AP-National

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s state-run ERT television says an air force pilot has been killed when his training jet crashed in the countryside outside an airbase near the southern town of Kalamata. The two-seater T-2 aircraft was carrying only one crew member, ERT says, and crashed as it was coming in to land Wednesday.

By ANNE M. PETERSON AP Sports Writer LAS VEGAS (AP) — Najiah Knight drops her 100-pound frame onto a snorting 1,300-pound bull and adjusts her ropes, warming the sticky rosin. Music blares across the arena, but Najiah can hear only her dad, in the chute with her, and her mom, cheering from the stands. She

By ANNE M. PETERSON AP Sports Writer LAS VEGAS (AP) — Najiah Knight drops her 100-pound frame onto a snorting 1,300-pound bull and adjusts her ropes, warming the sticky rosin. Music blares across the arena, but Najiah can hear only her dad, in the chute with her, and her mom, cheering from the stands. She

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — The death toll from a massive fire at a guesthouse in Romania has risen to seven people, including at least two children. Emergency intervention teams were deployed to the blaze that erupted Tuesday morning in the village of Tohani in Prahova county. Authorities confirmed the death of a second child Wednesday

By YAYAN ZAMZAMI Associated Press BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Students in Indonesia’s Aceh province have rallied, demanding the government drive away Rohingya refugees who have been arriving arriving by sea in growing numbers. Over 1,500 Rohingya, who fled violent attacks in Myanmar and now are leaving overcrowded camps in neighboring Bangladesh in search of

By HANNA ARHIROVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has fired almost 50 Shahed drones at targets in Ukraine and shelled a train station where more than 100 civilians were gathered to evacuate. Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that the barrages killed at least six people and knocked out power in most of the southern

BERLIN (AP) — German authorities say they have detained a man in connection with a reported threat to Cologne Cathedral over the holiday weekend. Police searched the cathedral with sniffer dogs just before Christmas, and Christmas Eve worshippers faced security checks to get into midnight Mass there. Cologne police say they took precautions over Christmas

SEATTLE (AP) — The U.S. online retailer Zulily is closing down, surprising customers and laying off hundreds of workers after efforts to salvage the business failed. The Seattle-based company said in a notice on its website that it had tried to fill all pending orders and expected to manage that within the coming two weeks.

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares powered higher on Thursday, with Chinese benchmarks up more than 1%, after Wall Street logged modest gains in this holiday-shortened week. U.S. futures edged higher and oil prices were mixed. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index was an outlier in the region, shedding 0.5% to 33,519.61.

BEIJING (AP) — China says it is banning a United States research company and two analysts who have reported extensively on claims of human rights abuses committed against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups native to the country’s far northwestern region of Xinjiang. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning was quoted as announcing late Tuesday night

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Wolfgang Schaeuble, who helped negotiate German reunification in 1990 and as finance minister was a central figure in the austerity-heavy effort to drag Europe out of its debt crisis two decades later, has died. He was 81. Schaeuble died at home on Tuesday evening, his family told

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japanese nuclear safety regulators lifted an operational ban Wednesday imposed on a nuclear plant owned by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, the operator behind the Fukushima plant that ended in disaster, allowing the company to resume preparations for restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after more than 10 years.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will seek a fourth term in office, his party says, noting he will be its consensus candidate in the upcoming parliamentary elections and the office of the prime minister. Sharif, who has served as prime minister three times, returned to Pakistan in October after four

By GENE JOHNSON, JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER, MARK THIESSEN and LINDSEY WASSON Associated Press LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Sharlene Rabang and her calico cat fled the wildfire that destroyed her town on Maui and arrived at a family home on another Hawaii island after a 24-hour odyssey that included sleeping in a car. Dazed, coughing and

By DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — At his suburban St. Louis home, Brett Koenig can pull out his smartphone and open a sports betting app. But he can’t place a bet. He is blocked by a pop-up message noting he is not in a legal location. Missouri is one of

By JOSHUA GOODMAN AND ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press MIAMI (AP) — Pedro Naranjo idolized his father growing up and followed him into the Venezuelan air force to fly helicopters. So deep was their bond that when the older Naranjo feared being jailed for plotting against Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government, father and son fled to the

By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press RENO, Nev. (AP) — The blank canvas of desert wilderness in northern Nevada seemed the perfect place in 1992 for artistic anarchists to relocate their annual burning of a towering, anonymous effigy. It was goodbye to San Francisco’s Baker Beach, hello to the Nevada playa, the long-ago floor of an

By JEFFREY COLLINS Associated Press ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) — Much of how South Carolina has seen its civil rights history has been through the lens of photographer Cecil Williams. From sit-ins to prayer protests to portraits of African Americans integrating universities and rising to federal judges, Williams has snapped it. After years of work, Williams’

By MEG KINNARD Associated Press GILBERT, S.C. (AP) — Standing inside a rustic barn a short drive from the state capital, Henry McMaster shocked many South Carolina Republicans seven years ago by backing Donald Trump for president. Then the lieutenant governor, McMaster became the first statewide-elected official in the country to endorse Trump in 2016.

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and LINLEY SANDERS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — With the GOP presidential primaries just about to start, many Republicans aren’t certain that votes will be counted correctly in their contest, as pessimism spreads about the future of both the Democratic and Republican parties, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC