Month: December 2022

By HANNA ARHIROVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Just a year ago, Sophia Square in Kyiv was all about the big Christmas tree and thousands of lights spreading over the plaza. These final days of 2022, in the middle of a war that has ravaged the country for 10 months, a more modest tree

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s emergencies ministry said Saturday that 20 people were killed in a fire at a nursing home in the Siberian city of Kemerovo. The fire broke out before dawn in the two-story wooden building in the city 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of Moscow. The cause was not immediately determined but news

By SEBABATSO MOSAMO and ANDREW MELDRUM Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Christmas lights twinkle, holiday music plays and Johannesburg’s popular Rosebank mall bustles with shoppers. Then the lights go out. The shops are pitch dark. “Hold on to your wallets,” calls out a customer to rueful chuckles. A long minute later the distant hum of

By NICOLAS GARRIGA and ANGELA CHARLTON Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Confessed serial killer Charles Sobhraj has arrived in France after being released from a life sentence in a Nepal prison. Sobhraj is a 78-year-old French citizen. He had been serving time for the deaths of American and Canadian backpackers in the 1970s. He has

BEIJING (AP) — China has blasted an annual U.S. defense spending bill for hyping up the “China threat” while Taiwan welcomed the legislation, saying it shows U.S. support for the self-governing island that China says must come under its rule. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday that “China deplores and firmly opposes

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Sitiveni Rabuka has been sworn in as Fiji’s prime minister, capping a tense week in a fragile Pacific democracy where the former military commander first held office more than two decades ago. He won the nomination by one vote over incumbent Frank Bainimarama at a sitting of the Fijian Parliament in

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and JILL BLEED Associated Press MISSION, Kan. (AP) — A wild winter storm continued to envelop much of the United States on Saturday, bringing blinding blizzards, freezing rain, flooding and life-threatening cold to most of the country. A major electricity grid operator that serves 65 million people across the eastern U.S. says