Month: April 2024

By JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A series of scandals has blighted Denmark’s Armed Forces at a time when the country, a NATO member, is building up its defenses, chiefly as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This week, the head of the military resigned after he failed to inform

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says he wants to strengthen military and weapons development cooperation with the United States as well as with other countries such as the Philippines, as he prepares for a visit to the U.S. next week to meet with President Joe Biden. Kishida

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Senior doctors in England have accepted a pay offer from the British government that ends a yearlong dispute. The British Medical Association and the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, which represent the doctors, said Friday that 83% of those casting a vote backed the offer. The pay

BERLIN (AP) — German investigators say they have seized counterfeit U.S. dollar bills with a face value of over $103 million, which apparently came from Turkey and were being stored ahead of transport to the United States. The criminal police office in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northernmost state, said Friday that officers found 75 cartons of fake

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The Norwegian center-left governnment wants “a historic increase” in defense spending with 600 billion kroner ($56 billion) over the next 12 years. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Friday that “we need a defense that is fit for purpose in the emerging security environment” and noted that “our security environment is

By DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russian authorities have again tried to link the deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall to Ukraine, saying one of the detained suspects had photos on his phone depicting troops in camouflage uniforms with the Ukrainian flag. Ever since the March 22 mass shooting and fire

By NICK PERRY and LISA RATHKE Associated Press GILFORD, N.H. (AP) — Snow showers lingered Friday as the cleanup began following a major spring storm that brought heavy snow, rain and high winds to the Northeast, left hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power, and contributed to at least two deaths. Well over

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers who may have been targeted in a sexting scam were urged Friday to go to police, after a senior Conservative admitted disclosing the personal phone numbers of some colleagues to an unknown individual who held “compromising” material on him. William Wragg, who chairs the Public

By JOHNSON LAI and HUIZHONG WU Associated Press HUALIEN, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan residents endured harrowing experiences when the ground shook with the strongest earthquake to hit the island in 25 years. People saw rocks tumble onto roadways, watched parts of their homes fall around them and waited for rescuers to free them from the

By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s main opposition party vowed to boost social spending and reverse what it views as a slide into autocracy as it laid out its campaign promises on Friday, two weeks before the start of a weeks-long, multi-phase general election. Most polls have predicted a victory for

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — A  pro-Western career diplomat and a close ally of Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico are facing each other in a presidential runoff to determine who will be the country’s next head of state. Former Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok is up against Peter Pellegrini, who heads a coalition party in Fico’s

By JULIA FRANKEL Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Friday that it dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others for their roles in drone strikes in Gaza that killed seven aid workers on a food-delivery mission, saying the officers had mishandled critical information and violated the army’s rules of engagement. The findings

SYDNEY (AP) — A passenger has been fined for urinating in a cup during a delay in deplaning after landing at Sydney Airport. Officials say the incident, after a 3-hour Air New Zealand flight from Auckland, occurred last December and a Sydney court fined the 53-year-old man $395 for offensive behavior in February. The incident

By KEN MAGUIRE AP Sports Writer LONDON (AP) — Most people are getting ready for bed when the MMA sessions start at Diesel Gym in East London’s docklands area. The training is running throughout the holy month of Ramadan when Muslim athletes around the world adjust their schedules to squeeze in workouts when they can.

By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press LEUVEN, Belgium (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that the measures the Israeli government has announced to expand the flow of aid into Gaza are welcome but may not be enough to meet the Biden administration’s demands for dramatic improvements in humanitarian conditions in the territory.

Criminal networks in the European Union are penetrating legal businesses across the 27-nation bloc and rely heavily on corruption to develop their activities. That’s the bleak picture emerging from a report published Friday by the EU crime agency. Europol has identified 821 particularly threatening criminal networks with more than 25,000 members in the bloc. It

By AMIR VAHDAT Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Friday that “our brave men will punish the Zionist regime,” escalating threats against Israel for an airstrike that killed seven of the group’s members, including two Iranian generals, earlier this week. The strike, widely attributed to Israel, destroyed

By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s top human rights body called on countries to stop selling or shipping weapons to Israel in a resolution passed Friday that aims to help prevent rights violations against Palestinians amid Israel’s blistering military campaign in Gaza. The sweeping but non-binding measure at the Human Rights

By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press DUNDALK, Md. (AP) — President Joe Biden got a firsthand look Friday at efforts to clear away the “mangled mess” of remains of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, as cranes, ships and diving crews work to reopen one of the nation’s main shipping lanes. Aboard Marine One,