Month: December 2021

BERLIN (AP) — The European Union says negotiators from Iran and five world powers that are trying to revive Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal will resume talks in Vienna next week. The talks were adjourned nearly a week ago after a round marked by tensions over new demands from Iran. The EU said participants from

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Justice Ministry says it has reached a plea deal with a powerful opposition lawmaker that will see him resign from parliament. The deal leaves open the possibility that Aryeh Deri could return to the Knesset in the near future. The ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the

BAYTOWN, Texas (AP) — Crews have extinguished a large fire at a Houston-area refinery that left four people injured. The fire started at about 1 a.m. Thursday at ExxonMobil’s refinery in Baytown, which is about 25 miles east of Houston. The company says four people were hurt but everyone else on site has been accounted

By RAF CASERT Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — The Belgian government has tentatively committed to phasing out the country’s existing nuclear power plants by 2025. Under a complicated compromise agreement reached Thursday after all-night negotiations, the country would use gas as a bridge toward sustainable energy sources and possible new-technology nuclear options later. The government

By JILL LAWLESS and LAURA UNGAR Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Britain’s public health agency says preliminary data suggests that people with the omicron variant of the coronavirus are 50% to 70% less likely to be hospitalized than those with the delta strain. One researcher described the findings announced Thursday as “a small ray of

By HOPE YEN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is announcing more than $241 million in grants to bolster U.S ports. It’s part of President Joe Biden’s near-term plan to address America’s clogged supply chain with infrastructure improvements to speed the flow of goods. The transportation money is being made available immediately

By MATT O’BRIEN and CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Computers have become amazingly precise at translating spoken words to text messages and scouring huge troves of data for answers to complex questions – as long as you speak English or another of the world’s dominant languages. Try talking to your phone in

By BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI Associated Press Five teenagers were charged Thursday after the vehicle stolen at gunpoint in Philadelphia from U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon was found in neighboring Delaware, police said. Scanlon’s blue Acura MDX was located Wednesday night in Newark, Delaware, about 45 miles (74 kilometers) from Philadelphia, Delaware State Police said. The five

Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A United Nations report estimates that 22 million Ethiopians will require humanitarian assistance in 2022. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated in a report that Ethiopia’s already high humanitarian needs are expected to rise in the coming year due to the ongoing conflict, drought, flooding,

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged the West to “immediately” meet Russia’s demand for security guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine and the deployment of the military alliance’s weapons there. Putin accused the West during a marathon news conference on Thursday of trying to make Ukraine “anti-Russia,

BERLIN (AP) — Police have launched a manhunt for a 56-year-old German who went on the run this week after losing his final appeal of a murder conviction for the killing of a schoolgirl in 1993. German news agency dpa on Thursday quoted a police spokesperson in the western city of Muenster as saying investigators

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has urged Vatican cardinals, bishops and bureaucrats to embrace humility this Christmas season. Francis used his annual Christmas address on Thursday to take Vatican administrators to task for their perceived moral and personal failings. He said their pride, self-interest and the “glitter of our armor”

By The Associated Press For Afghanistan, 2021 was punctuated by the chaos of a U.S. withdrawal and an uncertain next chapter. The Taliban quickly took power back in mid-August. They could not be stopped by a collapsing Afghan military and Western-backed government that fled. Four months into Taliban rule, Afghanistan is facing a looming economic

By ZEN SOO Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — A monument at a Hong Kong university that was the best-known public remembrance of the Tiananmen Square massacre on Chinese soil has been removed as one of the city’s last places of public commemoration of the bloody 1989 crackdown. For some at the University of Hong

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia’s state news agency says a court has sentenced former President Moncef Marzouki in absentia to four years in prison for “undermining the external security of the state.” Marzouki had urged France to end its support for Tunisia, calling current President Kaïs Saied a “dictator.” Saied froze parliament, sacked the prime

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s health minister says he expects a surge in coronavirus cases around the New Year period, as the national disease control center says the country has now recorded its first death of someone with the new omicron variant. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said Thursday that Germany hasn’t seen a big, rapid wave

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — U.S. officials have denied an American citizen who was arrested in Turkey for allegedly providing a fake passport to a Syrian man is a U.S. diplomat. Turkish officials said Wednesday they detained a U.S. diplomat at Istanbul Airport on Nov. 11. Authorities in Turkey publicly identified the man only by his

By LAURA UNGAR and TALI ARBEL Associated Press For the second year in a row, the ever-morphing coronavirus presents would-be holiday revelers with a difficult choice: cancel their trips and celebrations yet again or figure out how to forge ahead as safely as possible. Many health experts are begging people not to let down their

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Technology Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Jurors in the fraud trial of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes returned to the courtroom Thursday to listen to a replay of audio recordings that captured her brash promises about a vaunted blood-testing technology the propelled her meteoric rise and scandalous downfall.  In those

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Intel Corp. has apologized for asking suppliers to avoid sourcing goods from Xinjiang after the chipmaker became the latest foreign brand attacked by state media over the region where authorities are accused of widespread abuses. The company, in a statement on its social media account, said

BEIJING (AP) — China has plunged a city of 13 million people into lockdown to stamp out an increase in coronavirus infections, as the country doubles down on its “zero tolerance” policy just weeks before it is set to host the Winter Olympics. The restrictions in the northeastern city of Xi’an took effect at midnight

By MATT O’BRIEN and FRANK BAJAK AP Technology Writers Robotic vacuum cleaners wouldn’t start. Doorbell cameras stopped watching for package thieves, though some of those deliveries were canceled anyway. Netflix and Disney movies got interrupted and The Associated Press had trouble publishing the news. A major outage in Amazon’s cloud computing network on Dec. 7

By ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press SANG-E-ATASH, Afghanistan (AP) — Fed by rain and snowmelt from mountains, this valley nestled among northwestern Afghanistan’s jagged peaks was once fertile. But the climate has changed in the last few decades, locals say, leaving the earth barren and its people struggling to survive. Many now depend on food aid

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets have risen after Wall Street hit a new high as fears of the coronavirus’s omicron variant eased. Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney advanced. Shanghai declined. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.6% on Thursday in the last U.S. trading session before Christmas.

By LISA RATHKE Associated Press CHESTER, Vt. (AP) — An animal tranquilizer is turning up in drug overdoses across the country. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says xylazine was involved in fatal drug overdoses in 23 states in 2019, with a highest rate — 67% — happening in the Northeast.

By ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The globalized city-state of Dubai appears to be in the midst of a boom season. It’s a surge in growth spurred on by one of the world’s highest vaccination rates and government moves to de-escalate tensions with regional rivals and lure foreign businesses. Maskless