Month: June 2023

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt has bestowed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Egypt’s highest honor as the two nations tightened their partnership. El-Sissi welcomed Modi on Sunday morning in Cairo at the presidential palace and awarded the visiting prime minister the Order of the Nile,

By GHAITH ALSAYED Associated Press JISR AL-SHUGHUR, Syria (AP) — Activists and first responders in Syria say an airstrike over a busy vegetable market in the northwest has killed at least nine people. According to activists and Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, it was Russia, a top ally of Syrian

By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP) — The supreme leader of the Taliban released a message Sunday claiming that his government has taken the necessary steps for the betterment of women’s lives in Afghanistan, where women are banned from public life and work and girls’ education is severely curtailed. The statement from Hibatullah Akhundzada

By COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press MILAN (AP) — The British-Canadian director of Milan’s Brera Gallery was hired in 2015 after the Italian government launched reforms that for the first time brought in foreign museum directors. His eight-year tenure is ending as Premier Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing administration seeks to again reserve top cultural jobs for Italians.

By TIA GOLDENBERG Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli producer of Hollywood blockbuster films has taken the stand in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, describing to the court how he routinely delivered tens of thousands of dollars of Champagne, cigars and other gifts requested by the Israeli leader in exchange for help with

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Over 1.8 million Muslims are making the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It’s one of the world’s largest religious gatherings, and is returning to full capacity following years of coronavirus restrictions. The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Muslims

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister has ordered a brief freeze in construction on a wind turbine project in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that set off a rare clash between Druze residents and police. Late Saturday, Benjamin Netanyahu said he agreed to a pause on the project during this week’s Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. The

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police say gunmen have shot and killed a member of Pakistan’s minority Sikh community in an overnight attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Gauher Khan, a local officer, said Sunday that the attack on Manmohan Singh, 35, appeared to be a targeted killing. Khan said the assailants opened fire

By The Associated Press The rebellious mercenary soldiers who briefly took over a Russian military headquarters on an ominous march toward Moscow were gone Sunday, but the short-lived revolt has weakened President Vladimir Putin just as his forces are facing a fierce counteroffensive in Ukraine. Under terms of the agreement that ended the crisis, Yevgeny

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — The 2023 BET Awards celebrated 50 years of hip-hop with tributes to the genre’s earliest voices, late legends, and new talent during a show packed with spectacular performances that consistently felt like a party. Sunday’s biggest surprise came when Quavo and Offset, the surviving members

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — In a story published June 25, 2023, about gas tax alternatives, The Associated Press erroneously reported a comment by the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Douglas Shinkle. Shinkle said making road usage charging mandatory is the next logical step, not that states need to make them mandatory.

By ELENA BECATOROS and DEREK GATOPOULOS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s conservative New Democracy party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has vowed to speed up reforms following his landslide victory in the country’s second election in five weeks. Near complete results Sunday show him gaining a comfortable parliamentary majority to form a government for a

By MAURICIO SAVARESE Associated Press SAO PAULO (AP) — The decline of the downtown area of Sao Paulo, Brazil has accelerated over the last year. Crack users seem to be everywhere, roaming the central streets of South America’s biggest city. Shop owners worry about robberies and residents fret about muggings. And with a haphazard effort

By FARAI MUTSAKA Associated Press HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Sitabile Dewa was content with her sex life when she was married, but after her divorce, she found her prospects for erotic pleasure rather bleak. In socially conservative Zimbabwe, divorced women and single mothers are often cast as undesirable partners for men, and in her frustration

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of effusive marchers danced to club music in New York City streets Sunday as bubbles and confetti rained down, and fellow revelers from Toronto to San Francisco cheered through Pride Month’s grand crescendo. New York’s boisterous throng strolled and danced down Fifth Avenue to

By JOSEPH WILSON Associated Press SOLSONA, Spain (AP) — Surveying the hills covered with near bone-dry pines stretching to the Pyrenees in the distance, Asier Larrañaga has reason to be on guard. This part of northeast Spain is, like large swaths of the Mediterranean country, braced for wildfires due to the lethal combination of a

By SONIA PÉREZ D. and CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Associated Press GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Electoral workers are slowly tallying ballots across Guatemala, and early counts are giving no indication of which two candidates from a huge field of presidential contenders will advance to a runoff. Voters also cast ballots Sunday in hundreds of congressional and local

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and WILL WEISSERT Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump said the federal government should play a “vital role” opposing abortion but again failed to provide specifics on what national restrictions he would support if elected to the White House again. Trump’s remarks to a group of influential evangelicals