Month: December 2021

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Building materials maker Kingspan says it has agreed with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One racing team to end a partnership deal after protests from families of people who died in a high-rise fire in London. The company said in a statement that it was “ deeply aware

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Netherlands’ national museum is planning to restretch Rembrandt van Rijn’s iconic painting “The Night Watch” to get rid of deformations in its top left corner. The museum announced Wednesday that the 379.5×453.5-centimeter (149.4×178.5-inch) canvas will be removed from its wooden stretcher next month and

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Angela Merkel is credited with raising Germany’s profile and influence and working to hold a fractious European Union together. She also been lauded for managing a string of crises and being a role model for women in a near-record tenure that ends with her leaving office amid

By VANESSA GERA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland and several other countries in Central and Eastern Europe are facing the emergence of the omicron variant while already dealing with surging coronavirus cases and deaths. COVID-19 deaths recently peaked in Russia and Ukraine, and more than 1,00 people in Russia are dying with the

By NINIEK KARMINI Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian court has sentenced an Islamic militant who eluded capture for 16 years to life in prison after finding him guilty of making bombs used in a 2005 market attack that killed 22 people. Upik Lawanga, known as “professor,” is a key member of the

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — The European diplomat chairing nuclear talks between Iran and world powers says negotiations in Vienna will resume Thursday. Enrique Mora tweeted Wednesday that the parties to the 2015 Vienna accord will meet in the Austrian capital after consulting with their governments in recent days. European diplomats had

Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations says fighting between troops loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognized government and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels displaced over 25,000 people around a key port city last month. The fighting in Hodeida flared up when rebels rushed in to areas abandoned by government forces, followed by a counterstrike by pro-government

By THOMAS ADAMSON Associated Press PARIS (AP) — French authorities have announced that a man arrested at Paris-Charles De Gaulle Airport linked to the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was misidentified.The Paris General Prosecutor’s office issued a short statement Wednesday after over 24 hours of checks. It said that the man arrested Tuesday

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Facebook’s parent company Meta has announced a new ban on postings linked to Myanmar’s military to include all pages, groups, and accounts representing military-controlled businesses. It had already banned advertising from such businesses in February. The February action, which also banned military and military-controlled state and media

By AGOES BASOEKI Associated Press LUMAJANG, Indonesia (AP) — Heavy rains and torrents of hot lava and mud sliding down an erupting volcano on Indonesia’s Java island have put search and rescue operations for more than a dozen missing on hold. Mount Semeru blew its top on Saturday, killing at least 34 people with searing

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi media says that authorities have conducted their biggest-ever crackdown on camel beauty contestants that received Botox injections and other artificial touch-ups. State-run Saudi Press Agency reported Wednesday that over 40 camels were caught and disqualified from the annual pageant. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, which kicked off

By SHEIKH SAALIQ and ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s air force says the country’s military chief, Gen. Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 others have been killed in a helicopter crash in southern Tamil Nadu state. It says in a tweet that the helicopter “met with a tragic accident.” The dead

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has apologized and ordered an inquiry after a leaked video showed senior members of his staff joking about holding a lockdown-breaching Christmas party. The video has poured fuel on allegations that Conservative government officials flouted coronavirus rules they imposed on everyone else.

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — German police and customs officers have conducted dozens of raids and arrested at least nine people in a crackdown on the alleged human trafficking of temporary workers from outside the European Union. Authorities say they are investigating around 20 suspects for suspected involvement in allegedly forging EU

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets have followed Wall Street higher as investors wait for U.S. inflation data that might influence the Federal Reserve’s decision on when to roll back economic stimulus. Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul and Sydney advanced. Tokyo declined. Wall Street rose for a third day as

MOSCOW (AP) — A Japanese billionaire and his producer rocketed to space on Wednesday and reached the International Space Station several hours later. Fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and producer Yozo Hirano, who plans to film his mission, blasted off Wednesday for the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — When the leaders of the Soviet Union’s three Slavic republics met at a secluded hunting lodge near the Polish border on Dec. 8, 1991, they delivered a death blow to the USSR. Their agreement that day triggered shockwaves that are still reverberating three decades

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Olaf Scholz has taken over as Germany’s new chancellor at the head of a three-party coalition government, ending the 16-year era of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. Scholz will lead a 17-member Cabinet with one more minister than Merkel’s team. Green co-leader Robert Habeck will become vice chancellor.

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Olaf Scholz has become Germany’s ninth post-World War II chancellor, opening a new era for the European Union’s most populous nation and largest economy after Angela Merkel’s 16-year tenure. Scholz’s government takes office with high hopes of modernizing Germany and combating climate change but faces the immediate

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man who spent over two decades in prison for what a court is calling a wrongful murder and armed robbery conviction has been released from prison. WCVB-TV reports that James Lucien, 48, was serving a life sentence in connection to the 1994 fatal shooting of Ryan Edwards, 23. Lucien said

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police say an Israeli woman has been stabbed and lightly wounded in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood. The suspect, a Palestinian female minor, was later arrested inside a school. The stabbing took place in Sheikh Jarrah, where several Palestinian extended families are at risk of being evicted by Jewish settlers amid a

By FARES AKRAM Associated Press GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The players race across the pitch on crutches, jostling for the soccer ball, passing it back and forth. Their prosthetic legs are lined up along the sidelines at a stadium in the Gaza Strip. They are the first Palestinian national soccer team made up

By AAMER MADHANI, VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden says that he has warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow will face a severe economic pain if it tries to attack Ukraine, but promised prospective talks to address Russia’s concerns about NATO’s expansion. Biden said he was

By AMY FORLITI and STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Jurors at the trial of the former suburban Minneapolis police officer who killed Black motorist Daunte Wright are hearing starkly different versions of events. An attorney for former Brooklyn Center Officer Kim Potter told jurors during his opening statement Wednesday that Potter made a

By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court appears ready to rule that religious schools can’t be excluded from a Maine program that offers tuition aid for private education. The court’s six conservative justices seemed largely unpersuaded, after nearly two hours in the courtroom Wednesday, by Maine’s position that the state is

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A company once owned by “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli will pay up to $40 million to settle allegations that it jacked up the price of a life-saving medication by roughly 4 ,000% after obtaining exclusive rights to the drug. The Federal Trade Commission announced the settlement Tuesday. The FTC and seven

By BEN FOX Associated Press JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. (AP) — More than three months after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, about 35,000 Afghans are still housed at six U.S. military installations. The U.S. welcomed journalists to the largest of the bases, in central New Jersey, where many Afghans are relieved to be

By DON THOMPSON Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Scott Peterson is set to be resentenced to life in prison in the 2002 slayings of his pregnant wife and unborn son. The California Supreme Court ruled a year ago that his jury was improperly screened for bias against the death penalty in a case that

By DON BABWIN and SARA BURNETT Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — A jury has completed deliberations for the day in the trial of actor Jussie Smollett on charges he staged a racist, anti-gay attack on himself and lied to Chicago police about it. After a weeklong trial, the jury deliberated for about two hours Wednesday