AP National News

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

NEW DELHI (AP) — A cargo train has rammed into a passenger train in India’s eastern state of West Bengal, killing at least eight people and injuring several others. Doctors, disaster-response teams and ambulances are engaged in rescue work following Monday’s accident. It took place the Darjeeling district, a tourist spot nestled in the Himalayan

By ELLA JOYNER Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders are gathering for a dinner summit to take stock of recent European election results and weigh nominees for the bloc’s top jobs. The June 6-9 polls saw the European Parliament shift to the right. Voters dealt major blows to governing parties in heavyweight countries

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

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mixed in Asia on Monday after China reported its factory output slowed in May, with the property market still deep in the doldrums. U.S. futures edged lower and oil prices fell. Shares fell 1.9% in Tokyo to 38,070.40 and in Seoul, the Kospi declined

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

NEW DELHI (AP) — Eight people died and several were injured when a cargo train rammed into a passenger train in India’s eastern state of West Bengal. The state’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee said in a post on social media platform X that a cargo train had collided with Kanchanjunga Express near the state’s Darjeeling

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 SIMINA MISTREANU and JIM GOMEZ Associated Press TAIPEI (AP) — A Chinese vessel and a Philippine supply ship collided near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea on Monday, China’s coast guard said, in the latest flare-up of escalating territorial disputes that have sparked alarm. The coast guard said a Philippine supply

By BRIAN WITTE Associated Press ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is scheduled to sign an executive order to issue 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions Monday, according to a news report. The pardons will forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people. Moore, a Democrat, told The Washington Post Sunday night

NEW DELHI (AP) — Reports say five people died and several were injured when a cargo train rammed into a passenger train in India’s eastern state of West Bengal. The state’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee said in a post on social media platform X that a cargo train had collided with Kanchanjunga Express in the

By ANITA SNOW Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Hot and cold extremes are expected this week in the U.S. Officials warned Southwest residents to take precautions as a heat wave moves east, while heavy rains and flooding could drench the Gulf states and snow threatens parts of the Rockies and Northwest. Extreme heat spread across

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