AP National News

By CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen in Nigeria abducted nine students on their way home from an Islamic school in the country’s northwest, two days after a mass school abduction took place in a neighboring state, police said Thursday. The students were kidnapped earlier this week in Katsina state, police spokesman

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s government said Thursday that it has granted a quarantine exemption to an individual to perform “designated professional work” following reports that Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman did not have to spend time in quarantine when she arrived in the city to film a TV series. “The case in discussion has

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s highest court has rejected the appeals of three people who were convicted in one of the country’s most high-profile murder trials involving a far-right group. The decision announced Thursday by the Federal Court of Justice confirms the life sentence given three years ago to Beate Zschaepe, the only known survivor of

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group said Thursday that an Iranian fuel tanker will sail toward Lebanon “within hours,” warning Israel and the United States not to intercept it. The delivery organized by Lebanon-based Hezbollah would be an apparent violation of U.S. sanctions imposed on

By SRDJAN NEDELJKOVIC and ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press THEA, Greece (AP) — A major wildfire that has ravaged a pine forest for four days, burnt homes and led to the evacuation of villages northwest of Athens is on the wane, but not yet under control, Greece’s minister in charge of public order said Thursday. Hundreds

BEIJING (AP) — A top Chinese official said Thursday that “all-round efforts” are needed to ensure Tibetans speak standard spoken and written Chinese and share the “cultural symbols and images of the Chinese nation.” Wang Yang made the remarks before a handpicked audience in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the home of Tibet’s

By AHMAD SEIR, RAHIM FAIEZ, KATHY GANNON AND JON GAMBRELL Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan protesters defied the Taliban for a second day Thursday, waving their national flag in scattered demonstrations, and the fighters again responded violently as they faced down growing challenges to their rule. A U.N. official warned of dire food

By ANNABELLE LIANG Associated Press SINGAPORE (AP) — Asian stock markets were mostly lower Friday as worries surrounding the spread of the delta variant again took center stage. Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.7% to 27,082.20 and Seoul’s Kospi fell 0.6% to 3,078.71. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong slipped 1.5% to 24,936.15. The Shanghai

By COSTAS KANTOURIS Associated Press ALISTRATI, Greece (AP) — Persephone is a tour guide in Greece, but perhaps not the type people are used to. Billed as the world’s first robot tour guide inside a cave, Persephone has been welcoming visitors since mid-July to the Alistrati Cave in northern Greece, 135 kilometers (84 miles) northeast

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — When the Taliban swept over Afghanistan, Russia was ready for the rapid developments after working methodically for years to lay the groundwork for relations with the group that it still officially considers a terrorist organization. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized this week that Moscow was “in

By ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — On the morning of Aug. 19, 1991, I woke up to a loud rumbling outside. It was the same sound I heard during an earlier showdown between Soviet troops and pro-democracy protesters in Lithuania. It was the sound of battle tanks. The ominous noise on that morning

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh is disputing a Human Rights Watch investigation into disappearances of government critics and others as built on questionable, uncorroborated allegations that security forces were involved. The rights group earlier identified 86 people as still missing after allegedly being targeted by security forces. The group is urging the United Nations to

The Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — BUDAPEST, Hungary — More than two dozen Hungarian nationals evacuated from Kabul arrived in Frankfurt, Germany early Thursday, and will likely be transported to Hungary later in the day, deputy foreign minister Levente Magyar told reporters. The air evacuation of the 26 Hungarians was carried out by Hungary’s

By JAY REEVES Associated Press GULF SHORES, Ala. (AP) — Tourists and servers alike dance atop tables and in the aisles at one restaurant on the “Redneck Riviera,” a beloved stretch of towns along the northern Gulf Coast where beaches, bars and stores are packed. Yet just a few miles away, a hospital is running

HONG KONG (AP) — Two Hong Kongers have reportedly pleaded guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces as well as Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai to endanger national security Separately, local media are reporting that seven pro-democracy activists pleaded guilty to organizing and inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly held in

By BILL BARROW Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter is sometimes called a better former president than he was president. Nodding to Carter’s decades of work as a globe-trotting humanitarian but with a glaring reminder of his landslide defeat in 1980, the backhanded compliment rankles Carter allies and, they say, the former president himself.

By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — “Go West, young man,” Horace Greeley famously urged. The problem for the northern Colorado town that bears the 19th-century newspaper editor’s name: Too many people have heeded his advice. By the tens of thousands newcomers have been streaming into Greeley — so much so that the

By WILLIAM J. KOLE Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — More than three centuries after a Massachusetts woman was wrongly convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death, she’s finally on the verge of being exonerated — thanks to a curious eighth-grade civics class. State Sen. Diana DiZoglio, a Democrat from Methuen, has introduced legislation to clear

By VICTORIA MILKO AP Science Writer JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — When February’s military takeover of Myanmar led to the collapse of the central health care system, independent ethnic organizations that had operated for decades on the Southeast Asian country’s borders stepped in. They provided basic medical services, treated COVID-19-patients and occasionally even tended to injuries

By ROBERT BURNS, MATTHEW LEE, and LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States struggled Thursday to pick up the pace of American and Afghan evacuations at Kabul airport, constrained by obstacles ranging from armed Taliban checkpoints to paperwork problems. With an Aug. 31 deadline looming, tens of thousands remained to be