Month: February 2024

By HALELUYA HADERO Associated Press President Joe Biden’s campaign is embracing TikTok to court younger voters ahead of the presidential elections, but U.S. adults have mixed views about whether the video-sharing app should even operate in the country. A new poll by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds a three-way

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Egypt is building a wall and is leveling land near its border with the Gaza Strip ahead of a planned Israeli offensive targeting the border city of Rafah, satellite images analyzed Friday by The Associated Press show. Egypt, which has not publicly acknowledged the

BERLIN (AP) — A man who is also a suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann has gone on trial over several unrelated sexual offenses he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. The 47-year-old German faces trial at the Braunschweig state court in northern Germany starting Friday on

By JOSEF FEDERMAN, WAFAA SHURAFA and BASSEM MROUE Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s defense minister on Friday said Israel is “thoroughly planning” a military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, signaling determination to move ahead despite growing international concerns about the safety of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians seeking refuge

By SHEIKH SAALIQ and KRUTIKA PATHI Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — Farmers are blocking highways and holding demonstrations in many rural areas in northern India to protest over a range of grievances that have also led tens and thousands to march toward the capital. The rural strike is also supported by some trade unions.

By GEIR MOULSON and SYLVIE CORBET Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a bilateral security agreement with France. It comes hours after he officialized a similar deal with Germany on Friday. It is a signal of long-term support as Kyiv works to shore up Western support nearly two years after

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Beleaguered British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday urged voters, and his restless party, to stick with him after two English districts elected opposition-party lawmakers in seats that Sunak’s Conservatives had held for years. The results will worsen fears among Conservatives that, after 14 years in power,

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks slipped Friday to send Wall Street to a rare losing week, just its second in the last 16. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% from its all-time high set a day earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 145 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq

By KANIS LEUNG Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong customs officials have arrested seven people linked to the territory’s largest money laundering case on record, involving about $1.8 billion. The officials said Friday that part of the money laundering operation was tied to a scam case in India. They said the seven suspects

By MELANIE LIDMAN Associated Press REIM, Southern Israel (AP) — Each year as spring approaches, wildflowers erupt across Israel, a splash of color before the punishing Middle Eastern summer. Nowhere is the show more dramatic than in southern Israel, near Gaza, where brilliant red anemones burst forth with such intensity that rolling hills seem to

By EDNA TARIGAN Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Families of Indonesian activists who were kidnapped and tortured by the military 25 years ago have expressed shock over the apparent presidential victory of Prabowo Subianto, whom they blame for the atrocities. Currently the defense minister, Subianto claimed victory in Wednesday’s vote based on unofficial tallies

By PETER SMITH and DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press Greece has become the first majority-Orthodox Christian nation to legalize same-sex marriage under civil law. At least for the near future, it will almost certainly be the only one. Eastern Orthodox leadership, despite lacking a single doctrinal authority like a pope, has been united in opposing recognition

By DIANE JEANTET Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The small team of state public health workers slalomed between auto parts strewn across a Rio de Janeiro junkyard, looking for standing water where mosquitoes might have laid their eggs. They were part of nationwide efforts to curtail a surge in Brazil of the mosquito-borne

By TRISHA THOMAS Associated Press CASTEL VOLTURNO, Italy (AP) — Mamadou Kouassi’s searing, epic journey over African deserts, through illegal prisons and across the Mediterranean Sea in a smugglers’ boat informed Italian director Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated film “Io Capitano.” Some episodes that the Ivorian migrant witnessed on his three-year odyssey were too strong to make

By KATE BRUMBACK, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and ERIC TUCKER Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — A man expected to be a key witness for lawyers trying to get Fani Willis disqualified from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump instead refused to answer most of their questions on Friday, citing attorney-client privilege during the second

By JONATHAN MATTISE and GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Lower-income families with school-age kids can get help from the federal government paying for groceries this summer, unless they live in one of the 14 states that have said no to joining the program this year. The reasons for the rejections, all from states with Republican governors,

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge ordered Donald Trump on Friday to pay $355 million in penalties, finding that the former president lied about his wealth for years in a sweeping civil fraud verdict that pierces his billionaire image but stops short

By JOSH BOAK and DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (AP) — President Joe Biden is praising what he says were “Herculean efforts” to rebuild at the site of last February’s train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Biden visited Friday, more than a year after a train loaded with hazardous chemicals derailed causing a

By SUMMER BALLENTINE and DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A shooting that killed a person and wounded more than 20 others during the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory celebration occurred in a state with few gun regulations and historic tension over how cities handle crime. Dozens of policymakers from