AP-National

By HANNA ARHIROVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian warplanes damaged a Russian ship moored in the Black Sea off Crimea, both countries said Tuesday, bolstering Ukrainian morale after battlefield disappointments and doubts about the future of Western aid. The planes fired guided missiles at the landing ship Novocherkassk, which is moored at a

By MOHAMMAD TAUFAN Associated Press PALU, Indonesia (AP) — The death toll following the explosion of a smelting furnace at a Chinese-owned nickel plant on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island rose to 18 on Tuesday, as police ordered the plant to stop operations until an investigation is completed. The blast, which occurred on Sunday, was the latest

By MSTYSLAV CHERNOV and LORI HINNANT Associated Press KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — Their first battle plan was outdated the moment the dam crumbled. So the Ukrainian special forces officers spent six months adapting their fight to secure a crossing to the other side of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine. But it wasn’t enough just

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Britain is one of the world’s oldest democracies, but some worry that essential rights and freedoms are under threat. They point to restrictions on protest imposed by the Conservative government that have seen environmental activists jailed peaceful but disruptive actions. The government says it is stopping extremist

By MSTYSLAV CHERNOV and LORI HINNANT Associated Press KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — Their first battle plan was outdated the moment the dam crumbled. So the Ukrainian special forces officers spent six months adapting their fight to secure a crossing to the other side of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine. But it wasn’t enough just

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — For holding a sign outside a courthouse reminding jurors of their right to acquit defendants, a retiree faces up to two years in prison. For hanging a banner reading “Just Stop Oil” off a bridge, an engineer got a three-year prison sentence. Just for walking slowly down

By WAFAA SHURAFA and JACK JEFFERY Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza’s more than 54,500 war-wounded include a growing number of amputees who face hard choices and challenges as they try to survive in a war zone. Health officials say overwhelmed hospitals that now lack vascular surgeons at times had to amputate

By JAMIE STENGLE Associated Press HASLET, Texas (AP) — Worried about his mother’s health, Jacob Mabil tried for months to persuade her to let him start the process that would take her from a sprawling refugee camp where she had spent almost a decade after fleeing violence in South Sudan. He wanted her to come

By PAUL NEWBERRY AP National Writer They are snippets in time, unforgettable snapshots that gloriously capture the soaring euphoria and gut-wrenching agony of the games we love, not to mention the randomness of a moment that might’ve gone unnoticed otherwise. There are the Kansas City Chiefs, dunking head coach Andy Reid with a jug-full of

BEIJING (AP) — A distillery in southwestern China is aiming to tap a growing taste among young Chinese for whisky in place of the traditional “baijiu” liquor used to toast festive occasions. The more than $100 million distillery owned by Pernod Ricard at the UNESCO World Heritage site Mount Emei launched a pure-malt whisky, The

By AAMER MADHANI, ZEKE MILLER and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the United States military to carry out retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three U.S. service members were injured in a drone attack in northern Iraq. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said one of the

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM Associated Press Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was the target of a swatting attempt at her Georgia residence on Christmas morning, the congresswoman and local police said, marking the latest instance of someone calling in a fake emergency to draw armed officers or SWAT teams to her home. The Rome Police

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Criminal prosecutors may soon get to see over 900 documents pertaining to the alleged theft of a diary belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter after a judge rejected the conservative group Project Veritas’ First Amendment claim. Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said on behalf of the nonprofit Monday

By The Associated Press Kamar de los Reyes, a television, movie and voice actor best known for playing a gang member-turned-cop in the soap “One Life to Live” and a villain in the video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” has died in Los Angeles at 56, the family announced. De los Reyes died

By EDGAR H. CLEMENTE Associated Press HUIXTLA, Mexico (AP) — Christmas Day meant the same as any other day for thousands of migrants walking through southern Mexico: more trudging under a hot sun. There were no presents, and Christmas Eve dinner was a sandwich, a bottle of water and a banana handed out by a

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The president of Belarus says Russia has completed its shipments of short-range, tactical nuclear weapons to his country, an initiative that has raised strong concerns in neighboring Poland and elsewhere in the region. At a meeting of a Moscow-led economic bloc in St. Petersburg, President Alexander Lukashenko said the shipments were

Conditions were mostly nice this year for travelers flying ahead of and on Christmas, but some naughty disruptions again plagued those flying with Southwest Airlines. For millions of people traveling over the holiday, this year was much better than last. Christmas morning put a bow on a relatively smooth weekend. Only 157 flights within, into

By VOLODYMYR YURCHUK Associated Press KRYVORIVNIA, Ukraine (AP) — Christmas carried more than spiritual weight for many Ukrainians this year as the country newly observed it as a public holiday on Dec. 25 rather than the later date followed in Russia. The change, enacted in legislation signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July, reflects both