Month: December 2021

By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Officials say firefighters have contained a blaze that raged for hours in Syria’s port of Latakia, hours after Israel launched missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, igniting the fire in the container terminal. The Tuesday attack was the second such assault on the vital facility this month.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — Wildlife officials say a mama black bear and her three cubs clambered up a tree and napped in the middle of a Virginia neighborhood before voluntarily ambling on hours later. Chesapeake Animal Services announced on Facebook that the four bears came down from the tree on their own about midnight Monday.

By SARAH RANKIN Associated Press RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Conservation experts in Virginia’s capital pulled books, money, ammunition, documents and other artifacts from a time capsule found in the remnants of a pedestal that once held a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The team sliced open the 36-pound copper box Tuesday and meticulously

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The leader of Poland’s main opposition party is calling for the creation of a parliamentary commission to investigate surveillance after reports that powerful spyware was used against three people associated with the political opposition. Donald Tusk called the surveillance “an unprecedented thing in our history” and said it represented “the biggest

By TOM HAYS and LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The jury weighing the fate Ghislaine Maxwell’s fate has told a judge it is “making progress” in reaching a verdict after four full days of deliberations. Still, Judge Alison J. Nathan made it clear on Tuesday she wants the jury to work longer

By ZEKE MILLER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol has agreed to defer its request for hundreds of pages of records from the Trump administration. The deferral is in response to concerns by the Biden White House that releasing all the Trump administration documents sought

By HASSAN AMMAR Associated Press TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanon’s energy minister has launched two projects in the country’s north to facilitate the flow of natural gas from Egypt to improve electricity production and expand the country’s tanks to increase oil reserves. The revival of the Arab Gas Pipeline to deliver Egyptian gas to Lebanon

MIAMI (AP) — Federal regulators say the owner of a Miami-based payday loan company bilked hundreds of investors out of millions of dollars and repaid others with money he acquired from a Ponzi scheme. The Securities and Exchange Commission says in a complaint filed in September that Efrain Betancourt Jr. and Sky Group USA committed

By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey’s Supreme Court has thrown out the 2016 conviction of a Florida woman convicted of killing her 5-year-old son 25 years earlier. The high court voted Tuesday in favor of  Michelle Lodzinski, who has been serving a 30-year sentence without parole for the killing of

By ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Kuwait’s ruling emir has announced the formation of a new Cabinet. The move on Tuesday breaks a monthlong deadlock with the nomination of 15 new government ministers who will have to address a series of political and financial difficulties. The new Cabinet of Prime

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Technology Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The jury weighing fraud charges against former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes left the court Tuesday without reaching a verdict after a fifth day of deliberations. Holmes is facing 11 criminal charges alleging that she duped investors and patients by hailing her company’s blood-testing technology

By ARITZ PARRA Associated Press MADRID (AP) — Spain’s left-wing ruling coalition is securing its hold on power with the approval of a landmark labor reform and a new national spending plan for next year that includes a hefty disbursement of pandemic recovery funds. An array of left-leaning and regionalist lawmakers have given the final

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — Police in North Macedonia say they have found 53 people crammed into a truck, and have arrested the vehicle’s driver. Police said in a statement that the migrants — 34 from India and 19 from Cuba — were discovered during a routine control at a highway toll station near the

BANGKOK (AP) — The humanitarian group Save the Children says it has confirmed that two of its staff were among at least 35 people who were killed in eastern Myanmar on Christmas Eve in an attack it blamed on the country’s military. It says the two men were caught up in the attack in Kayah

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices surged again in October as the housing market continues to boom in the wake of last year’s coronavirus recession. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, out Tuesday, climbed 18.4% in October from a year earlier. The gain marked a slight decleration

By WILSON RING Associated Press MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — An expected decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming year to severely restrict abortion rights or overturn Roe v. Wade entirely is setting off a renewed round of abortion battles in state legislatures across the U.S. Republican-led legislatures are likely to press for full

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish media reports say police have detained a man who wounded one person during a knife attack on a branch of a pro-Kurdish party in Istanbul. A Turkish newspaper reported that the assailant entered the People’s Democratic Party office in Istanbul’s Bahcelievler district on Tuesday and threatened to kill everyone inside

By KELSEY SHEEHY of NerdWallet Some cities and states are targeting remote workers as a way to boost the local tax base and combat decades of brain drain. To get out-of-staters to relocate and live and work from a new city, these locales are shelling out $10,000 or more — or other benefits. For instance,

BEIJING (AP) — Advertisements featuring some Chinese models have sparked feuding in China over whether their appearance and makeup are perpetuating Asian stereotypes. German automaker Mercedes-Benz and a Chinese snack company are the latest to get caught up in the fray. Some Chinese consumers complained after the local snack brand Three Squirrels featured advertisements on

By ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The multibillion-dollar world’s fair in Dubai has warned that some venues on site may shut down as coronavirus cases rapidly rise in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai’s Expo 2020 said that virus outbreaks among workers may force some parts of the fair to “close

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s prime minister says talks with the International Monetary Fund are inching closer to a “final formula” for a draft deal before the end of February. The Lebanese government has not been able to meet since mid-October after the militant Hezbollah group and its allies demanded the

By DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s highest court has shut down one of the country’s oldest and most prominent human rights organizations. It was the latest move in a relentless crackdown on rights activists, independent media and opposition supporters. The Supreme Court’s decision to liquidate Memorial, which rose to prominence for its

BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors say they have charged two Afghan brothers with murder over the killing in July of their sister, whom they allegedly wanted to punish for her Western way of life. The men are accused of luring their 34-year-old sister to a meeting in Berlin, then choking and strangling her and cutting

By MOHAMMAD TAUFAN Associated Press PALU, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian police say they have arrested five people suspected of smuggling 29 kilograms (64 pounds) of methamphetamine into Indonesia from Malaysia. A police official says the five are part of an international drug smuggling network and include a Malaysian citizen. He says the suspects told police