AP World News

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iran carried out executions at “an alarming rate” last year with at least 975 people killed, the United Nations chief said in a report that also cited other human rights abuses, from barriers to freedom of expression to the use of torture and arbitrary detention.

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Having doubled in strength in less than a day and still expected to grow further, Hurricane Erick on Wednesday chugged through the ideal environment to power up quickly as it approached Mexico’s southern Pacific Coast. This type of rapid intensification has become more common in a

By RUSS BYNUM Associated Press U.S. immigration authorities said Wednesday they have detained a Spanish-language journalist, who will face deportation proceedings following his arrest on charges of obstructing police and unlawful assembly while covering a weekend protest outside Atlanta. Mario Guevara was turned over by police to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody three days

By STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — A 20-year-old man has been arrested in Germany on suspicion of engaging in an online campaign of cybergrooming and virtual sexual abuse of children, including pressuring a 13-year-old American boy to kill himself and livestream the act, authorities said Wednesday. The German-Iranian man was arrested Tuesday. The

By JOSEPH KRAUSS Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As Israeli strikes kill top Iranian generals, take out air defenses and damage nuclear sites, many wonder if President Donald Trump will deepen U.S. involvement in the conflict. Trump has long railed against what he refers to as the “stupid, endless wars” waged by

By TARA COPP, DAVID KLEPPER and AAMER MADHANI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers Wednesday that the Pentagon was providing options to President Donald Trump as he decides next steps on Iran but would not say whether the military was planning to assist with Israeli strikes, an action that could

By AAMER MADHANI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he doesn’t want to carry out a U.S. strike on Iran but suggested he stands ready to act if it’s necessary to extinguish Iran’s nuclear program. Trump continued his increasingly pointed warnings about the U.S. joining Israel in striking at Tehran’s nuclear

By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS Associated Press LARNACA, Cyprus (AP) — Carrie Best-Lary was among hundreds of Jews who had traveled to Israel on a trip that was supposed to be about culture and Jewish roots, only to find herself fleeing on a cruise ship to Cyprus. She is in one of two groups that have converged

By FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The streets of Tehran are empty, businesses closed, communications patchy at best. With no bona fide bomb shelters open to the public, panicked masses spend restless nights on the floors of metro stations as strikes boom overhead. This is Iran’s capital city, just under a week

By JUSTIN SPIKE and ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency workers pulled more bodies Wednesday from the rubble of a nine-story Kyiv apartment building demolished by a Russian missile, raising the death toll from the latest attack on the Ukrainian capital to 28. The building in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district took a direct

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ and LUIS ALBERTO CRUZ Associated Press ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Erick powered up into a Category 3 major hurricane Wednesday evening as it bore down on the southern Mexico coast, threatening to unleash destructive winds, flash floods and a dangerous storm surge on the region in coming hours, forecasters said. Swiftly

By MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ Associated Press God’s message didn’t immediately make sense to pastor José Luis Orozco. But when U.S. efforts resulted in his release from a Nicaraguan prison a few months later, everything became clear. “The Lord had told me: ‘Don’t be afraid, José Luis. A wind will blow from the north, your chains

By LORNE COOK Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — Russia poses a direct threat to the European Union through acts of sabotage and cyberattacks, but its massive military spending suggests that President Vladimir Putin also plans to use his armed forces elsewhere in the future, the EU’s top diplomat warned on Wednesday. “Russia is already a

By JAMES JORDAN and HARRIET MORRIS Associated Press ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Wednesday to help mediate an end to the conflict between Israel and Iran, suggesting Moscow could help negotiate a settlement that could allow Tehran to pursue a peaceful atomic program while assuaging Israeli security concerns. Speaking to

By SOPHENG CHEANG and JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI Associated Press PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Tens of thousands of people gathered in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh on Wednesday for a march to show their solidarity with the government and military, amid soaring tensions with neighboring Thailand following a border row that erupted last month. Here’s what to

By HANDRIANUS BELUTOWE and EDNA TARIGAN Associated Press LEMBATA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted with giant ash and smoke plumes again Wednesday after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) into the

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, KIM TONG-HYUNG and KATIE MARIE DAVIES Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea will send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to support reconstruction work in Russia’s Kursk region, a top Russian official said Tuesday, the latest sign of expanding cooperation between the nations. North Korea has already supplied

By The Associated Press Explosions were heard in Tehran early Wednesday as Israeli warplanes pounded Iran’s capital overnight and into Wednesday. Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday rejected U.S. calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage” to them. The country launched a small barrage of missiles at

By JOSEPH KRAUSS, JON GAMBRELL and JULIA FRANKEL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader rejected U.S. calls for surrender in the face of more Israeli strikes Wednesday and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them.” European diplomats prepared to hold talks with Iran

LEMBATA, Indonesia (AP) — Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano in south-central Indonesia erupted Tuesday, spewing towering columns of hot ash into the air. Authorities raised the eruption alert to the highest level and expanded the danger zone to 8 kilometers (about 5 miles) from the crater. Indonesia’s Geology Agency said in a statement it recorded

By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is shifting military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East to protect Israel from Iranian attacks as President Donald Trump warns Tehran to step back from the conflict. Trump’s social media posts saying his patience with Iran was “wearing thin” have raised

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A senior Cuban diplomat has accused the Trump administration of trying to discredit the thousands of Cuban doctors working around the world and deprive the country of an important source of income. Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, who was at U.N. headquarters this

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — For Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, the bilateral meetings scheduled on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Canada Tuesday were even more important than the summit itself and her first face-to-face dialogue with U.S. President Donald Trump was to headline her trip. But Trump’s

By BRIAN INGANGA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — An Associated Press photographer captured the shooting of a civilian by a Kenyan police officer in the head at close range on Tuesday, during the latest protest against the country’s deadly and pervasive issue of police brutality. It happened on one of Nairobi’s busiest streets, again

By MATTHEW LEE AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has given 36 countries, most of them in Africa, a Wednesday deadline to commit to improve vetting of travelers or face a ban on their citizens visiting the United States. A weekend diplomatic cable sent by the State Department instructs embassies and consulates

By BRIAN MELLEY and DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers voted Tuesday to decriminalize abortion in England and Wales after a lawmaker argued it was cruel to prosecute women for ending a pregnancy. The House of Commons approved an amendment to a broader crime bill that would prevent women from being criminally

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A federal court on Tuesday granted a request by former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to serve a six-year prison sentence for corruption at her home in Buenos Aires. Judges ruled that Fernández, 72, can serve time in the apartment where she lives with her daughter and her granddaughter,

By KELVIN CHAN and BARBARA ORTUTAY Associated Press Iranian state television on Tuesday afternoon urged people to remove WhatsApp from their smartphones, alleging without specific evidence that the messaging app gathered user information to send to Israel. In a statement, WhatsApp said it was “concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — A century after the city of Berlin banned swimming in the Spree River because it was so polluted it could make people sick, there’s a push by swimmers to get back into the water. Around 200 people jumped into the slow-moving, greenish water Tuesday to show that

By THOMAS ADAMSON Associated Press PARIS (AP) — What began with a handshake evolved into turbulence at 33,000 feet as one of diplomacy’s oddest relationships took another strange turn. The political chemistry that once defined the Trump–Macron dynamic — immortalized by a famously tense 29-second handshake in 2017 — was nowhere to be seen in