AP National News

By ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Despite strong winds, firefighting aircraft and ground forces in Greece gained the upper hand late Monday over two new blazes that broke out in areas already scarred by major wildfires this summer. The first broke out Monday morning in the southern part of Evia, Greece’s second-largest

By ZEINA KARAM Associated Press A few years after the Taliban were ousted in 2001, and with Afghanistan still in ruins, Ahmad Sarmast left his home in Melbourne, Australia, on a mission: to revive music in the country of his birth. The school he founded was a unique experiment in inclusiveness for the war-ravaged nation

By NICK PERRY and ROD McGUIRK Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s government on Monday said it will extend a strict nationwide lockdown until at least Friday as it tries to extinguish a growing coronavirus outbreak. The news came as health authorities reported 35 new local infections of the fast-spreading delta variant,

By JOSEF FEDERMAN Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — A leading international human rights group says Israeli airstrikes that demolished four high-rise buildings in the Gaza Strip during a May war apparently violated international laws of war. Human Rights Watch on Monday called on the Israeli military to produce evidence justifying the attacks. The New York-based

By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s health sector is a casualty of the multiple crises that have plunged the country into a downward spiral. A financial and economic meltdown has been compounded by a complete failure of the government, runaway corruption and a pandemic that isn’t going away. The collapse is

By AHMAD SEIR, RAHIM FAIEZ and JOSEPH KRAUSS Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A firefight outside Kabul’s international airport killed an Afghan soldier early Monday, highlighting the perils of evacuation efforts as the Taliban warned that any attempt by U.S. troops to delay their withdrawal to give people more time to flee would “provoke

BERLIN (AP) — Many train drivers with Germany’s national railway walked off the job on Monday as their union embarked on its second two-day strike this month in a bitter dispute with the company. The GDL union called on passenger train drivers to strike from 2 a.m. Monday to 2 a.m. Wednesday. Freight train drivers

By DAVID PORTER and TED SHAFFREY Associated Press MONROE TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — Residents across the waterlogged Northeast began clearing mud and tearing out sodden carpets Monday after deluges dropped by Tropical Storm Henri, whose remnants threatened further flooding in New England as the system made a slow trek back to the sea. The smell

By MARINA VILLENEUVE Associated Press ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Kathy Hochul became the first female governor of New York at the stroke of midnight Tuesday, taking control of a state government desperate to get back to business after months of distractions over sexual harassment allegations against Andrew Cuomo. The Democrat from western New York was

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — A close ally of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has been defeated in a high-profile mayoral election in Yokohama, Suga’s home turf, in a sharp setback for the already unpopular leader ahead of general elections later this year. Opposition-backed scientist Takeharu Yamanaka comfortably beat the Suga-backed candidate

BEIJING (AP) — China’s government says torrential rains caused landslides, knocked out power and damaged houses in central China. But no deaths were reported in a region where flooding killed more than 300 people last month. The official China News Service says heavy rain on Saturday prompted authorities to close tunnels and some bridges in

By SHEIKH SAALIQ Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — When the Taliban shot policewoman Khatira Hashmi and gouged out her eyes, she knew Afghanistan was no longer safe. Along with her husband, she fled to India last year. Akbar Farhad, an artist, has been living in New Delhi since 2018. He left Kabul after facing

By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Brushing past moderates, House Democratic leaders tried to muscle President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint over a key hurdle Monday night, hoping to shelve for now an intraparty showdown that risks upending their domestic infrastructure agenda. Tensions rose as lawmakers returned for the evening

By ROBERT BURNS and ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military pulled off its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan by far on Monday, but deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul’s airport persisted, and the Taliban signaled they might soon seek to shut down the

In a story published August 23, 2021, about law enforcement agencies that post about suicide interventions on social media, The Associated Press erroneously reported that the nonprofit organization Alliance of Hope For Suicide Loss Survivors, an international support group that has an online forum for families whose loved ones have died by suicide, was based

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden’s special envoy for North Korea said Monday he’s ready to meet his North Korean counterparts “anywhere and at any time” as he held discussions with South Korean officials over stalled nuclear talks with the North. Sung Kim’s visit to Seoul comes

By EVENS SANON Associated Press LES CAYES, Haiti (AP) — Haiti’s National Police announced Monday that it had deployed additional units south of the capital to protect aid shipments being taken to the country’s earthquake-damaged southwestern peninsula. The announcement came one day after a powerful gang leader in that area said in a social media

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares gained Tuesday, boosted by a near-record rise on Wall Street, though the momentum began to fizzle out over worries about the economic fallout from surging coronavirus infections in the region. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose nearly 1% in morning trading to 27,763.43. South Korea’s

By HUIZHONG WU Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen received her first dose of the island’s domestically developed coronavirus vaccine on Monday, launching its rollout to the public. The vaccine, made by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp., was given emergency approval by regulators in July using a shortcut that prompted fierce opposition

By STEVE McMORRAN AP Sports Writer WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand Football is reported to be considering dropping the “All Whites” nickname of its national men’s soccer team because of its racial connotation. While NZF has not confirmed it may discard the name, it says it is carrying out a variety of measures