AP World News

By LIUDAS DAPKUS and GEIR MOULSON Associated Press VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Chancellor Friedrich Merz inaugurated a groundbreaking German brigade in Lithuania that is meant to help protect NATO’s eastern flank and declared Thursday that “the security of our Baltic allies is also our security” as worries about Russian aggression persist. He said Berlin’s strengthening

By The Associated Press Israeli tanks and drones attacked a hospital in northern Gaza overnight, igniting fires and causing extensive damage, Palestinian hospital officials said on Thursday. Videos taken by a health official at Al-Awda Hospital show walls blown away and thick black smoke billowing wreckage. The Israeli military said its forces were operating “adjacent”

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Britain signed an agreement Thursday to hand sovereignty over the contested Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a move the government says ensures the future of a U.S.-U.K. military base that is vital to British security. The Indian Ocean archipelago is home to a strategically important naval and bomber

By YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Belarusian man has died in prison while serving a sentence for insulting the country’s authoritarian president, a human rights group said Thursday, adding to a growing number of political prisoners who perished amid a relentless crackdown on dissent in the tightly controlled country. Valiantsin Shtermer,

By STEPHEN McGRATH Associated Press BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A top Romanian court on Thursday rejected as unfounded a request to annul the presidential election by the hard-right candidate who decisively lost the race to his pro-European Union opponent on Sunday. After deliberations on Thursday, Romania’s Constitutional Court unanimously rejected the annulment request, filed on

By MOLLY QUELL Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — International Criminal Court prosecutors have urged judges to reject a request by Israel to scrap arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister while the court reconsiders its jurisdiction over Gaza and the West Bank. In a 10-page written submission posted

By THOMAS ADAMSON Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Decades before transgender became a household word and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” became a worldwide hit — before visibility brought rights and recognition — there was Bambi, the Parisian icon who danced for Hollywood. The moment that changed queer history occurred on a sweltering summer day in early

By TIA GOLDENBERG Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Killing babies “as a hobby.” “Expelling a population.” “Fighting against civilians.” It is some of the harshest language against Israel’s wartime conduct in Gaza and it came this week from a prominent Israeli politician, sparking a domestic uproar as the country faces heavy international criticism.

By AIJAZ HUSSAIN Associated Press SRINAGAR, India (AP) — There are hardly any tourists in the scenic Himalayan region of Kashmir. Most of the hotels and ornate pinewood houseboats are empty. Resorts in the snowclad mountains have fallen silent. Hundreds of cabs are parked and idle. It’s the fallout of last month’s gun massacre that

By JIM GOMEZ Associated Press MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. asked all of his Cabinet secretaries to submit resignations on Thursday in a “bold reset” of his administration following last week’s mid-term elections, which saw more opposition candidates win crucial Senate seats. Marcos, the 67-year-old son of a late Philippine dictator

By KIM TONG-HYUNG and HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea’s second naval destroyer was damaged in a failed launch this week, state media reported Thursday, sparking fury from leader Kim Jong Un, who wants bigger warships to deal with what he calls escalating U.S.-led threats against his country. It’s not

By ROB GILLIES Associated Press TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday his government is talking to the U.S. about joining President Donald Trump’s future Golden Dome missile defense program. The multilayered, $175 billion system would for the first time put U.S. weapons in space. Trump said the previous day he expected

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV called Wednesday for humanitarian aid to reach the Gaza Strip and for an end to the “heartbreaking” toll on its people, as he presided over his first general audience in St. Peter’s Square. The Vatican said that around 40,000 people were on hand

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The top U.N. official for Syria warned Wednesday of the “real dangers of renewed conflict and deeper confrontation” in the war-battered country but also hoped for a better life for its people following decisions by the U.S. and European Union to lift sanctions. Geir Pedersen

By CARA ANNA Associated Press The United States is being asked to explain why it appears to be deporting migrants from as far away as Vietnam and Cuba to South Sudan, a chaotic country that’s once again in danger of collapsing into civil war. A U.S. judge ordered Trump administration officials to appear at an

By JILL LAWLESS and JOHN LEICESTER Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Three allies of Israel used words like “abhorrent” and “monstrous” this week to describe the country’s actions in Gaza. The leaders of Britain, France and Canada — consistent defenders of Israel’s right to strike back at Hamas after its October 2023 attack — now

By GERALD IMRAY and AAMER MADHANI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump used a White House meeting to confront South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, accusing his country of failing to address the killing of white farmers. “People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety,” said Trump, who at one point dimmed the

By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press GENEVA (AP) — Not quite a flying cow, but almost: Swiss authorities added livestock to the list of evacuees along with about 300 people moved out of a village threatened by a possible landslide from an Alpine mountainside overhead. One puzzled bovine got a lift down by helicopter. Mayor Matthias

By SUMAN NAISHADHAM, JOSEPH WILSON and ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press POZUELO DE ALARCON, Spain (AP) — An adviser to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was shot to death Wednesday outside the American School of Madrid, where at least one of his children was enrolled, Spanish authorities and witnesses said. Andrii Portnov, 51, was shot at

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — The Lebanese and Palestinian presidents agreed Wednesday that Palestinian factions won’t use Lebanon as a launchpad for any attacks against Israel, and to remove weapons that aren’t under the authority of the Lebanese state. The announcement was made during a meeting between President Joseph Aoun and Palestinian

By MARIAM FAM Associated Press SAYYIDA ZEINAB, Syria (AP) — At the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, rituals of faith unfold: worshippers kneel in prayer, visitors raise their palms skyward or fervently murmur invocations as they press their faces against an ornate structure enclosing where they believe the granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad is entombed. But it’s more

By BRIAN MELLEY Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown was released on 5 million-pound ($6.7 million) bail Wednesday while facing allegations he beat and seriously injured a music producer with a bottle in a London nightclub in 2023. The decision by a London judge to grant bail will allow Brown to launch

By AMIR VAHDAT Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s top diplomat insisted Wednesday that Tehran will never stop enriching uranium, reinforcing the Islamic Republic’s hard line ahead of a new round of indirect talks with the United States over its fast-advancing nuclear program. Iran’s foreign ministry later confirmed it has agreed to take part

By The Associated Press President Vladimir Putin visited Russia’s Kursk region for the first time since Moscow claimed that it drove Ukrainian forces out of the area last month, the Kremlin said Wednesday. Putin visited the region bordering Ukraine the previous day, according to the Kremlin. Ukrainian forces made a surprise incursion into Kursk in

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Inflation in the U.K. spiked to its highest level for more than a year in April amid a raft of higher domestic bills, such as energy and water, official figures showed Wednesday. The Office for National Statistics said that its key measure of inflation, as measured by

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — German police on Wednesday arrested five teenagers accused of involvement with a right-wing extremist group calling itself “Last Defense Wave” that allegedly aimed to destabilize the country’s democratic system by carrying out attacks on migrants and political opponents. The early-morning arrests in various parts of Germany were

By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and MELANIE LIDMAN Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The U.N. said Wednesday it was trying to get the desperately needed aid that has entered Gaza this week into the hands of Palestinians amid delays because of fears of looting and Israeli military restrictions. Israeli strikes pounded the

By JOHN LEICESTER Associated Press PARIS (AP) — The driver’s joints are so painful from rheumatoid arthritis that she can’t manage a stick shift. And the co-pilot who is helping to guide her through France as the navigator is blind, her sight snatched away by a brain tumor five years ago that stole her career

By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press Two of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals have been encircled by Israeli troops, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities, hospital staff and aid groups said this week, as Israel pursued its renewed offensive into the devastated Palestinian territory. The Indonesian hospital and al-Awda hospital are among the

By The Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for a “Golden Dome” to protect the United States from long-range missiles was at least partly inspired by Israel’s multitiered missile defenses. Trump announced the $175 billion concept in the Oval Office on Tuesday, saying it would put U.S. weapons in space for