AP National News

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — A 96-year-old former secretary for the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp is going on trial Thursday in Germany on charges of more than 11,000 counts of accessory to murder. Prosecutors argue that she was part of the apparatus that helped the Nazi camp function more

By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — This fall, the academic year in Lebanon is gripped by the same chaos that has overwhelmed everything else in the country in its financial and economic meltdown. Thousands of teachers are on strike, demanding salary adjustments to cope with hyperinflation and the currency’s free-fall. A month’s

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping paid respects at a solemn commemoration Thursday for those who died in the struggle to establish Communist Party rule, as he leads a national drive to reinforce patriotism and single-party authority. Xi and the six other members of the party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee led aged veterans and

DUBLIN, Calif. (AP) — The warden of a federal prison in California has been charged with sexually abusing an inmate, authorities said Wednesday. Ray J. Garcia, 54, of Merced, allegedly groped at least one of his female wards, asked at least two inmates to strip naked for him and took and stored photographs of a

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police say officers shot a Palestinian woman who allegedly attempted to stab them in east Jerusalem’s Old City. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The police said in a statement Thursday that the woman approached officers outside an entrance to the city’s flashpoint holy site known to Muslims as the

By JULHAS ALAM Associated Press DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — An international representative of ethnic Rohingya refugees was shot to death in a camp in Bangladesh by unknown gunmen late Wednesday, police said. Mohibullah, who was in his 40s, was a teacher who emerged as a key refugee leader and a spokesman representing the Muslim ethnic

By CALEB JONES Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — One of the most active volcanos on Earth is erupting on Hawaii’s Big Island. Officials with the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed Wednesday that an eruption has begun in Kilauea volcano’s Halemaumau crater at the volcano’s summit. Webcam footage of the crater showed lava fountains covering the floor

By JILL COLVIN Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Ferocious tantrums. Family gossip. Petty nicknames. Stephanie Grisham, once a White House press secretary and chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump, is out with a book next week that paints a deeply unflattering picture of Donald Trump — a man with a “terrifying” temper

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer Asian shares were mostly higher on Thursday after a mixed trading session on Wall Street. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index was little changed after the release of disappointing factory and retail sales data. Shares fell in Hong Kong but most other regional benchmarks advanced. Japanese investors appeared to take in

By PATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Droughts that cause leaves to turn brown and wither before they can reach peak color. Heat waves prompting leaves to fall before autumn even arrives. Extreme weather events like hurricanes that strip trees of their leaves altogether. For a cheery autumnal activity, leaf peeping is facing

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press A conservative Roman Catholic media outlet seeking to stage a rally during a U.S. bishops’ meeting in Baltimore claims city officials canceled the event because they disapprove of its religious message. The city says the gathering poses a threat to public safety, claiming the fringe group cheered on rioters who

By ALAN FRAM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — In their fight over trillions of dollars, their paramount policy goals and perhaps their political fate, this isn’t helping: Democratic progressives and centrists say they don’t trust each other. They’re tossing around words like “stupid” and “insanity” and they’re drawing lines in the sand. Congressional majorities of

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are debating how to divide up what could be a smaller serving of health care spending in President Joe Biden’s domestic policy bill, pitting the needs of older adults who can’t afford their dentures against the plight of uninsured low-income people in the South. “There’s always

By ANDREW DALTON AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears has successfully ousted her father from the conservatorship that controls her life and money, and she is likely to be freed to make her own decisions in November. Here’s a look at how conservatorships operate, what’s unusual about hers, and why she and

By CARLA K. JOHNSON AP Medical Writer Am I fully vaccinated without a COVID-19 vaccine booster? Yes, people who got a two-dose vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot are considered fully vaccinated — even without a booster. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says you’re fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving

By HYUNG-JIN KIM and KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea leader Kim Jong Un expressed willingness to restore stalled communication lines with South Korea in coming days while shrugging off U.S. offers for dialogue as “cunning ways” to conceal its hostility against the North, state media reported Thursday. Kim’s statement

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A court in Poland on Tuesday ordered three men to pay the equivalent of 1,700 euros ($1,990) in damages for toppling a statue of the late Solidarity-era priest Henryk Jankowski over allegations that he sexually abused minors. The court in Gdansk, on the Baltic coast, did not find the men guilty

By ROBERT BURNS and LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — In their first congressional testimony on the tumultuous final months of America’s longest war, top U.S. military officers on Tuesday acknowledged misjudging the fragility of Afghanistan’s army and said they believed the U.S. should have kept at least several thousand troops in the