By FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden made a surprise visit to a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday, stirring a political frenzy as Republicans were taking the first step toward holding President Joe Biden’s son in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena. The arrival of the president’s son at the Oversight
Continue ReadingBy RIO YAMAT Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — Chef-like robots, AI-powered appliances and other high-tech kitchen gadgets are holding out the promise that humans don’t need to cook — or mix drinks — for themselves anymore. There was plenty new in the food and beverage world at CES 2024, the multi-day trade event put
Continue ReadingBy KATHY McCORMACK and SCOTT McFETRIDGE Associated Press CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A major storm drenched the Northeast and slammed it with fierce winds, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands following a bout of violent weather that struck most of the U.S. The storm, which started Tuesday night and was moving out Wednesday, washed
Continue ReadingYURAS KARMANAU TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Belarus state television says that Belarusian authorities sent a recently arrived group of Ukrainian children from occupied Ukraine to train with the Belarusian military to learn how to evacuate in the event of a fire. 35 children from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Antratsyt in eastern Ukraine were sent
Continue ReadingBy FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS is still too slow to process amended tax returns, answer taxpayer phone calls and resolve identity theft cases, according to an independent watchdog within the agency. The organization sent a report to Congress Wednesday that the backlog of unprocessed amended returns has quadrupled from 500,000
Continue ReadingBy KEN SWEET AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. regulators are soon expected to decide whether to approve the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund, a development that could thrust the once niche and nerdy corner of the internet even further into the financial mainstream. The regulatory greenlight has been anticipated for several months and
Continue ReadingBERLIN (AP) — The German government has approved the export of air-defense missiles to Saudi Arabia, underlining a softening of its hard line of recent years toward arms exports to the kingdom. A government spokesperson on Wednesday confirmed a report that Germany’s Security Council, made up of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and several other ministers, approved
Continue ReadingBy STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is drifting Wednesday ahead of a report that could help bolster or dash the hopes that sent stocks surging into the end of last year. The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading, a day after barely budging. The Dow Jones Industrial
Continue ReadingISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban government in Afghanistan has confirmed the resumption of Air Arabia flights to Kabul’s international airport, two years after service stopped following the collapse of the Western-backed government. Afghanistan’s Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation says there will be one daily flight between Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and Kabul. All international
Continue ReadingPRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s prosecutors have charged 27 Kosovars with smuggling migrants to a neighboring country. The prosecutors in a statement said the suspects collaborated to transport some 700 Syrians to neighboring Serbia on their way to Western Europe. If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Continue ReadingATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s center-right government has announced price controls on baby formula, accusing multinational suppliers of “greedflation” by imposing unjustifiably high prices on the country’s consumers. A 7% profit cap on formula will take effect in March and follows a series of similar initiatives over the past two years for basic items. Inflation
Continue ReadingISLAMABAD (AP) — The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a minivan explosion in the Afghan capital that killed at least three people. The militant group says it detonated an explosive late Tuesday hidden on a vehicle belonging to employees of Afghanistan’s main prison in Kabul, killing and wounding about 10 people. That’s according
Continue ReadingBy BINAJ GURUBACHARYA Associated Press KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A controversial Nepalese spiritual leader known as “Buddha Boy” was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a minor and involvement in the disappearance of at least four of his followers from his camps, police said Wednesday. Ram Bahadur Bamjan is believed by many Nepalese to be
Continue ReadingBy MATT BROWN and LINLEY SANDERS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans of various racial backgrounds largely agree that the government should focus on the economy and foreign policy issues in 2024, but recent polling shows that views among racial groups diverge on some high-profile topics, including racism and immigration. About 7 in 10 U.S.
Continue ReadingBy MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Listened to more music last year? You’re not alone. Luminate’s year-end report finds that the global music industry surpassed 4 trillion streams in 2023. That’s a new single-year record. Global streams are also up 34% from last year, reflective of an increasingly international music marketplace.
Continue ReadingBy LIUDAS DAPKUS Associated Press VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Ukraine has shown the world that Russia’s military can be stopped, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday as he began a visit to the Baltic nations in search of more help for his country against the Kremlin’s larger and better-supplied forces in the 22-month-old invasion. Speaking in
Continue ReadingBy KATHY McCORMACK and SCOTT McFETRIDGE Associated Press CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A major storm drenched the Northeast and slammed it with fierce winds, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands following a bout of violent weather that struck most of the U.S. The storm, which started Tuesday night and was moving out Wednesday, washed
Continue ReadingBy WAYNE PARRY Associated Press UNION, N.J. (AP) — Federal investigators opened several days of hearings into a dockside cargo ship fire that killed two New Jersey firefighters last summer at Port Newark. The Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the July 5 blaze aboard the Grande Costa
Continue ReadingBy MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press HANOVER, N.H. (AP) — President Joe Biden’s education chief plans to meet Wednesday with students at Dartmouth College to discuss antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses amid the the Israel-Hamas war. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will hold a roundtable including Jewish and Muslim students as part of recently launched Dartmouth
Continue ReadingBy ZIMO ZHONG and MATT OTT Associated Press Wall Street was quiet early Wednesday following a lackluster session a day earlier as markets await U.S. inflation data and high-profile corporate earnings reports later in the week. Futures for the S&P 500 were essentially flat before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average
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