AP-National

A woman sentenced to life in an Idaho prison for murdering her two youngest children and another woman pleaded not guilty to Arizona charges of conspiring to kill her estranged husband and her niece’s ex-husband. Lori Vallow Daybell stated her name and birthdate when a judge asked her to do so during a five-minute arraignment hearing Thursday

By CARLOS MUREITHI Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — An international team of climate scientists says the ongoing catastrophic rains in East Africa have been made worse by human-induced climate change. An analysis by World Weather Attribution found that the magnitude of the rainfall had nearly doubled due to global warming. The researchers found the

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Reports from Myanmar say its military government has been freeing soldiers and police who had been jailed for desertion and absence without leave as authorities seek to get them to return to active duty. A police officer and an army officer on Thursday confirmed independent media reports

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has expressed his unwavering support for the Jewish people as he lit the first Hanukkah candle on a huge menorah in front of Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate. Scholz. He wore a black velvet skullcap and said in the center of the German capital

By PETER SMITH Associated Press PITTSBURGH (AP) — In the years following the deadly 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue attack, relatives of those slain have gone through their own private grief, public memorial services and the trial and death sentence of the perpetrator. They’ve also been deliberating, slowly and methodically, on what kind of permanent memorial should

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Police say a 14-year-old is now facing a second-degree murder charge in the death of a 20-year-old during a Halloween weekend mass shooting that left two people dead and 16 injured in Tampa’s Ybor City. Tampa police say bullets and shell casings connected the teen to the victim, Harrison Boonstoppel. The

NEW YORK (AP) — Meta is rolling out end-to-end encryption for calls and messages across its Facebook and Messenger platforms, the company announced Thursday. Such encryption means that no one other than the sender and the recipient — not even Meta — can decipher people’s messages. Encrypted chats, first introduced as an optional feature in

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is encouraging Mideast allies to join the Combined Maritime Forces, a partnership that exists to counter malign action by non-state actors in international waters. The push is in light of increasing attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels against ships in the southern Red Sea. The

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has hosted Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in the Kremlin. That meetings continues a blitz round of Middle East diplomacy a day after he visited the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Putin has cast the Israel-Hamas war as a failure of U.S. diplomacy and suggested Moscow could be

By KEMO CHAM Associated Press FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — A Sierra Leone government spokesman says that a former president has been called in for questioning by police over recent attacks that officials say was a failed coup. The information minister said Thursday that police summoned ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma to its headquarters “for questioning

By MAURICIO SAVARESE and DANIEL POLITI Associated Press SAO PAULO (AP) — The heads of state from South America’s Mercosur trade bloc are in Rio de Janeiro for a meeting that is expected to disappoint members hoping to finalize a deal with the European Union. Negotiations with the EU are set to be the gathering’s

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities in Puerto Rico say three men have been indicted as part of an ongoing federal investigation into environmental crimes committed on protected land in the island’s southern coastal region. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday that two of the men are accused of dumping fill material into the

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania’s president says he will seek reelection for another five-year term as the leader of the Baltic nation that’s a member of the European Union and NATO. President Gitanas Nauseda announced on Thursday his intention to run as a candidate in next year’s presidential election. He spoke at a news conference

By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump returned to his civil fraud trial Thursday to spotlight his defense, renewing his complaints that the case is baseless and heaping praise on an accounting professor’s testimony that backed him up. With testimony winding down after more than

By JONATHAN MATTISE Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — After more than a half-century of making music together, Daryl Hall is suing John Oates and arguing in arbitration that he can’t sell his share of a Hall & Oates business partnership without Hall’s permission. Public court filings have revealed just how wide the rift has

By MARK STEVENSON Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s government is pouring resources into detecting what it suggests are “fake” missing people. It says they are cases reported by political opponents to embarrass the government, or kidnapped people who return home but don’t notify authorities. Yet officials make no significant effort to find actual

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ryan Seacrest will usher in 2024 on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” from New York City’s Times Square on December 31, alongside his host Rita Ora. There will once again be satellite locations in Los Angeles — hosted by Jeannie Mai — and a

By JACK DURA and JIM SALTER Associated Press BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The 42-year-old son of U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer was charged Thursday with manslaughter and fleeing an officer after a police pursuit ended in a crash that killed a North Dakota sheriff’s deputy who had just laid a tire deflation device on the road

By CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — West Africa’s top court has rejected a request by Niger’s junta for a lifting of coup-related sanctions imposed by its neighbors. The court based in the Nigerian capital of Abuja has ruled that the junta is unconstitutional and therefore lacks the authority to make such a

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A British hedge fund trader extradited from the United Arab Emirates to Denmark where he was wanted for allegedly orchestrating a more than 9 billion kroner ($1.3 billion) tax fraud has been ordered to remain in custody until his Jan. 3 trial. Sanjay Shah was convicted in May in Dubai of