Month: June 2024

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — China has kept a key lending rate unchanged despite signs of continued weakness in the second-largest economy’s manufacturing and the property sectors. The central bank kept its rate for 1-year medium-term lending facility loans, used as a benchmark for other lending rates, at 2.5%. The government

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press MINA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Muslim pilgrims have used the early morning hours to perform the second day of the symbolic stoning of the devil, hoping to escape the noontime summer heat that caused heatstroke and sunburns among thousands wrapping up the Hajj pilgrimage. The final days of the Hajj

By SAMUEL PETREQUIN Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union countries have given final approval to a major and long-awaited plan to better protect nature in the 27-nation bloc. The Nature Restoration Plan survived a razor-thin vote by lawmakers last summer but faced opposition from several member states. Relentless farmers’ protests left the bill deadlocked.

By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is spending $50 million through the end of June, a blitz that includes its first television ad trumpeting Donald Trump’s felony conviction and signals that the Democratic incumbent is seeking to make his Republican opponent’s legal woes a bigger issue heading into

GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany (AP) — Police say eight people were temporarily detained following a brawl between Serbia and England fans in Gelsenkirchen ahead of the two countries’ opening European Championship match. Authorities said the incident on Sunday was over quickly and that they were satisfied overall with the security operation surrounding the match, which was classified

By ELLA JOYNER, LORNE COOK and SAMUEL PETRQUIN Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders have broken off talks without reaching final agreement on the nominees for the bloc’s top jobs. Several praised the record of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a dinner summit in Brussels, and she appears on track

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mostly higher in Asia on Tuesday after U.S. stocks rallied to more records, with gains for technology companies pushing the benchmarks higher. U.S. futures were flat and oil prices declined. This week has few top-tier economic reports apart from an update Tuesday on how

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court says the espionage trial in Russia of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will begin on June 26 and will be held behind closed doors. Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, has been behind bars since his March 2023 arrest and faces 20 years in prison if convicted. The trial is

By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s fire service says a passenger plane landed safely after a fire shut down one engine shortly after takeoff from Queenstown on the South Island. The Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 jet bound for Melbourne, Australia, with 67 passengers and six crew members on board

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Firefighters have increased containment of a large wildfire in mountains north of Los Angeles after a weekend of explosive growth along Interstate 5. The Post Fire is 8% surrounded Monday after scorching more than 24 square miles and forcing the evacuation of at least 1,200 peoples from a recreation area on

By BRIAN WITTE Associated Press ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore ordered more than 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions on Monday, saying the “most sweeping state-level pardon in any state” will help reverse harms from the past caused by the war on drugs. During a news conference, Moore said the executive order will

NEW DELHI (AP) — A cargo train has rammed into a passenger train in India’s eastern state of West Bengal, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens of others. Monday’s accident took place in the Darjeeling district, a tourist spot nestled in the Himalayan foothills. A spokesperson for the Northeast Frontier Railway says three

By ANITA SNOW Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Over 75 million people in the United States were under extreme heat alerts Monday as a heat wave moved eastward, and the mid-Atlantic and New England were likely to see highs in the 90s as the week progresses. Excessive humidity will make it feel even more oppressive.

By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — To a degree never seen before, Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza is killing entire Palestinian families. Entire bloodlines, sometimes four generations from the same family, have perished in single airstrikes or a series of airstrikes on members of the same family sheltering together from

By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza has killed hundreds of family members from the same bloodline, an unprecedented toll on the small community mostly made up of refugees and their descendants. An Associated Press investigation analyzed 10 strikes across the Gaza Strip between October and

By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — He is among the very last survivors of his Gaza family, a clan so close they knew without thinking how blood and marriage bound them across generations and city blocks. Then, branch by branch, 173 of Youssef Salem’s relatives were killed in Israeli airstrikes in a

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press ABOARD THE USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER IN THE RED SEA (AP) — The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower may be one of the oldest aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy, but it’s still fighting — despite repeated false claims by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The Houthis and online accounts supporting them repeatedly

By PATRICK WHITTLE and HOLLY RAMER Associated Press PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The deadly implosion of an experimental submersible en route to the deep-sea grave of the Titanic last June has not dulled the desire for further ocean exploration, despite lingering questions about the disaster. Tuesday marks one year since the Titan vanished on its

By NICK FOURIEZOS of Open Campus LaBELLE, Fla. (AP) — One of Florida’s poorest counties is preparing for the new “Airglades” airport, a $300 million cargo hub that could transform its economy. Local leaders see the project as a generational opportunity, one that could bring more than 1,400 new, high-skilled jobs to their largely agricultural

By JONATHAN MATTISE and KIMBERLEE KRUESI Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Attorneys fighting over the release of documents involving a 2023 Nashville elementary school shooting have pleaded with a judge to finally issue a ruling settling the matter. Their request has taken on a more desperate tone amid the recent publication of leaked records

By SYLVIA HUI Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Dominic Watters watches his gas and electricity meter like a hawk. He topped it up a few days ago, but now there’s just 1.85 pounds ($2.40) of credit left. That may determine what kind of dinner he and his teen daughter get tonight, he says. Watters, a

By ALI SWENSON, DAN MERICA and GARANCE BURKE Associated Press Adrian Perkins was running for reelection as the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, when he was surprised by a harsh campaign hit piece. The satirical TV commercial, paid for by a rival political action committee, used artificial intelligence to depict Perkins as a high school student

By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS and JOSEPH WILSON Associated Press NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — One is a wildly popular, seemingly happy-go-lucky YouTuber with no political experience from Cyprus. The other is a brash, fringe figure of Spain’s far right who rails against unauthorized immigrants. They are now new members of the European Parliament thanks to their savvy

By JOHN RABY Associated Press CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — The man accused of acting as lookout during the prison killing of notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger won’t serve additional prison time after pleading guilty to a charge of lying to federal agents. Sean McKinnon was accused along with two other inmates in the 2018

By JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Stockholm-based watchdog says the world’s nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernize their nuclear weapons as the countries deepened their reliance on nuclear deterrence in 2023. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated Monday that some 2,100 of the deployed warheads were kept in a

By ALI SWENSON, DAN MERICA and GARANCE BURKE Associated Press Adrian Perkins was running for reelection as the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, when he was surprised by a harsh campaign hit piece. The satirical TV commercial, paid for by a rival political action committee, used artificial intelligence to depict Perkins as a high school student

By The Associated Press This week’s new streaming entertainment releases include an album from R&B-pop artist Kehlani, Kevin Hart’s interview show “Hart to Heart” returns for a fourth season on Peacock and Jack Black lends his voice to “Kung Fu Panda 4.” The documentary “Bread & Roses” looks at how three Afghan women’s lives were

By SIMINA MISTREANU and JIM GOMEZ Associated Press TAIPEI (AP) — China’s coast guard says a Chinese vessel and a Philippine supply ship collided near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The coast guard said a Philippine supply ship on Monday entered waters near the Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in

By NINIEK KARMINI Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Muslims in Asia on Monday celebrated Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, with food and prayers for people in Gaza suffering from the Israel-Hamas war. One of the biggest Islamic holidays, the occasion commemorates Prophet Ibrahim’s test of faith through slaughtering livestock and animals and