Month: June 2022

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — A British judge has rejected a bid to ground a flight due to take more than 30 asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda next week. Judge Jonathan Swift refused a request from a group of the asylum-seekers for an injunction grounding the flight planned for Tuesday.

By MAE ANDERSON AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Small businesses that depend on outdoor crowds and free-spending tourists aren’t sure what to expect this summer. Consumers likely have a lot of pent-up demand after more than two years of the pandemic. But they’re also facing some significant financial headwinds because of the highest

By ZEKE MILLER and DAVID KOENIG Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is lifting its requirement that international travelers test negative for COVID-19 within a day before boarding a flight to the United States, ending one of the last remaining government mandates designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The Centers for

By JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr. AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Several artists including Bun B, Lupe Fiasco and 6LACK have recorded songs honoring Juneteenth for Apple Music. Performers from different genres composed new tracks, while others recorded cover songs for the second annual “Juneteenth 2022: Freedom Songs” playlist, which launches Friday on the streaming

By NICOLAS VAUX-MONTAGNY Associated Press PARIS (AP) — French prosecutors have laid out their sentencing demands in the historic Paris trial of 20 men suspected of critical roles in France’s worst peacetime attack. The Islamic State massacres in Paris killed 130 people on Nov. 13, 2015. For Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of that

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean police have detained dozens of truckers blocking traffic and disrupting movement of goods near factories as a nationwide strike extends into a fourth day. The truckers are urging the government to provide a minimum income in the face of soaring fuel prices that are squeezing their finances. Government

By The Associated Press Russia’s central bank has cut interest rates back to their prewar levels. The bank said Friday that inflation and economic activity are developing better than expected despite sweeping Western sanctions imposed in response to the war in Ukraine. The bank lowered its key rate by 1.5 percentage points, to 9.5%. The

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian state-run media say Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has arrived in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on a two-day state visit. The report says a high-ranking political and economic delegation from Venezuela, which like Iran is under heavy U.S. sanctions, is accompanying Maduro on the visit, following an invitation from Iran’s hard-line

By DAVID SHARP, ANDREW DEMILLO and GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A local district attorney’s race in Maine wasn’t generating much attention until a political action committee linked to a deep-pocketed liberal donor with international name recognition suddenly took an interest. A super PAC funded by George Soros, the billionaire investor, philanthropist

By EMILY ROSE Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Tens of thousands of people are attending this year’s Pride Parade in Tel Aviv. They are celebrating the LGBTQ community and calling for equality in the largest annual gathering of its kind in the Middle East. The sprawling event in Israel’s seaside metropolis, which resembles

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Russian suspect in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine has appealed in a video statement to a Dutch court to be declared innocent. The statement Friday came as judges adjourned the long-running trial of three Russians and a Ukrainian

Associated Press KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s law minister says the government has agreed to abolish the mandatory death penalty and allow judges to set alternative punishments for a range of offenses. Wan Junadi Tuanku Jaafar said in a statement Friday that the Cabinet will study other proposed punishments for 11 offenses that currently

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has canceled a planned July trip to Africa on doctors’ orders because of ongoing knee problems. The Vatican said the July 2-7 trip to Congo and South Sudan would be rescheduled “to a later date to be determined.” Francis has used a wheelchair for

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s foreign ministry says authorities are trying to trace and arrest suspects who this week desecrated a Hindu temple in the port city of Karachi, drawing condemnation from New Delhi. The ministry says in a statement on Friday that those who attacked the temple  on Wednesday “will not escape justice and the

By JOHN FLESHER and ED WHITE Associated Press GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan prosecutor who charged a police officer with murder in the shooting of Patrick Lyoya is being praised by some of his early critics. Black activists in April wanted Chris Becker to give the investigation to the Michigan attorney general, saying

By FLORENT BAJRAMI and LLAZAR SEMINI Associated Press PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has asked Kosovo and Serbia  for a clear commitment to reaching a political solution to their long-standing dispute over Kosovo’s independence. Normalization talks facilitated by the European Union started 11 years ago but yielded little impact, and tensions between

By DAVID RISING Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — A top State Department official says the American diplomatic push aimed at countering China’s increasing influence in the Asia-Pacific region appears to be paying dividends, with many nations showing a willingness to partner with the United States. U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet told The Associated Press

By CIARÁN GILES Associated Press MADRID (AP) — Algeria appears to have backed down in its dispute with Spain with the country´s European Union mission issuing a statement saying the country had never suspended the friendship treaty it holds with Spain. In an odd development, Algeria said the suspension exists “only in the minds of

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Authorities in Greece say four British nationals have been arrested on drug smuggling charges after nearly 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of cocaine was found stashed in a shipment of bananas from South America. The suspects were arrested at a rental home near the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, and were identified

BERLIN (AP) — A Catholic priest in Germany has been found dead a day after he was questioned and suspended as part of an investigation into abuse allegations. The Diocese of Limburg said in a statement that the head of its seminary was found dead on Thursday. It said the priest had been questioned Wednesday

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A Syrian pro-government newspaper says Syria has suspended all flights to and from Damascus International Airport after an Israeli airstrike hit an area close to the facility. Al-Watan newspaper gave no further details about Friday’s attack on the airport area. State news agency SANA confirmed that all flights have been suspended

By AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The social media posts are of a distinct type. They hint darkly that the CIA or the FBI are behind mass shootings. They traffic in racist, sexist and homophobic tropes. They revel in the prospect of a “white boy summer.” White nationalists and supremacists, on accounts often

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian authorities say they have arrested 13 burglars who cut into the vault of a Tehran state bank from a neighboring building and stole 168 safe deposit boxes. The state-run IRNA news agency in Friday quoted Tehran Prosecutor Ali Salehi as saying that three of the suspects were arrested in an

By CHRIS MEGERIAN and JOSH BOAK Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Inflation keeps getting the better of the U.S. economy — and of President Joe Biden’s administration. It’s a problem that’s eluded Biden’s policy tweaks, deals brokered with the private sector, infrastructure spending and regulatory actions. He’s vowing to keep fighting in a speech

LONDON (AP) — The British government plans to burn billions of dollars in unusable protective equipment purchased during the coronavirus pandemic. It says the move will generate power. A public spending watchdog says 4 billion pounds ($5 billion) worth of PPE bought by the government has to be dumped because it is defective or does

By NOHA ELHENNAWY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum says Sudan’s leading pro-democracy group has met with the country’s generals for the first time since last year’s military coup. This could signal a breakthrough in attempts to bring the East African nation back on track toward a democratic transition. The meeting

GENEVA (AP) — Authorities in Switzerland said they found the body of an Indonesian governor’s 22-year-old son who went missing two weeks ago while swimming in the river that runs through the Swiss capital. Police in Bern said Thursday that the body of Emmeril “Eril” Kahn Mumtadz, the oldest son of West Java Governor Ridwan