Month: February 2024

GENEVA (AP) — Telecoms operator Swisscom has confirmed it’s in talks with Vodafone Group toward a possible purchase of its Italian subsidiary for 8 billion euros ($8.65 billion). The Swiss company said in a statement Wednesday it’s in “advanced exclusive negotiations” to buy all of Vodafone Italia and merge it with Swisscom’s Italian subsidiary, Fastweb.

By DEREK GATOPOULOS and COSTAS KANTOURIS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Widespread strikes in Greece halted trains, ferries and much of the capital’s public transport in protests timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the country’s deadliest rail crash, which killed 57 people. Many of the victims were university students. Wednesday’s strike disrupted

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mixed in Asia on Thursday after a lackluster day on Wall Street, where selling of technology stocks pulled benchmarks lower. U.S. futures were flat and oil prices fell. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.7% to 38,953.49 after data showed factory output falling in January

By ZEN SOO AP Business Writer HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s government is lifting some curbs on property deals after home prices fell to a seven-year low. Finance minister Paul Chan announced the move in a speech Wednesday presenting the territory’s budget, which also raised spending on tourism promotion. Chan said all curbs imposed

By REBECCA BOONE Associated Press KUNA, Idaho (AP) — Idaho halted the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech on Wednesday after medical team members repeatedly failed to find a vein where they could establish an intravenous line to carry out the lethal injection. Creech, 73, has been in prison half a century, convicted of

By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Rather than trying to keep their seats in Congress, two of North Carolina’s U.S. representatives are vying for a role closer to home: state attorney general. It’s one of the most closely watched attorney general races across the U.S. this year. While the role has long been a springboard to

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Thousands of law enforcement officers, firefighters and paramedics packed a Minnesota church to hail as fallen heroes three first responders who were gunned down in the line of duty. They were killed in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville earlier this month while responding to a report of

By ASTRID SUÁREZ and MANUEL RUEDA Associated Press BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian warlord Salvatore Mancuso has been returned to his native country after serving a drug trafficking sentence in the United States. He has been denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship. Mancuso arrived in Bogota’s El Dorado

By JOHN HANNA Associated Press TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The parents of hundreds of thousands of U.S. children with physical or intellectual disabilities are waiting for state-covered services designed to foster independence and job skills for adulthood. While parents struggle to find services for toddlers, they also must think years ahead while their families are

By JUAN A. LOZANO and MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who had long claimed his conviction more than 20 years ago was based on false testimony and questionable evidence was executed Wednesday for fatally shooting two people, including his cousin. Ivan Cantu received a lethal injection and was pronounced

By EDNA TARIGAN and ACHMAD IBRAHIM Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian President Joko Widodo has awarded an honorary four-star general rank to Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, a former high-ranking army officer who is linked to human rights abuses and who emerged as the apparent winner of the Feb. 14 presidential election. The alleged

ROME (AP) — Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was on hand Tuesday for the arrival in Rome of an Italian family of three just hours after their release from two years of captivity in the African nation of Mali. The family, identified as Rocco Langone, his wife Maria Caivano and their adult son Giovanni Langone

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer says a recommended sentence of 100 years in prison for the FTX founder is “grotesque” and “barbaric” for cryptocurrency crimes. Bankman-Fried lawyer Marc Mukasey filed presentence arguments late Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, seeking leniency. He wrote that the long sentence recommended by

By The Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran is holding parliamentary elections this Friday, yet the real question may not be who gets elected but how many people actually turn out to vote. Widespread discontent over the cratering economy, years of mass protests rocking the country, and tensions with the West over

By ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Court documents show that the star trial witness in the killing of a 20-year-old nursing student in Tennessee is recanting his testimony. Holly Bobo disappeared from her rural Tennessee home in 2011. Jason Autry provided detailed and graphic testimony against Zachary Adams at the 2017 trial.

By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Inside giant white tents that house about 1,000 migrants near Tucson International Airport, Border Patrol agents demonstrate clockwork efficiency to release detainees within two days of arrest with orders to appear in immigration courts at their final destinations. Agents transmit information from the field to colleagues

By LLAZAR SEMINI and SUSIE BLANN Associated Press TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Ukraine’s president has pleaded for more ammunition to repel Russian advances at a summit he co-hosted with Albania’s government to build further support for Kyiv among southeastern European countries. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that increasing the supply of armaments, and especially ammunition,

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — A small drone has flown inside one of the damaged reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in hopes it can examine some of the molten fuel debris in areas where earlier robots failed to reach. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings has also begun releasing the

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear a challenge to a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a gun accessory used in a Las Vegas massacre that was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. A Texas gun shop owner argues the Trump administration didn’t follow federal

By FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden was defiant Wednesday in a closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill, blasting a Republican impeachment inquiry into his father and the family’s business affairs as a “house of cards” built on “lies” as he faced a battery of probing questions from lawmakers. “For more than a