Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China has condemned Lithuania’s expulsion of three Chinese diplomats as relations between the two countries continue to sour. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson accused Lithuania of expelling its diplomats and declaring them persona non grata “without any reason,” according to a statement posted on the ministry’s website on Monday.
Continue ReadingBy Maria Sole Campinoti, CNN (CNN) — Identical twins Karen Rodman and Linda Thomas have been inseparable since birth: after all these years, they work together, Rodman as a legal assistant and Thomas as a paralegal, and they finish each other’s sentences. Rodman and Thomas live in Las Vegas, less than five miles from each
Continue ReadingBy Joan Biskupic, CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst (CNN) — When the Supreme Court hears an appeal Wednesday from transgender youths challenging a Tennessee ban on their medical care, fundamental principles forbidding sex discrimination will be on the line. The justices’ view of whether landmark decisions tracing back a half-century apply to transgender rights will affect
Continue ReadingAssociated Press Tired of thinking about what gifts to get everyone this year? Artificial intelligence chatbots might help, but don’t expect them to always give you the right answers. Scouring the internet for Cyber Monday deals may yield an encounter with more chattier iterations of the chatbots that some retailers built to provide customer service.
Continue ReadingBy Celina Tebor, Gloria Pazmino, Lauren del Valle and Eric Levenson, CNN (CNN) — The manslaughter trial of Daniel Penny, the former Marine accused of putting a homeless man in a fatal chokehold on the New York City subway last year, moved to closing arguments Monday after weeks of testimony in the case. Penny, 26,
Continue ReadingMANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine military has deployed a navy ship and air force planes to shadow a Russian submarine, which passed through the South China Sea off the country’s western coast last week. A security official says the Russian submarine identified itself in response to a Philippine navy two-way radio inquiry, saying it
Continue ReadingAP Business Writers Consumers in the United States are scouring the internet for online deals as they look to take advantage of the post-Thanksgiving shopping marathon with Cyber Monday. Even though e-commerce is now part and parcel of many people’s regular routines and the holiday shopping season, Cyber Monday — a term coined in 2005
Continue ReadingBy Rosa Rahimi, CNN London (CNN) — There’s a name for that feeling you get after spending too long scrolling aimlessly, and Oxford University Press (OUP) has chosen it as its word for the year for 2024. “Brain rot” took the title in a vote in which more than 37,000 people participated, as well as
Continue ReadingFRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen workers have launched rolling two-hour strikes at nine plants across Germany to underscore their resistance to pay cuts and factory closures. The company says cuts are necessary to cope with a slack European auto market. The strikes are taking place as part of negotiations for a new labor agreement after
Continue ReadingAssociated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s the final holiday stretch at the White House for President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, and the theme is “A Season of Peace and Light.” The first lady welcomed National Guard families to the White House on Monday to be among the first members of the public to
Continue ReadingThe Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has fired into a disputed border zone held by Israel. The group said the volley, its first during the truce, was a warning shot in response to what it called repeated Israeli ceasefire violations. Israeli leaders threatened to retaliate and within hours, Israel’s military carried out its biggest wave of
Continue ReadingAssociated Press Some storm-weary residents of the Great Lakes region have seen continued snowfall and are facing the prospect of even more accumulations this week. Lake-effect snow continues to fall on parts of western New York that were already blanketed with a foot or more over the past four days. Lake-effect snow warnings are in
Continue ReadingAssociated Press TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Police in the Georgian capital have again moved to disperse thousands of demonstrators after over 200 people were detained during four previous nights of protests against the government’s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union. Police on Monday used water cannons and tear gas to drive protesters
Continue ReadingLONDON (AP) — Elton John says he struggled to watch his new musical because he has lost his eyesight after contracting an infection. The singer-songwriter attended the opening night of “The Devil Wears Prada” in London on Sunday and told the audience that “I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews because,
Continue ReadingAssociated Press ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s foreign minister says the recent rapid advance by opposition fighters in Syria shows that Syrian President Bashar Assad must reconcile with his own people and hold talks with the opposition. Speaking Monday at a joint news conference in Ankara with his Iranian counterpart, Hakan Fidan said Turkey and
Continue ReadingAssociated Press MANILA, Philippines (AP) — An impeachment complaint has been filed against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing a legal storm over a death threat she made against the president and her alleged role in extra-judicial killings of drug suspects, corruption and failure to stand up to Chinese aggression in the disputed
Continue ReadingAssociated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Thousands of giant panda sculptures will greet residents and tourists starting Saturday in Hong Kong, where enthusiasm for the bears has grown since two cubs were born in a local theme park. The 2,500 exhibits were showcased in a launch ceremony of PANDA GO! FEST HK, the city’s largest
Continue ReadingBy Junko Ogura and Chris Lau, CNN Tokyo (CNN) — A bear that ran amok in a supermarket in northern Japan has been caught two days after it attacked a worker, the latest in a surge of encounters between bears and people in the country. The bear wandered into the store in Akita City on
Continue ReadingGENEVA (AP) — For the first time in Switzerland, a multinational company faces a criminal trial on charges of bribing a foreign public official, with alleged payments totaling about $5 million, to win lucrative oil industry contracts in Angola. Commodities trader Trafigura Group said it intended to defend itself against allegations that its former parent
Continue ReadingAssociated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — It is the world’s rarest whale, with only seven of its kind ever spotted. Almost nothing is known about the enigmatic species. But on Monday a small group of scientists and cultural experts in New Zealand clustered around a near-perfectly preserved spade-toothed whale hoping to decode decades of
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