Month: May 2024

By TERESA DE MIGUEL, MEGAN JANETSKY and RODRIGO ABD Associated Press AKTUN TUYUL CAVE SYSTEM, Mexico (AP) — Rays of sunlight slice through pools of crystal water as clusters of fish cast shadows on the limestone below. Arching over the emerald basin are walls of stalactites dripping down the cavern ceiling, which opens to a

By FRANCIS KOKUTSE Associated Press ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Meet Ace-Liam Ankrah, a Ghana toddler who has set the record as the world’s youngest male artist. His mother, Chantelle Kukua Eghan, says it all started by accident when her son, who at the time was 6 months old, discovered her acrylic paints. Eghan, an artist

By PAOLO SANTALUCIA, GIADA ZAMPANO, ANNIE RISEMBERG and BOUBACAR DIALLO Associated Press ROME (AP) — It was still dark and quiet outside when Ousmane Sylla performed his last prayer in the courtyard of an Italian migrant jail. “I miss my Africa very much and my mother too,” read a scribble in French on the wall

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The UN refugee chief says the number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution has reached 114 million and is climbing because nations have failed to tackle the causes and combatants are refusing to comply with international law. In a hard-hitting

By JOVANA GEC Associated Press BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Voters in Serbia will go to the polls this weekend in a municipal election in dozens of cities and towns, including a rerun vote in the capital of Belgrade where ruling populists were accused of a fraud at a previous vote in December. The right-wing Serbian

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A former speaker of Iran’s parliament has registered as a possible candidate in the Islamic Republic’s June 28 presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash earlier this month with seven others. Ali Larijani is the first high-profile candidate to register for

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Marie Scott experienced British forces landing on the Normandy coast through her earphones. Stationed in an underground tunnel below the south coast of England, Scott was safe from the carnage. But she heard it all. As a 17-year-old radio operator in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, she

By BEN NUCKOLS Associated Press OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — Bruhat Soma insisted he was nervous during the idle hours as he waited to take the Scripps National Spelling Bee stage, and he felt even more pressure to perform given that he hadn’t lost a spelling bee in eight months. He never showed any nerves

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — As a young Women’s Royal Naval Service officer in World War II, Christian Lamb tried to make sure British troops were in exactly the right place when they scrambled onto Normandy’s beaches under enemy fire. Referring to huge maps of the Normandy coast on the wall in

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Pat Owtram didn’t need to go to war. It came to her. As the Nazis took control of Germany and Austria, her father hired Jewish refugees to cook and clean at the family home in Lancashire, where the Owtram family raised pedigreed shorthorn cows and Pat rode

By DAVE COLLINS Associated Press Family and friends of Jennifer Dulos are expected to offer emotional testimony as her late husband’s former girlfriend is sentenced in Connecticut after being convicted of helping to plan and cover up her killing. Michelle Troconis faces up to 50 years in prison when she is sentenced Friday. She was

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Dorothea Barron got a sneak preview of the Normandy landings from a watchtower on the coast of Scotland. During the spring and summer of 1943, she and her colleagues kept watch over the troops who tested the prototypes for two prefabricated harbors that would be constructed in

By ADAM BEAM Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed he would not fix the state’s budget deficit by taking away health insurance from low-income adults living in the country without legal permission, calling the state’s policy “something I believe in.” But Newsom would eliminate an important health benefit for some

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — What did you do in the war, Granny? For British women who came of age during World War II, the answer to that question is often: quite a lot. The history of D-Day is often told through the stories of the men who fought and died when

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ Associated Press SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A California judge will consider Friday whether to recall the death sentence against Richard Allen Davis, who in 1993 killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas after kidnapping her from her bedroom at knifepoint in a crime that shocked the nation. Jurors in 1996 found Davis guilty