Month: April 2024

By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Biden administration has announced plans for a new five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production. The plan was  announced Wednesday in New Orleans by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. It calls for up to a dozen offshore energy lease sales beginning this

By DAVID KOENIG AP Airlines Writer The Biden administration issued final rules Wednesday to require airlines to automatically issue cash refunds for things like delayed flights and to better disclose fees for baggage or canceling a reservation. The Transportation Department said airlines will be required to provide automatic cash refunds within a few days for

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA Associated Press KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Officials say Nepal’s president asked the emir of Qatar, who is on a two-day visit to the South Asian country, to help release a Nepali student held hostage by Palestinian militant group Hamas. President Ram Chandra Poudel met with Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Wednesday

By KRUTIKA PATHI Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — The hugely popular Chinese app TikTok may be forced out of the U.S., where a measure to outlaw the video-sharing app has won congressional approval and is on its way to President Biden for his signature. India ended up banning the app nearly four years ago

By ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian officials are expressing thanks for $61 billion in new U.S. military aid, even though the supplies aren’t expected to have an immediate impact on the battlefield. Ukrainian troops have faced acute shortages of shells and air defense systems as political quarrels in Washington held up

By MATTHEW LEE AP Diplomatic Writer SHANGHAI (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has begun a critical trip to China armed with a strengthened diplomatic hand following Senate approval of a foreign aid package that will provide billions of dollars in assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as force TikTok’s China-based

By AAMER MADHANI and SEUNG MIN KIM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he was immediately rushing badly needed weaponry to Ukraine as he signed into law a $95 billion war aid measure that also included assistance for Israel, Taiwan and other global hot spots. The announcement marked an end

BERLIN (AP) — A prominent German far-right lawmaker says he will dismiss an assistant who was arrested on suspicion of spying for China, but will remain the Alternative for Germany party’s top candidate in the upcoming European Parliament elections. Maximilian Krah’s assistant was arrested Monday. Prosecutors accuse the assistant of working for a Chinese intelligence

By The Associated Press A Russian deputy defense minister in charge of military construction projects and known for a lavish lifestyle was ordered jailed pending trial on charges of bribery, Timur Ivanov, one of 12 deputy defense ministers, appeared in Moscow’s Basmany court Wednesday wearing his military uniform. Russia’s Investigative Committee said he was arrested

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s first moon lander has survived a third freezing lunar night, Japan’s space agency said Wednesday after receiving an image from the device three months after it landed on the moon. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the lunar probe responded to a signal from the earth

BEIJING (AP) — China blasted the latest package of U.S. military assistance to Taiwan, saying such funding was pushing the self-governing island republic into a “dangerous situation.” The U.S. Senate late Tuesday passed $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United

By ANDY WONG and SIMINA MISTREANU Associated Press JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER, China (AP) — China’s space agency is making final preparations to send a new crew to its space station on Thursday as part of its ambitious program that aims to put people on the moon by 2030. The three-member crew of the Shenzhou-18

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares mostly declined Thursday as investors awaited a flood of global earnings reports, including updates from U.S. tech companies known as the “Magnificent Seven.” Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slid 1.4% in morning trading to 37,931.81. South Korea’s Kospi dropped nearly 1.0% to 2,649.96. Hong Kong’s

LONDON (AP) — Novels that tell complex and surprising stories of migration are among six finalists for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction. U.S.-French writer Aube Rey Lescure’s “River East, River West” looks at Americans in China, while British author Isabella Hammad’s “Enter Ghost” charts a woman’s return to her Palestinian homeland. The shortlist was announced

By The Associated Press Germany says that it plans to follow several other countries in resuming cooperation with the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians in Gaza after the publication of an independent review of its neutrality. The Israeli military, meanwhile, said Wednesday that it was redeploying two reserve brigades from Israel’s northern border to Gaza

By KRISHAN FRANCIS Associated Press COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi says Israel must be brought to justice for “usurpation and oppression” of the Palestinian territories, if not there won’t be a guarantee that others would not do the same in other lands. Raisi  delivering a statement  during his one-day visit to

By NINIEK KARMINI and FADLAN SYAM Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s electoral commission has formally declared Prabowo Subianto president-elect in a ceremony on after the country’s highest court rejected challenges to his landslide victory lodged by two losing presidential candidates. Subianto, who is currently defense minister, won the election with 58.6% of the

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A high-level North Korean economic delegation was on its way to Iran for what would be the two countries’ first known talks since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Embracing the idea of a “new Cold War,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is pushing

By JILL LAWLESS and SAMYA KULLAB Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A big, new package of U.S. military aid will help Ukraine avoid defeat in its war with Russia. Winning will still be a long slog. The arms and ammunition in the $61 billion military aid package should enable Ukraine to slow the Russian

By JIM VERTUNO, ACACIA CORONADO and NICK PERRY Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Police peacefully arrested student protesters at the University of Southern California on Wednesday, hours after police at a Texas university aggressively detained dozens in the latest clashes between law enforcement and those protesting the Israel-Hamas war on campuses nationwide. While tensions

By MARK BAKER and ROD McGUIRK Associated Press SYDNEY (AP) — Australian police say they have arrested seven teenagers accused of following a violent extremist ideology in raids around Sydney to protect the community from a potential attack. They say the seven arrested Wednesday are part of a network that includes a 16-year-old boy who