Month: April 2024

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Taliban official says a gunman opened fire inside a mosque in western Afghanistan, killing at least six people as they were praying. Local media reports and a former president of Afghanistan say the mosque was frequented by members of the country’s Shiite Muslim minority. A spokesman for the Taliban Interior Ministry

By DAKE KANG Associated Press SHANGHAI (AP) — The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China staged a sit-in protest outside his lab after authorities locked him out of the facility. It’s a sign of Beijing’s continuing pressure on scientists conducting research on the coronavirus. Zhang Yongzhen wrote in an

By ARIEL GILREATH of The Hechinger Report NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Last summer, Derrika Richard felt stuck. She didn’t have enough money to afford child care for her three youngest children, ages 1, 2 and 3. Yet the demands of caring for them on a daily basis made it impossible for Richard, a hairstylist, to

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s taking control of its oil from U.S. and British companies is taught in schools and celebrated every year. The 1938 nationalization is a point of pride for millions, including President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The popular president hails from the oil industry’s heartland. And 16

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico took control of its most precious natural resource by seizing the oil sector from U.S. companies in a move that’s taught to schoolchildren and celebrated as a great patriotic victory. The front-runner in the June 2 presidential election is an environmental engineer who helped produce the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental

By EDNA TARIGAN Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Microsoft will invest $1.7 billion over the next four years in new cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in Indonesia — the single largest investment in Microsoft’s 29-year history in the country. That’s according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who was visiting the country and met Indonesian

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Mexico has accused Ecuador of a violation of international law before the top U.N. court, asserting that there was no legal defense for storming the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest a former vice president who had just been granted asylum in Mexico. The April 5 raid, hours after Mexico

By ZIMO ZHONG Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stocks fell Wednesday with most of the markets in the region closed for a holiday. Meanwhile, U.S. stocks closed out their worst month since September. Oil prices were lower and U.S. futures were mixed. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 0.8%, down to 38,089.09 in early

By GRACEY WAKARI Associated Press MANADO, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s Mount Ruang volcano erupted Tuesday for a second time in two weeks, spewing ash almost 2 kilometers (more than a mile) into the sky, closing an airport and peppering nearby villages with debris. The alert level of the volcano on Sulawesi Island was again raised

By JOHN CARUCCI and JOCELYN NOVECK Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Ralph Lauren has been known for many a grand fashion show over the years: taking over Central Park for a sumptuous anniversary celebration, for example, or staging a runway show amid his eye-popping classic car collection. But for his Fall/Holiday 2024 collection, he

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says his governing party’s major defeat in last weekend’s by-elections was largely due to a political fundraising scandal and that he will not resign or replace party executives to take responsibility. Kishida said Tuesday he will instead push anti-corruption measures and political

By GENE JOHNSON Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — Changpeng Zhao, founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, was sentenced Tuesday to four months in prison for looking the other way as criminals used the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism. U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones credited the

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court has rejected a request by Nicaragua to order Germany to halt military and other aid to Israel and renew funding to the U.N. aid agency in Gaza. The International Court of Justice said Tuesday that legal conditions for making such

By RIAZAT BUTT Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Around 30 men are crammed into a Kabul classroom, part of the debut student cohort at a Taliban-run institute training tourism and hospitality professionals. It’s a motley crew. One student is a model. Another is 17 and has no job history. The students vary in age,

By CLAIRE RUSH and GENE JOHNSON Associated Press PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An immigrant from Laos who has been battling cancer won an enormous $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot in Oregon earlier this month. But Cheng “Charlie” Saephan’s luck hasn’t just changed his life — it’s also drawn attention to Iu Mien, a southeast Asian ethnic

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ, JOSEPH B. FREDERICK and STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Police officers carrying zip ties and riot shields stormed a Columbia University building being occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters, streaming in through a window late Tuesday and arresting dozens of people. The protesters had seized the administration building, known as Hamilton

By STEPHANY MATAT Associated Press WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Jordan Vassallo is lukewarm about casting her first presidential ballot for President Joe Biden in November. But when the 18-year-old senior at Jupiter High School in Florida thinks about the things she cares about, she says her vote for the Democratic incumbent is an

By CAROLYN THOMPSON Associated Press BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Democratic state Sen. Timothy Kennedy has won a special election for the upstate New York congressional seat vacated by Democrat Brian Higgins. Kennedy defeated Republican Gary Dickson for the seat that Higgins left mid-term in February to run a Buffalo theater. Kennedy benefited from a 2-to-1

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Two Broadway shows celebrating the spark of sonic creativity — the semi-autobiographical Alicia Keys musical “Hell’s Kitchen,” and the play “Stereophonic” about a ’70s rock band recording a star-making album — each earned a leading 13 Tony Award nominations Tuesday, a list that also saw

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and COLLEEN LONG Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump was held in contempt of court Tuesday and fined $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order that barred him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his New York hush money

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi lawmakers are expected to vote this week on a proposal that would expand Medicaid coverage to tens of thousands more people, but it includes a work requirement that might not win federal approval. House and Senate negotiators submitted a plan moments before a Monday

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A medical examiner’s report into the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona injected uncertainty Monday into the criminal negligence case brought against eight medical workers involved in his case a month before they are set to stand trial for homicide. A forensic expert conducted the study at the behest

By MARCOS ALEMÁN Associated Press SAN SALVADOR (AP) — El Salvador’s Congress, which is controlled by President Nayib Bukele New Ideas party, approved a change to an article of the Constitution to facilitate larger constitutional reforms without having to wait until after the election of a new legislature. The move further consolidates power in the

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Actor Ashley Judd, whose allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein helped spark the #MeToo movement, spoke out Monday on the rights of women and girls to control their own bodies and be free from male violence. A goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Population Fund, she

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics on Tuesday reported a 10-fold increase in operating profit for the last quarter as the expansion of artificial intelligence technologies drives a rebound in the markets for computer memory chips. The South Korean semiconductor and smartphone giant said its operating profit for the Jan-March quarter came in at

By REBECCA BOONE Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Months after a catastrophic fire burned more than 2,200 homes and killed 101 people in Hawaii, some property owners are getting more bad news — their property insurance won’t be renewed because their insurance company has deemed the risk too high. It’s a problem that has

By SUMMER BALLENTINE Associated Press JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A panel of lawmakers has dismissed an ethics complaint against Missouri’s powerful House speaker. The House Ethics Committee voted 7-2 on Monday to dismiss the complaint against Republican Speaker Dean Plocher. One Democrat voted present. Plocher was accused of misusing taxpayer dollars, using his influence