AP-National

The United States is gearing up for Cinco de Mayo. Music, all-day happy hours and deals on tacos are planned at venues across the country on Sunday — May 5 — in a celebration with widely misunderstood origins that is barely recognized south of the border. In the U.S., the date is largely seen as

By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP) — An Afghan diplomat in India who was appointed before the Taliban seized power in 2021 and says she was the only woman in the country’s diplomatic service has resigned. Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media

By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — After years of delays and stumbles, Boeing is finally poised to launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA. It’s the first flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule with a crew on board, a pair of NASA pilots who will check out the spacecraft

By LAURA UNGAR AP Science Writer NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Waiting in a long post office line with the latest shipment of “abortion aftercare kits,” Kimra Luna got a text. A woman who’d taken abortion pills three weeks earlier was worried about bleeding — and disclosing the cause to a doctor. “Bleeding doesn’t mean you

By LAURA UNGAR AP Science Writer NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Waiting in a long post office line with the latest shipment of “abortion aftercare kits,” Kimra Luna got a text. A woman who’d taken abortion pills three weeks earlier was worried about bleeding — and disclosing the cause to a doctor. “Bleeding doesn’t mean you

By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia’s top election officials saw that reports of a voting machine problem in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining traction online. So Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who had defended the 2020 election in Georgia amid an onslaught

By STEPHEN GRAHAM Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — A candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party in next month’s European elections was beaten up and seriously injured while campaigning in an eastern city. The Social Democrats say Matthias Ecke was attacked while putting up posters in Dresden on Friday evening. He was taken to hospital and

By ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president. Jurors heard a potentially pivotal piece of evidence —

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s national weather center says the country has recorded its wettest April since 1961. The weather service said on Friday that the extreme weather last month killed scores of people and destroyed property and farmland. Experts said the country witnessed heavier rains because of climate change. Last month’s rainfall for Pakistan represented

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Kevin Spacey, the Oscar-winning actor, has denied new allegations of inappropriate behaviour from men who will feature in a documentary on British television that is due to be released next week. In an online interview with journalist Dan Wootton, Spacey said he has never done anything illegal

By SAM MEDNICK and JACK JEFFERY Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A Hamas delegation was in Cairo on Saturday as Egyptian state media reported “noticeable progress” in cease-fire talks for Gaza. But Israel hasn’t sent a delegation and a senior Israeli official downplayed prospects for a full end to the war while emphasizing

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country’s mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people. Wang Xiangnan was driving Wednesday along the highway

By BETH HARRIS AP Racing Writer LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The 150th Kentucky Derby produced one of the most dramatic finishes in its storied history — three noses at the wire. Mystik Dan desperately fought to hang on with two challengers coming to him in the closing strides. He did, too, after a delay of

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party’s mayor of London, has romped to victory, securing a record third straight term at City Hall, on another hugely disappointing day for the U.K.’s governing Conservatives ahead of a looming general election. Khan won a little more than a million votes, or

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained overnight by The Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Russian troops have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv’s depleted,

By DENG MACHOL Associated Press JUNA, South Sudan (AP) — South Sudan has removed recently imposed taxes and fees that had triggered the suspension of U.N. food airdrops. The United Nations had earlier this week urged South Sudanese authorities to remove the new taxes, introduced in February. Thousands of people in the country depend on

By EVELYNE MUSAMBI Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Tanzania’s meteorology department says Cyclone Hidaya has significantly weakened as it approaches Tanzania’s coastline. Officials warned residents Saturday to remain cautious, however, as the cyclone brings heavy rain and strong winds to the country through Sunday. The meteorology department did not say what the cyclone’s maximum

By JUAN A. LOZANO and LEKAN OYEKANMI Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — High waters flooded neighborhoods around Houston on Saturday following heavy rains that have already resulted in crews rescuing more than 400 people from homes, rooftops and roads engulfed in murky water. Others prepared to evacuate their property. A wide region was swamped from

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations food agency warned Sudan’s warring parties Friday that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region. Leni Kinzli, the World Food Program’s regional

By CHEVEL JOHNSON RODRIGUE Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and producer PJ Morton comes home with a new album and memoir dropping soon amid a Saturday afternoon performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which nears the end of an eight-day run. Morton, a preacher’s kid whose parents