News

By DAVID BILLER Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Behemoth sound trucks known as electric trios are a fixture of Brazil’s Carnival festivities and draw millions to the streets. The rigs effectively did away with front-row seats, making Carnival more accessible. Singer Caetano Veloso’s ode to the earth-shaking vehicles proclaimed that the only people

By NINIEK KARMINI Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — With a broad smile on his face, Jakarta city council candidate Rian Ernest answers almost every question about his faith with the same line. “I’m Christian, but my wife and children are Muslims, so pray for me to get the guidance,” Ernest said. Ernest is one

By ALBERT AJI and ABDULRAHMAN ZEYAD Associated Press Damascus (AP) — The Syrian military says Israeli airstrikes have hit several sites on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus. Syrian state news agency SANA reported Staturday that the strikes came from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It said air defenses shot down some

By LEANNE ITALIE AP Lifestyles Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Tommy Hilfiger threw himself a welcome home party Friday night at Grand Central’s Oyster Bar for a New York Fashion Week bash. He had Questlove as his DJ and Jon Batiste serenading Anna Wintour on his melodica while a bevy of global celebrities looked on.

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — The tributes that poured in following Wayne Kramer’s death last week came from musicians praising the MC5 guitarist’s contributions to rock music, as well as from prison reform advocates who extolled his legacy of bringing music to incarcerated people. Kramer, who died Feb. 2 at age

By SABINA NIKSIC Associated Press SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — War-scarred Sarajevo is looking back to happier times from February 1984 as it celebrates the 40th anniversary of staging a successful Winter Olympics. It was a time of opportunity for Yugoslavia, of which Bosnia was then a part, but less than a decade later everything had

By MICHAEL ELSEN-ROONEY of Chalkbeat NEW YORK (AP) — Derry Oliver was in fifth grade when she first talked to her mom about seeing a therapist. She was living in Georgia with her uncle and grandparents while her mom was in New York scoping out jobs and apartments ahead of moving the family. It was

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG Associated Press/Report for America JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Diversity initiatives would be defunded or banned from universities and other public institutions under a slate of bills pending in Republican-led legislatures, with some lawmakers counting on the issue resonating with voters in this election year. Already this year, Republican lawmakers have proposed about

By STEVE PEOPLES, ZEKE MILLER and SEUNG MIN KIM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s Democratic allies are launching an aggressive defense against a special counsel’s explosive claims that the 81-year-old president couldn’t remember major milestones in his life, trying to diminish the significance of the prosecutor’s allegations that Biden was too forgetful

By NOREEN NASIR Associated Press Rhonda LeValdo is exhausted, but she’s refusing to slow down. For the fourth time in five years, her hometown team and the focus of her decadeslong activism against the use of Native American imagery and references in sports is in the Super Bowl. As the Kansas City Chiefs prepare for

By DÉBORA REY Associated Press BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A Catholic laywoman who lived in 18th-century Argentina and joined the Jesuits in their evangelical mission throughout the South American country will become the first female saint from the home country of Pope Francis on Sunday. María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, more commonly known