associated Press on Wednesday, the girl’s was born March 27, 2020 birth in an Algeria hospital. But the judge in

By ILAN BEN ZION and LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli settlement monitor says Israel has approved about 3,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank. The decision by a government committee comes a day after the Biden administration issued its strongest condemnation yet of the proposed construction. Hagit Ofran from the

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has hit another record for daily COVID-19 deaths as authorities across the country moved to keep most people off work in line with a Kremlin order aimed at stemming the spread. Russia’s coronavirus task force on Wednesday registered 1,123 deaths in 24 hours, the largest daily

By RAF CASERT Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union founding member Belgium warned Poland on Wednesday not to treat the EU like “a cash machine” to boost its economic fortunes while disregarding its democratic and rule of law principles at will. Targeting Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Treasury chief Rishi Sunak is painting a relatively rosy picture of the state of the country’s economy following the U.K.’s deepest recession in around 300 years. In his annual budget to Parliament, Sunak said growth this year was set to be 6.5%, higher than predicted just

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is meeting with Greek officials during a visit to Athens that’s expected to focus on furthering Chinese investments in Greece. Greece recently emerged from a decade-long financial crisis that wiped out a quarter of its economy and has been eager to attract international investments. China is

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Unidentified gunmen attacked a police patrol overnight in northwest Pakistan, killing four before fleeing the scene, a police official said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack in Lakki Marwat, a town in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Police provided no further details. Pakistan has witnessed scores of such terrorist

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — The German parliament will not extend the “epidemic situation of national scope” when it expires next month, but will keep in place certain measures to check the spread of the coronavirus. Leading members of the country’s parliament, or Bundestag, said on Wednesday that although coronavirus infections have

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Deutsche Bank has seen its net profit increase 6%, to 329 million euros, in the third quarter despite a sharp increase in restructuring costs. The bottom line at Germany’s largest bank benefited from fewer loans going bad as the economy rebounds from the coronavirus pandemic. The bank said Wednesday that it

By BARRY HATTON Associated Press LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s parliament has rejected the minority Socialist government’s proposed state budget for 2022. That is expected to trigger an early election and put a brake on the country’s post-pandemic recovery plans. The moderate Socialists were deserted Wednesday by their hard-left allies from the Communist Party and

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations Security Council and the United States have imposed sanctions on a Libyan official over the alleged abuse and torture of migrants in a detention center. The Security Council and the U.S. said in separate statements late Tuesday that Osama al-Kuni is the de facto

By LISA MASCARO, AAMER MADHANI and ALAN FRAM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Democrats say a deal is within reach on President Joe Biden’s big domestic bill. But tempers have flared as a paid family leave proposal fell out and a billionaires plan ended up scrapped, largely to satisfy one pivotal senator. Biden is

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan says that Saudi Arabia will deposit $3 billion into its central bank to help bolster the cash-strapped fellow Islamic nation’s shrinking foreign reserves. Shaukat Tarin, Pakistan’s top finance ministry official, also said on Twitter Wednesday that Saudi Arabia will additionally supply 1.2 billion worth of oil to Pakistan on credit. The

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Relatives and activists say Sudanese security forces have detained three prominent pro-democracy figures overnight. The arrests come as internal and international pressure mounts on the country’s military following its coup and protests denouncing the takeover continued Wednesday. Many businesses have shut in response to calls for strikes.

BEIJING (AP) — China says participants in next year’s Winter Olympics will be strictly isolated from the general population and could face expulsion for violating COVID-19 restrictions. Beijing 2022 organizing committee official Zhang Jiandong says those taking part in the Winter Games beginning Feb. 4 must remain in a “closed loop” for accommodation, training, competing,

By HASSAN BARISE Associated Press MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Among the once-taboo professions emerging from Somalia’s decades of conflict and Islamic extremism is the world of arts, and a 21-year-old female painter has faced more opposition than most. A rare woman artist in the highly conservative Horn of Africa nation, Sana Ashraf Sharif Muhsin lives

BRUSSELS (AP) — A study commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace shows that over one-third of the busiest short-haul flights in Europe have viable train alternatives which are far less polluting. The group called on European governments Wednesday to boost train travel so fewer polluting planes are flying over the continent. The study by OBC

By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s top court has established a committee of experts to probe accusations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government used Israeli military-grade spyware to monitor political opponents, journalists and activists. The Supreme Court order came in response to petitions filed by a group of Indian journalists, rights

By YURI KAGEYAMA Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Sunao Tsuboi, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing who made opposing nuclear weapons the message of his life, including in a meeting with President Barack Obama in 2016, has died. He was 96. Tsuboi died Oct. 24 in a hospital in Hiroshima in southwestern Japan. When

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — A Group of 20 summit scheduled for this weekend in Rome is the first in-person gathering of leaders of the world’s biggest economies since the COVID-19 pandemic started. But the event isn’t business as usual. The leaders of Russia and China aren’t attending in person. There could

By JON GAMBRELL and NASSER KARIMI Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s president is saying that a cyberattack that shut down gas stations across the nation aimed to get “people angry by creating disorder and disruption.” Ebrahim Raisi’s comments, the first since Tuesday’s attack, did not blame anyone specifically for the incident.