Month: December 2023

By AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — New obesity drugs are showing promising results in helping some people shed pounds but the injections will remain out of reach for millions of older Americans because Medicare is forbidden to cover such medications. Drugmakers and a wide-ranging and growing bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are gearing up

By ELAINE KURTENBACH and MATT OTT AP Business Writers Stocks edged higher on Wall Street in what’s expected to be another quiet day between the Christmas and New Year holidays. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% in early trading Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 63 points, or 0.2% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.1%.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Officials in central Mexico say a drug cartel has kidnapped 14 local residents in apparent retaliation for an uprising by angry farmers who killed 10 cartel gunmen earlier this month. The farmers, apparently tired of cartel extortions and armed only with sickles and hunting rifles, chased down suspected gang members amid

By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — The list of security challenges keeps growing for election officials preparing for the 2024 presidential election. Many of the concerns from four years ago persist. Those concerns include possible cyberattacks targeting voter registration systems or websites that report unofficial results, and the potential for equipment problems

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria and Romania have received permission to join Europe’s passport- and visa-free Schengen Area starting in March. Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov told reporters on Thursday that the move initially will apply only to travelers arriving by air and sea, while Austria has committed to continuing negotiations over the need for

By MATT OTT AP Business Writer More Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, but not enough to raise concern about the labor market or broader economy. The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims rose to 218,000 for the week ending Dec. 23, an increase of 12,000 from the previous week. The four-week average

By The Associated Press The nightlife of Russia’s elite has long been famously rakish but a recent party crossed an invisible line and provoked a public scandal. One pop star ended up in jail while several others issued public apologies. A lawsuit was launched, demanding a fortune in reparations. The scandal erupted after a TV

By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military has opened a new chapter in how it investigates and prosecutes cases of sexual assault and other major crimes. The military on Thursday is putting independent lawyers in charge of those decisions, sidelining commanders after years of pressure from Congress. The change was

BERLIN (AP) — Parts of northern and central Europe continued to grapple with flooding as rivers remain swollen after heavy rain. A barrier near the German city of Magdeburg was opened for the first time in a decade to ease pressure from the Elbe River. In the neighboring Netherlands, the Rhine peaked far above normal

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has held a funeral for a high-ranking general of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who was killed by an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria. Hundreds of mourners accompanied the flag-draped casket of Gen. Razi Mousavi from a central square of Tehran to a shrine where he was buried on Thursday. The

By HANNA ARHIROVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Officials say a civilian cargo ship has struck a Russian mine in the Black Sea near Ukraine’s Danube ports, injuring two sailors. The incident underscored the dangers faced by ships exporting Ukrainian grain during the war. Ukraine’s Southern Defense Forces said the Panama-flagged ship struck the

By JOHN WAWROW AP Hockey Writer Kendall Coyne Schofield is relishing her return to hockey, and doing so as a first-time mother. She will be bringing her six-month-old son Drew along for the journey while playing for Minnesota in the newly established Professional Women’s Hockey League. Schofield is a three-time Olympian and former U.S. captain.

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Weeks before Taiwan holds elections for its president and legislature, China has renewed its threat to use military force to annex the self-governing island democracy it claims as its own territory. A Defense Ministry spokesperson told reporters Thursday that China’s armed forces would “as always take

By NINIEK KARMINI and EDNA TARIGAN Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s navy says it forcibly pushed a boat packed with refugees back to international waters after the vessel approached the shores of Aceh province. The province that forms part of Sumatra island has seen an increasing number of arriving boats, most carrying Rohingya

By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s foreign ministry says Qatar’s Court of Appeal reduced the death sentence handed in October to eight retired Indian navy officers on spy charges. Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said Thursday in a statement that the detailed verdict has not been received yet. “We are in close

By PAT GRAHAM AP Sports Writer DENVER (AP) — There were times when Jo Overstreet felt all alone as a standout flag football player on boys teams growing up in Texas. Sure, she was accepted. Considered just one of the boys. She longed for something more — a sense of sisterhood. These days, the 40-year-old

LONDON (AP) — A storm that battered the U.K. with high winds and heavy snow has damaged houses, canceled trains and left thousands of people without electricity across Scotland and parts of northern England. Workers dealt with wind speeds of 80 miles per hour in some coastal areas of Scotland as they tried to restore

By WAFAA SHURAFA and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces bombarded cities, towns and refugee camps across Gaza overnight and into Thursday, killing dozens of people in an air and ground offensive against Hamas that has widened to most of the territory and forced thousands more to flee from

By JIWON SONG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s top court has ordered a third Japanese company to compensate some of its former wartime Korean employees for forced labor. Thursday’s ruling by the Supreme Court is the second such ruling in a week. The Supreme Court says Hitachi Zosen Corp. and Mitsubishi

By The Associated Press A judge in New York has ruled that Alibaba must face a lawsuit by a U.S. toymaker alleging that the Chinese ecommerce giant’s online platforms were used to sell counterfeit Squishmallows. Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District Court of New York refused Alibaba’s request to dismiss the case filed by

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The family of renowned South African playwright, producer and composer Mbongeni Ngema said he has died in a car crash at the age of 68. In a statement on Wednesday, Ngema’s family said he was killed in a head-on car accident while returning from a funeral in

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares powered higher on Thursday, with Chinese benchmarks up more than 1%, after Wall Street logged modest gains in this holiday-shortened week. U.S. futures edged higher and oil prices were mixed. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index was an outlier in the region, shedding 0.4% to 33,539.62.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish officials say a chain-reaction crash Thursday involving seven vehicles on a motorway in northwest Turkey has killed at least 10 people and injured 57 others. The pileup occurred Thursday in dense fog and low visibility some 93 miles from Istanbul. An investigation has been launched into the accident but the

By KANIS LEUNG Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong man has been sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to a terrorism charge under a Beijing-imposed national security law. The case deals with his involvement in a foiled plot to bomb court buildings following the 2019 anti-government protests in the

By ACACIA CORONADO Associated Press EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — Before settling in New York City like thousands of other migrants this year, Abdoul, a 32-year-old from West Africa, took an unexpected detour: Weeks in a remote Texas jail on local trespassing charges after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. “I spent a lot of hours without