Author: AP/Associated Press
AP/Associated Press With more than 95% of the votes counted, New Zealand’s election produced no definitive victory for the right or the left on Saturday but the incumbent conservative government hovered on the brink of a wafer-thin majority that could allow it to eke out a precarious return to power. Christopher Luxon’s National party and its minor party coalition partners, libertarian ACT and populist NZ First, were getting close to the slimmest possible return — by just one seat. It suggested that securing a second term could take lengthy negotiations and would rely on votes counted after election day, which…
AP/Associated Press Ebola disease from the fast-moving outbreak in Congo has now spread to four other countries, including two where it’s active. It has spread farther across Africa than any previous Ebola outbreak, reaching three regions. Nigeria on Tuesday became the latest country affected by the outbreak, which was first declared in eastern Congo in mid-May. Caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus for which there’s no approved vaccine or drug, the outbreak has killed at least 4,600 of the 9,500 people infected in Congo. The World Health Organization has said it is the fastest-growing outbreak of Ebola in history. In…
MELANIE LIDMAN/AP/Associated Press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s efforts to question last week’s elections weakened Sunday as officials said the vote would not be undermined by the allegations and a court ordered suspects in one case released. In an image that indicated officials were on the same page, the head of Israel’s elections committee was shown sitting between Israel’s attorney general and the head of the Shin Bet intelligence service for a statement making clear that even if claims of foreign interference raised last week are substantiated, the vote would stand. Netanyahu’s Likud party has said, without giving evidence,…
AP/Associated Press An Australian appeals court has ordered Erin Patterson to never be released from prison after agreeing with prosecutors that her 33-year, non-parole period for poisoning four of her estranged husband’s relatives with death cap mushrooms was inadequate. The three judges of the Victoria state Court of Appeal also dismissed Patterson’s challenge to her convictions that stemmed from a family meal she hosted at her rural home in Leongatha in July 2023. “This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated, and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms,” one of the Court of Appeal justices, Stephen McLeish, said. “In…
AP/Associated Press A high-speed train slammed into another that had stopped on the tracks in Spain overnight, killing at least 68 people and injuring dozens in the second deadly rail collision this year. The regional government of Castilla La Mancha confirmed the death toll and said another 58 people were receiving medical treatment at hospitals. Rescue workers searched the wreckage through the day for survivors and bodies. The collision came just nine months after another deadly crash involving high-speed trains operated by the same two companies in southern Spain in January. “Today all of Spain is grieving,” Spanish Prime Minister…
AP/Associated Press The leader of a Kenyan doomsday cult linked to more than 400 deaths was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult after ordering followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus. Justice Diana Kavedza ruled that Pastor Paul Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, oversaw an organised system that used religious teachings to compel followers to fast until they died. In 2023, more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves on the 320-hectare Chakama Ranch in coastal Kilifi County, where Mackenzie’s followers lived in mud huts, away from the scrutiny of local communities…
AAMER MADHANI /Associated Press Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have no shortage of difficult issues to cover when they sit down for talks on Thursday at the White House. China has resisted the Trump administration’s urgings — and economic threats — to use its considerable leverage to prod Iran to agree to U.S. terms to end the nearly seven-month war. Xi wants to see Trump permanently halt arms sales to Taiwan and loosen export restrictions on cutting-edge advanced chips. And the two sides on Wednesday agreed to extend a one-year trade truce set to expire Nov. 10 for two…
Rio Yamat/Associated Press Appeals from American tourism organizations seemed to be everywhere Josh Loewen looked over the last year. Billboards and banners proclaimed a state or city’s love for Canada. Online and social media ads offered special deals for travelers from north of the border. As a Vancouver resident and marketing executive himself, Loewen said he understands the conciliatory overtures. The number of Canadians traveling to the United States plunged after President Donald Trump returned to office with remarks about making Canada the 51st state. An acrimonious trade war between the two countries now is threatening to reinforce the informal boycott just as…
GEIR MOULSON and KERSTIN SOPKE /Associated Press. The far-right Alternative for Germany party surged to a resounding victory in a regional election Sunday, but fell a little short of winning a majority in its quest to form the country’s first far-right state government since World War II. The party of Germany’s unpopular leader, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, slumped to a disastrous result in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The anti-migration and Russia-friendly Alternative for Germany’s candidate for governor said that “we have written history” and the party had a clear mandate to govern. Ulrich Siegmund, 35, told public broadcaster ARD that voters had sent a signal that…
AP/Associated Press An Australian air crew flew an American from an Antarctic base to a New Zealand hospital in a rare midwinter rescue. The Airbus A319 Long Range aircraft, with the call sign Snowbird 1, flew from the Australian city of Hobart to the U.S. McMurdo Station in Antarctica on July 31 in response to an “urgent request for assistance,” the jet’s Melbourne-based owner Skytraders said in a statement Thursday. The jet landed after a five hour and 30 minute flight at the Phoenix Airfield near McMurdo in darkness and with temperatures as low as minus 43 C (minus 45.4 F), the statement said.…
Matthew Lee/AP/Associated Press The Trump administration is preparing to ramp up funding by hundreds of millions of dollars for programs designed to counter China’s growing influence around the world, after it had put a halt to many of those initiatives last year during a flurry of budget and personnel cuts. The administration notified Congress late last week that it intends to spend $175.8 million to replace outdated and aging undersea telecommunications cables in the Caribbean and Central America to prevent China from moving in. The administration has expressed deep concern about China’s activities in the Americas, pushing back on Chinese ownership of ports at…
THOMAS ADAMSON, MARK CARLSON and EMMA DA SILVA-AP/Associated Press French authorities ordered 4,000 more people evacuated from tourist sites along its Atlantic coast on Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux. Fresh flames erupted later Tuesday near Grand Crohot, a popular Atlantic beach on the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula, local authorities said. A fleet of 23 planes and helicopters — up from 18 — dropped water and fire retardant as crews fought to keep the renewed flames from spreading. “The situation remains complicated. That’s clear. We’re not out of the woods,” Gironde…
JIM GOMEZ/AP News The United States, the United Kingdom and a dozen other Western and Asian countries reasserted on Sunday that China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea are illegal based on a 2016 arbitration ruling. A joint statement issued by the 14 nations said they rejected “destabilizing” actions in the disputed waters that threaten regional stability. The 27-nation European Union released a separate statement, reaffirming the ruling as a “landmark decision in the peaceful settlement of disputes.” The statements commemorated a July 12, 2016, arbitration ruling by a tribunal established in The Hague under the United Nations Convention on the Law of…
AP/Associated Press Authorities were investigating a blaze at a shoe factory in southeastern China’s Fujian province that killed 28 people, raising renewed concern over worker safety. The state-run Xinhua News Agency said Friday that a search had ended while an investigation was underway into the cause of the fire Thursday that gutted the Fujian Huiteng factory in Jinjiang, a manufacturing hub for sports shoes. According to product listings on online sales and import platforms, Fujian Huiteng makes shoes for both Chinese and foreign brands. Local media footage showed people trapped on the roof of the five-floor building, enveloped in thick…
Annie Ma, and Sharon Lurye,/ Associated Press Younger students have regained ground academically after the pandemic’s disruptions while older students’ test scores continue to stagnate, according to the latest testing data released Wednesday by the federal government. Nine-year-olds rebounded to pre-pandemic reading scores and saw some recovery in math, according to data from a test taken regularly in the United States since the 1970s. The same recovery has not emerged for 13-year-olds, whose average scores in math and reading remain below pre-pandemic averages. In fact, the latest reading scores, from teenagers who took the test in 2024, are essentially the…