AP National News

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — A court in Albania has refused to extradite an Egyptian man who faces a death sentence in his country. A judge in Tirana canceled the extradition of Mohamed Rageh after Egyptian authorities did not give assurance he would not be executed. An Egyptian court sentenced Rageh to death for a November

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A police boat and divers have joined the search for some 30 people still missing more than a week after severe floods devastated parts of Turkey’s Black Sea coast. The Turkish disaster management agency, meanwhile, raised the death toll from the disaster to 81. Torrential rains pounded the Black Sea provinces

By BARRY HATTON Associated Press LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service says a woman who was the only person pulled from a sinking dinghy in the Atlantic Ocean told her rescuers that the boat had left Africa a week earlier carrying 53 migrants. A merchant ship spotted the inflatable dinghy 255 kilometers (158

By PHILIP MARCELO and PAT EATON-ROBB Associated Press PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — New Englanders bracing for their first hurricane in 30 years began hauling boats out of the water and taking other precautions Friday as Tropical Storm Henri barreled toward the Northeast coast. Henri was expected to intensify into a hurricane by Saturday, the U.S.

By MATTHEW CHENG and JANICE LO Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s granting of a quarantine exemption to Hollywood star Nicole Kidman is drawing criticism from lawmakers as the city tightens entry restrictions for international travelers to control the coronavirus. Kidman, who reportedly flew to Hong Kong last week from coronavirus-hit Sydney, was

By AHMAD SEIR, TAMEEM AKHGAR and REBECCA SANTANA Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Reports of targeted killings in areas overrun by the Taliban mounted Friday, fueling fears that they will return Afghanistan to the repressive rule they imposed when they were last in power, even as they urged imams to push a message of

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny marked the anniversary of a poisoning attack against him by urging global leaders Friday to put more attention on combating corruption and to target tycoons close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an article published in three European newspapers, Navalny chided

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA Associated Press KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Authorities in Uganda have suspended more than 50 civic groups for allegedly not complying with regulations, dealing a blow to hundreds of thousands of people who directly benefit from the organizations’ activities. The suspensions, which target agencies ranging from rights watchdogs to women’s groups, were announced

BERLIN (AP) — A union representing many train drivers at Germany’s national railway operator is calling members out on a new strike. The head of the GDL union said drivers of passenger trains will strike from 2 a.m. Monday to 2 a.m. Wednesday. Freight train drivers will start their strike on Saturday afternoon. It’s the

By CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The news this month that two Nigerian schoolgirls had made it to freedom, more than seven years after they were kidnapped by Boko Haram extremist rebels, has kindled new hope among parents whose daughters are still missing. Of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from their school in

By ROD McGUIRK and NICK PERRY Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian state leader warned Friday that Melbourne may be losing control of a COVID-19 delta variant outbreak that began in Sydney and has also spread to the New Zealand capital. The fast-moving outbreak was first detected in mid-June in Sydney, Australia’s largest

By ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s prime minister and neighboring Turkey’s president are to discuss developments in Afghanistan in a call Friday evening, the prime minister’s office said, as both countries raise concerns about a potential major influx of people fleeing the Taliban. Athens insists it will not allow a repetition

By EILEEN NG Associated Press KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s longest-governing political party reclaimed the premiership it lost in a shock 2018 election defeat, after the king on Friday named its candidate, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, as the country’s new leader. Ismail was the deputy prime minister under the government of Muhyiddin Yassin, who resigned

By ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A major wildfire that has ravaged a pine forest and burned homes northwest of the Greek capital appeared somewhat abated Friday, although hundreds of firefighters were still working to fully contain the blaze. The fire near the village of Vilia, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) from

By COLLEEN BARRY and KERSTIN SOPKE Associated Press MILAN (AP) — The Italian charity Pangea helped tens of thousands of Afghan women become self-supporting in the last 20 years. Now, dozens of its staff in Afghanistan are in hiding with their families amid reports that Taliban are going door-to-door in search of citizens who worked

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer Technology companies led stocks broadly higher on Wall Street Friday, though the gains were not enough to erase the market’s losses from earlier in the week. The S&P 500 index rose 0.8%, but still posted a weekly loss of 0.6% after two weeks of gains. Even so, the benchmark

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and GEIR MOULSON Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed their sharply different views of Russia’s treatment of imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, democratic values and other major topics of dispute Friday but vowed to maintain a dialogue. Merkel traveled to Moscow as she

BEIJING (AP) — China is tightening control over information gathered by companies about the public under a law approved Friday by its ceremonial legislature, expanding the ruling Communist Party’s crackdown on internet industries. The law would impose some of the world’s strictest controls on private sector handling of information about individuals but appears not to

By TERRY SPENCER Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Millions of students in Florida, Texas and Arizona are now required to wear masks in class as school boards in mostly Democratic areas have defied their Republican governors and made face coverings mandatory. The three states are all hot spots in the nation’s recent COVID-19

By The Associated Press BOSTON — Taliban websites that delivered the victorious insurgents’ official messages to Afghans and the world at large in five languages have abruptly gone offline. It is not immediately clear why the sites in the Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, English and Dari languages went offline Friday. They had been shielded by Cloudflare,