Month: March 2023

By ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s defense minister became the first ally in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to break ranks on Saturday as he called for an immediate halt to the far-right government’s contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary. In a televised address, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant expressed concern

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans on Saturday to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, a warning to the West as it steps up military support for Ukraine. Putin said the move was triggered by Britain’s decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium. Tactical nuclear

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says two soldiers were wounded, one severely, in a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank, the latest in months-long violence between Israel and the Palestinians. Saturday’s attack was the third to take place in the Palestinian town of Hawara in less than a month. The military said a

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has canceled his trip to China after contracting pneumonia, the presidential palace said on Saturday. Lula, 77, was admitted to a hospital in the capital of Brasilia with flu-like symptoms and was diagnosed with “bacterial and viral bronchopneumonia due to influenza A,” the

PRAGUE (AP) — Emil Bocek, the last living Czech pilot who fought the Nazis while serving with Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II, has died at age 100. A community center for war veterans in the Czech Republic city of Brno, his hometown, said Bocek died on Saturday. The Czech Defense Ministry confirmed

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — U.N. inspectors visiting southern Libya found drums containing natural uranium reported missing earlier this month in the chaos-stricken country, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday. The International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier this month that some 2.5 tons of natural uranium stored at a site in the

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Xavier López, a Mexican children’s comic better known by his stage name “Chabelo,” has died at 88, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote Saturday. López’s best-known work, the Sunday variety show “En Familia con Chabelo”, ran for an astonishing 48 years from 1967 to 2015, Mexico’s longest-running TV show. The Mexican

By JOHN FLESHER AP Environmental Writer TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Canada has pledged to step up spending to improve water quality in the Great Lakes. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement Friday after meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden. Some members of the U.S. Congress and advocacy groups had complained that Canada has

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Republican Gov. Brad Little signed a bill allowing execution by firing squad, making Idaho the latest state to turn to older methods of capital punishment amid a nationwide shortage of lethal-injection drugs. The Legislature passed the measure March 20 with a veto-proof majority. Under it, firing squads will be used only

By GARY FIELDS and MICHAEL TARM Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — The voting precinct could have been any one of hundreds throughout Chicago, except that these voters in the first round of the mayoral election were all wearing the same beige smocks. And the security at this polling place wasn’t intended to keep disrupters and

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The West’s steady criticism of Hungary on democratic and cultural issues makes the small European country’s right-wing government reluctant to offer support on practical matters, specifically NATO’s buildup against Russia, Hungary’s foreign minister said. In an interview with The Associated Press, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó

By ELÉONORE HUGHES Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Retired Formula One champion Nelson Piquet has been ordered by a Brazilian court to pay $950,000 in “moral damages” for making racist and homophobic comments about Lewis Hamilton. The 70-year-old Brazilian had referred to seven-time champion Hamilton as “neguinho,” a racially offensive term which means

By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell says he’ll run for governor in 2024. He’ll likely be required to best Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson to earn the Republican nomination. Folwell announced his decision at Saturday’s Republican Party convention for Forsyth County. He told The Associated Press

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday accepted a resignation request from a German bishop who asked to step down because of his mistakes in handling sexual abuse cases.  Franz-Josef Bode became the bishop of Osnabrueck, Germany, in 1995. He said in a personal statement that his decision to resign

By KAWEEWIT KAEWJINDA Associated Press NONTHABURI, Thailand (AP) — Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has officially accepted his party’s nomination as its main candidate to keep the job in the upcoming general election, promising to build a new political climate that does away with decades of conflict. The 69-year-old former general led a military coup

By CHRIS MEGERIAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will try to deepen and reframe U.S. relationships in Africa during a weeklong trip that’s the latest and higher profile outreach by the Biden administration as it acts to counter China’s growing influence. Harris plans to visit Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, focusing on

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen say they are imposing severe restrictions on U.N. and other humanitarian flights arriving in the capital, Sanaa. The Houthi-run Civil Aviation Authority said that no humanitarian flights would be allowed to land in Sanaa between March 25-30. It said in a

BERLIN (AP) — German police say they have arrested a 61-year-old man after three people were wounded in a hand grenade and knife attack in Berlin. They said the attacker detonated the grenade in the entrance of an apartment building in the Reinickendorf neighborhood of the German capital on Friday night, wounding two women and

By AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) — Dr. Colleen McNicholas is fresh off performing two abortions when a ringing phone quickly stops her. “Oh, ugh,” she said, eyes widened, before she darted off to another room. Just the day before, 58 women had abortions at the Fairview Heights’ Planned Parenthood clinic, 15

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian opposition activists say Iran-backed fighters are on alert in eastern Syria, a day after U.S. forces launched retaliatory airstrikes on sites in the war-torn country. The airstrikes came after a suspected Iran-made drone killed a U.S. contractor and wounded six other Americans on Thursday. The situation

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge has sided with four publishers who sued an online archive over its scanning of millions of copyrighted works and offering them for free to the public. Judge John G. Koeltl of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled that the Internet Archive was

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Germany and the European Union say they have reached an agreement in their dispute over the future of cars with combustion engines, allowing the registration of new vehicles with such engines even after 2035 if they use climate-neutral fuel only. EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans tweeted Saturday

By YASMINE MOSIMANN Associated Press MUQDADIYAH, Iraq (AP) — The Iraqi province of Diyala has seen a spike in bloody attacks over the past month that killed at least 19 civilians, including women and children. At least one instance appears to have been a Shiite revenge attack against Sunnis over an Islamic State group attack.

By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s top opposition leader Rahul Gandhi says he was expelled from Parliament because he has raised serious questions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s relationship with the business conglomerate Adani Group. Gandhi says the objective is to prevent him from speaking in the legislature about his allegation

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gordon Moore, the Intel Corp. co-founder who set the breakneck pace of progress in the digital age with a simple 1965 prediction of how quickly engineers would boost the capacity of computer chips, has died. He was 94. Moore died Friday at his home in Hawaii, according to Intel and the

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — A veteran corporate lawyer has been shot dead in Myanmar’s biggest city by self-proclaimed urban guerrillas, highlighting the bloody struggle between the military government and its foes. A business colleague, local media and the guerrilla group say Min Tayza Nyunt Tin was shot multiple times on Friday

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — From Zimbabwe, where many must work at night because it’s the only time there is power, to Nigeria where collapses of the grid are frequent, the reliable supply of electricity remains elusive across Africa. The electricity shortages that plague many of Africa’s 54 countries are a serious