Month: July 2022

By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH Associated Press LOUISIANA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia is celebrating two major anniversaries this year — 200 years ago freed slaves from the U.S. arrived here and 25 years later they declared the country to be independent. Amid the festivities for Independence Day on Tuesday, many Liberians say the West African country’s promise

By THALIA BEATY Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The Rockefeller Foundation, created with wealth generated from the oil industry more than a century ago, plans to make the fight against climate change central to all of its work, including its operations and investments. In a public letter released Tuesday, foundation president, Dr. Rajiv J.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian police say they have broken up a people-smuggling gang near the border with Hungary. They found weapons and hundreds of passports and other documents taken from migrants trying to reach Western Europe. Police also found 120 migrants during the operation early on Tuesday in the area of Mali Horgos. Police

By SUSIE BLANN Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has targeted Ukraine’s Black Sea regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv with airstrikes despite a deal that was supposed to allow grain shipments from ports to resume. Ukraine’s military said the Kremlin’s forces used air-launched missiles in Tuesday’s attack. It says private buildings in coastal Odesa

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets followed Wall Street lower Wednesday as traders prepared for a possible sharp interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve to cool inflation. Shanghai, Hong Kong and South Korea declined. Tokyo advanced. Oil prices were little changed, staying below $100 per barrel. Wall Street

BEIJING (AP) — China is warning it will respond forcefully if U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proceeds with a planned visit to Taiwan. Pelosi would be the highest ranking U.S. politician to visit the self-governing island democracy since 1997. China claims Taiwan as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary, and its

NEWPORT, RI (AP) — Surprise! Joni Mitchell is back onstage. The folk legend performed her first full-length concert on Sunday at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, The Boston Globe reported. Mitchell has contended with health complications since suffering an aneurysm in 2015, and her last full show was in late 2002, according to

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Moroccan authorities say the bodies of eight migrants have washed ashore in southern Morocco after their dinghy capsized. The bodies were found early Monday in the coastal town of Akhfennir, on Morocco’s Atlantic coast facing the Spanish Canary Islands. Moroccan authorities said 18 other migrants who had been in the capsized

By EDWIN KINDZEKA MOKI Associated Press YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron says Russia’s war on Ukraine is responsible for a global food shortage that is causing untold suffering in Africa. Macron was speaking Tuesday in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, as part of the first leg of his three-nation tour to Africa

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union governments have agreed to reduce consumption of natural gas this winter to protect against further supply cuts by Russia as it pursues its invasion of Ukraine. EU energy ministers on Tuesday approved a draft law intended to lower demand for gas by 15% from August through March, although the measure

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s national statistics office says that the country’s average life expectancy dropped noticeably between 2019 and 2021. It attributed the change to unusually high numbers of deaths during the coronavirus pandemic. The Federal Statistical Office said Tuesday that life expectancy for newborn girls last year was 83.2 years and for boys 78.2

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says it has demolished the homes of two Palestinians suspected of killing an Israeli security guard in a West Bank settlement in April. The army said Tuesday’s demolition was a response to the deadly shooting in which Palestinian gunmen killed Israeli security guard Vyacheslav Golev at the entrance to

By DAVID RISING and EILEEN NG Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — International outrage over Myanmar’s execution of four political prisoners is intensifying with grassroots protests and strong condemnation from world governments. Myanmar’s military-led government has been accused of thousands of extrajudicial killings since it seized power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February

By AJIT SOLANKI Associated Press AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — Officials say at least 28 people have died and another 60 have fallen sick from drinking spiked liquor in western India. The deaths occurred in Gujarat state, where making, selling and consuming liquor is banned. Illicit liquor is often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to

TOKYO (AP) — Prosecutors have searched the home of former Tokyo Olympic organizing committee executive board member Haruyuki Takahashi in connection with payments made to him by an Olympic sponsor of the Tokyo Games. The Japanese news agency Kyodo says Takahashi is thought to have received around 45 million yen ($330,000) from clothing retailer Aoki

By NICK PERRY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Micronesia’s first outbreak of COVID-19 has grown in one week to more than 1,000 cases and is causing alarm in the Pacific island nation. Last week, Micronesia likely became the final nation in the world with a population of more than 100,000 to experience an

MASKWACIS, Alberta (AP) — Pope Francis’ apology Monday for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s residential school system and the abuses that took place within it was a full-throated denunciation of a decadeslong policy of forced assimilation that aimed to strip Indigenous children of their culture and traumatized generations. Speaking at the site of a

BEIJING (AP) — Indonesian President Joko Widodo has formally invited his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to the Group of 20 summit in Bali this fall although it’s unclear whether he would attend in person. The invitation came during a meeting in Beijing where the two discussed issues ranging from trade to maritime cooperation. Xi has

By KATHY McCORMACK Associated Press CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A prosecutor says that a commercial truck driver charged in the deaths in 2019 of seven members of a Marine motorcycle club told police he caused the crash and wasn’t looking, while his lawyer said it was the fault of the lead biker, who looked over

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s Parliament has sat for the first time since May elections with the new prime minister determined to have a greenhouse gas reduction target enshrined in law. Legislation that would force Australia to reduce its emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by the end of the

By CLAIRE RUSH Associated Press/Report for America PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Under the sweltering heat, Matthew Carr spent his lunch break in a fountain in downtown Portland, Oregon. The 57-year-old works outside picking up trash for the city and had to find a way to cool off. “This is pretty hot,” Carr said. “I can

By JILL COLVIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The intensifying rivalry between former President Donald Trump and his once fiercely loyal vice president, Mike Pence, was put on stark display Tuesday as the two gave dueling speeches in Washington on the future of the Republican Party. Trump, in his first return to Washington since Democrat

By MARC LEVY Associated Press HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans are warming up to Doug Mastriano. When he crushed a nine-person field to win the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania governor in May, some in the party warned that Mastriano’s far-right views on everything from abortion to the 2020 presidential election would squander an otherwise attainable

SYDNEY (AP) — Seven Manly Sea Eagles players have withdrawn from a National Rugby League match in Australia because they’re unwilling to wear their club’s inclusion jersey. The jersey has rainbow stripes and a rainbow collar — in place of the regular white sections — to support LGBTQ inclusion in sports, and the club plans

By JIM MORRIS Associated Press VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Police tried to learn why a man gunned down four people in a Vancouver suburb as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday he is broken-hearted over the shootings that left the community shaken. Two people were killed and two were wounded — one critically

By NICK PERRY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The U.S. is sending a high-profile diplomatic delegation to visit the Solomon Islands next week led by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and including Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy. The U.S. State Department says the trip is to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi state agency has dropped its attorney investigating millions in misspent welfare dollars. The state Department of Human Services will find a new lawyer to replace former federal prosecutor Brad Pigott. The agency hired Pigott roughly a year ago to help recoup $77 million in misspent welfare funding identified by

By MORGAN LEE Associated Press SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A federal judge says that a conservative-backed initiative to publish voter registration records online for the public to see can move forward over the objections of New Mexico election regulators. Albuquerque-based U.S. District Court Judge James Browning issued an injunction last Friday preventing state prosecutors

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A senior U.N. official says Libya is mired in a constitutional and political stalemate that has sparked increasing clashes, a dire economic situation and demonstrations across the country by frustrated citizens. Assistant Secretary-General Martha Pobee told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that the overall

SEATTLE (AP) — The Seattle chapter of the Audubon Society says it is dropping “Audubon” from its name because the man the organization is named after was a slave owner and opposed abolition. KNKX reports that Seattle Audubon is one the largest chapters of the National Audubon Society, the nonprofit dedicated to protecting birds and