AP-National

By JEFF McMILLAN Associated Press Marissa Lasoff-Santos and the person she would marry quickly fell head over heels in love. Lasoff-Santos was a gay woman. Her girlfriend was a bisexual woman — or so they thought. Now her partner has become her husband, and they both identify as queer. And things are better than ever.

By TIA GOLDENBERG Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The fate of the proposed cease-fire deal for Gaza hinges in many ways on two men: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. Each leader faces significant political and personal pressures that may be influencing their decision-making. And neither seems

By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL Associated Press HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed at least a dozen deals with his Vietnamese counterpart on Thursday and offered to supply fossil fuels, including natural gas, to Vietnam during a state visit that comes as Moscow is seeking to bolster ties in Asia to offset its growing

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea said Thursday that it would consider sending arms to Ukraine, a major policy change that was suggested after Russia and North Korea rattled the region and beyond by signing a pact to come to each other’s defense in the event of war. The

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM Associated Press An investigation into how and why a Jewish student group was erased from a New Jersey high school yearbook has found the omission was caused by negligence and carelessness, but was not done on purpose or out of malice. East Brunswick Public Schools hired a law firm to investigate after

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Ten men have been convicted in Peru for raping nine teenagers while serving in the military during the country’s armed conflict decades ago. Judge Marco Angulo, of Peru’s First Superior Criminal Court, on Wednesday ordered the former soldiers to serve time in prison, with sentences ranging between six and 12 years.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Police say seven people have been wounded in a shooting in Philadelphia. It happened just before 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in North Philadelphia. The victims ranged in age from 16 to 47 years old. Police say they are all in stable condition. Authorities say investigators are still working to gather additional details. Police

By ELÉONORE HUGHES Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Magda Chambriard has been sworn in as the head of Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras as market concerns of increased government intervention in the company mount. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who nominated Chambriard — attended the ceremony Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro.

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Libyans from rival regions and all walks of life are fed up with the country’s divisions and want political players to end their years-long impasse and agree to hold national elections, a key step to peace in the oil-rich north African country, the U.N. deputy

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A failure in an energy transmission line on Wednesday produced an unexpected blackout throughout Ecuador, the government said, days after announcing that there would be power outages in the country due to production problems. Ecuador’s Minister of Energy Roberto Luque said in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Snapchat Inc. will pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit brought by California’s civil rights agency that claimed the company discriminated against female employees, failed to prevent workplace sexual harassment and retaliated against women who complained. The settlement with Snapchat Inc., which owns the popular

TORONTO (AP) — The gunman in a fatal Toronto shooting earlier this week believed the two victims had defrauded his family, his wife is saying as court records indicate the family was suing the pair after losing more than $1 million in an alleged investment scam. A man and woman were shot to death and

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — One of the defendants in the Vatican’s big financial trial has formally complained to the United Nations about the trial. The filing by the financier Raffaele Mincione accuses Pope Francis of violating his human rights by authorizing wide-ranging surveillance during the investigation. The filing to the

By EVENS SANON and CORAL MURPHY MARCOS Associated Press PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A new report from the U.N. migration agency says that surging violence in Haiti from clashes with armed gangs has displaced nearly 580,000 people since March. The Caribbean nation has long faced unrest but at the end of February, gangs unleashed coordinated

By FATMA KHALED Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — South Darfur has seen a slight increase in critical aid since the UN’s World Food Program delivered life-saving food and nutrition to some families across the violence-riddled western Sudanese state. But more assistance is needed, humanitarian organizations say. The WFP mission in Sudan said Tuesday that more

By LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists studying a family plagued by early-in-life Alzheimer’s found some carry a genetic oddity that delays their initial symptoms by five years. The finding points to novel ways of fighting the mind-robbing disease – if researchers can unravel how a single copy of that very rare

By MARTHA BELLISLE Associated Press More than 3,000 nurses at six Oregon hospitals have spent a second day on the picket lines as they continued to demand fair wages and better nurse-to-patient ratios. Hundreds of nurses carrying signs walked the lines Wednesday at six Providence medical centers across the state. The Oregon Nurses Association says

MIAMI (AP) — Recreational boaters found $1 million worth of cocaine floating in the ocean off the Florida Keys. Samuel Briggs II, the acting chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol, wrote about the find in a social media post on X. Briggs posted video Monday night showing the wrapped packages of cocaine being

By JOSEF FEDERMAN and ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli army’s chief spokesman on Wednesday appeared to question the stated goal of destroying the Hamas militant group in Gaza in a rare public rift between the country’s political and military leadership. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will pursue the fight

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Thousands of surnames grace the towering monument, representing the more than 4 million enslaved people who were freed after the Civil War. The Equal Justice Initiative, a criminal justice reform nonprofit, invoked the Juneteenth holiday — the day that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. — on Wednesday as