Year: 2024

By STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN Associated Press VIENNA (AP) — Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been convicted of making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption in his first government. He has been given an eight-month suspended sentence. The verdict Friday at the Vienna criminal court followed a four-month trial. The case marked the

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — German lawmakers have approved a government plan to liberalize rules on cannabis, paving the way for the country to decriminalize limited amounts of marijuana and allow members of “cannabis clubs” to buy it for recreational purposes. Parliament’s lower house voted on Friday to back the legislation, a

By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea and the United States have mobilized advanced stealth fighters as their militaries staged a joint drill over the Korean Peninsula. Friday’s training comes after rival North Korea conducted a spate of missile tests this year. South Korea’s air force says the drill involved

By DAMIAN J. TROISE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks clung to modest gains on Wall Street Friday, giving the market another record high and a winning week. The listless day for stocks capped off a mostly solid week of earnings where the technology sector once again powered the market higher. The sector

By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press On a surprise visit to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer directly challenged House Speaker Mike Johnson to take up a $95 billion national security package that includes aid for the besieged country. Schumer told reporters in Lviv on Friday that “the weight

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Emperor Naruhito made his first speech to the nation since a deadly earthquake hit the north-central region of Koto, with a message marking his 64th birthday on Friday. The ceremonial ruler expressed grief for people affected by the Jan. 1 earthquake, praying for their recovery and

By SYLVIE CORBET and BARBARA SURK Associated Press PARIS (AP) — French actor Judith Godrèche called on France’s film industry to “face the truth” on sexual violence and physical abuse during a live broadcast Friday of the Cesar Awards ceremony, France’s version of the Oscars. “We can decide that men accused of rape no longer

By YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The Rev. Viachaslau Barok was a familiar face in Rasony, a town in northern Belarus near the Russian border, overseeing construction of its Roman Catholic church and celebrating Mass daily for two decades. He got into trouble in December 2020, the height of anti-government demonstrations, when

By STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County voters are set to decide if embattled District Attorney George Gascón will remain the head of the nation’s largest prosecutor’s office. There have been two failed attempts to get Gascón on the ballot for a recall. Gascón faces 11 challengers in the March

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has urged a Florida judge to dismiss the criminal case charging him with illegally retaining classified documents, claiming in part that presidential immunity protects him from prosecution even as that sweeping argument has so far in failed in federal courts in a separate case. Trump faces dozens of

By TIA GOLDENBERG Associated Press KIBBUTZ BE’ERI, Israel (AP) — Gillian and Pete Brisley are picking up the pieces of their shattered lives. They are cleaning up the house where their daughter and granddaughters were killed by Hamas on Oct. 7 in hopes that their son-in-law — believed to be held captive in Gaza —

By HANNA ARHIROVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Iryna Reva stares at her phone, replaying the last video her 25-year-old son Vladyslav sent her from the front line before the volunteer soldier disappeared 19 months ago in a battle with Russian forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Reva is one of the thousands of

By JAMES POLLARD Associated Press/Report for America COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man has been found guilty of killing a Black transgender woman in the nation’s first federal hate crime trial over gender identity. Jurors decided Friday that Daqua Lameek Ritter fatally shot Dime Doe in 2019, because of her gender identity. Ritter

By MICHAEL PHILLIS Associated Press Federal regulators have granted Native American tribes more power to block hydropower projects on their land after a flurry of applications were filed to expand renewable energy in the water-scarce U.S. Southwest. Previously, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted developers approval to move ahead with planning even if tribes objected.

By REGINA GARCIA CANO Associated Press LA PARAGUA, Venezuela (AP) — The collapse of an illegally operated gold mine in a remote area of central Venezuela has exposed the sense of abandonment felt by small or rural communities bypassed by a quasi-economic renaissance seen in the South American country’s capital and cities. People in La

By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is promising to use a second term in the White House to defend Christian values and is suggesting he’ll protect the faith’s central icon, warning a convention of religious broadcasters that the left wants “to tear down crosses.” Trump spoke at the

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON Associated Press NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland (AP) — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has received a rock-star welcome at a conservative gathering outside Washington as he urged people to “unapologetically fight” against what he called “dark forces.” At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Bukele told people to use El Salvador as