By ZENEL ZHINIPOTOKU and LLAZAR SEMINI Associated Press PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s government is making a last-minute effort to convince Western powers to vote on whether to admit the country as a new member in the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights body. Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla-Schwarz in a letter on Thursday
Continue ReadingBy SUZAN FRASER Associated Press ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Turkish court has sentenced several pro-Kurdish politicians to between nine and 42 years in prison over deadly riots that broke out in 2014 after Islamic State group militants besieged the Syrian border town of Kobani. The rioting by Kurds resulted in 37 deaths and left
Continue ReadingBy CNN Staff (CNN) — Nadine Menendez, the wife of Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who has been charged with acting as a foreign agent and taking bribes, has breast cancer, the New Jersey senator said Thursday. Nadine Menendez is also charged in the case, and both have pleaded not guilty. Nadine Menendez is set to go on trial
Continue ReadingBy SCOTT BAUER Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin election officials have voted to provide more details to voters than normal to avoid confusion about a ballot that will have both a special and regular election for a vacant congressional seat. The rare anomaly for the 8th Congressional District is due to the timing
Continue ReadingBy MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers accused the star prosecution witness in his hush money trial of lying to jurors, portraying Trump fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen on Thursday as a serial fabulist who is bent on seeing the presumptive Republican presidential
Continue ReadingBy FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg is sitting for a second day of grilling on Capitol Hill, this time at the Senate Banking Committee, after a damning report about the agency’s toxic workplace culture was released last week. The hearing Thursday largely focused on FDIC workplace
Continue ReadingBy STEVE LeBLANC, KATHY McCORMACK and MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge on social media died from eating a large quantity of chile pepper extract and also had a congenital heart defect, according to an autopsy report obtained by The Associated Press. Harris
Continue ReadingBy STEPHEN GROVES Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The House was set Thursday to deliver a rebuke to President Joe Biden for pausing a shipment of bombs to Israel, voting on legislation that would seek to force the weapons transfer as Republicans worked to highlight Democratic divisions over the Israel-Hamas war. Seeking to discourage Israel
Continue ReadingBy Sean Lyngaas, Holmes Lybrand and Evan Perez, CNN (CNN) — USÂ federal prosecutors on Thursday charged an Arizona woman with participating in an elaborate fraud scheme to help foreign IT workers pose as Americans, get hired by major US companies and earn $6.8 million in revenue that could benefit the nuclear-armed North Korean regime. The
Continue ReadingBy KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer LONDON (AP) — The European Union opened fresh investigations Thursday into Facebook and Instagram over suspicions that they’re failing to protect children online, in violation of the bloc’s strict digital regulations for social media platforms. It’s the latest round of scrutiny for parent company Meta Platforms under the 27-nation
Continue ReadingBy MATT OTT AP Business Writer The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. fell for the second straight week, giving some relief to home shoppers already facing sky-high prices and a shortage of supply. The average 30-year rate fell to 7.02% from 7.09% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A
Continue ReadingBy RAF CASERT Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — In an increasingly vitriolic political climate, the last thing needed in the runup to the June European Union elections was an assassination attempt on one of the bloc’s most controversial figures. As Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico lay recovering from Wednesday’s attack, the sheer violence of five
Continue ReadingMADISON, Wis. (AP) — Authorities say human bones found inside the chimney of a Wisconsin music store in 1989 have been identified as those of a man whose last known contact with relatives was in 1970. The DNA Doe Project announced this week the bones are those of Ronnie Joe Kirk, who was originally from
Continue ReadingBy The Associated Press Michael Brockers, a 2012 first-round draft pick who played on the defensive line for two NFL teams over 11 seasons, is retiring from football. The 33-year-old Brockers, who didn’t play in 2023, made the announcement Thursday on Instagram. The Rams took Brockers out of LSU with the No. 14 overall pick
Continue ReadingZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Four people have been killed and five others seriously injured in southern Croatia when a car carrying migrants skidded off a road and slammed into a wall. Police said that the crash happened on Thursday morning near the town of Sinj. Croatian media reported that the driver was trying to escape
Continue ReadingBy LOLITA C. BALDOR and TARA COPP Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Thursday that humanitarian aid will soon begin flowing onto the Gaza shore through the new pier that was anchored to the beach overnight and will begin reaching those in need almost immediately. Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters the U.S.
Continue ReadingNEW YORK (AP) — Some of the lawmakers who accompanied Donald Trump to court sat in the front two rows, directly behind the former president. Others were relegated to the back of the gallery Thursday because there wasn’t enough room in the rows reserved for the Trump’s entourage. Those in the front row at Trump’s
Continue ReadingBy Oren Liebermann, CNN (CNN) — Reports of sexual assaults in the US military dropped for the first time in nearly a decade, according to a new Pentagon report released on Thursday, breaking what had been an upward trend in recent years. A confidential survey also found the number of service members who experienced some type of
Continue ReadingBy STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped the 40,000 level for the first time Thursday, as U.S. stocks drifted higher to add to their records set a day before. The Dow was up 115 points, or 0.3%, at 40,023, in midday trading. It made its last
Continue ReadingBy Sydney Bishop, CNN (CNN) — Droves of starving brown pelicans have been found stranded on the California coast since late April and the root cause of the event remains a mystery, wildlife watchers say. Arriving dehydrated, starved and injured from fishing lines and hooks, the pelicans are mostly turning up in the Monterey and
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