AP National News

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers have condemned the International Olympic Committee’s decision to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part in qualifying events for the 2024 Paris Games. EU legislators say allowing them to compete under a neutral flag “runs counter to those countries’ multifaceted isolation and will be used by both regimes

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — Police say an explosion at a fireworks company in central Slovenia has killed at least one person and seriously injured two. A local civil protection organization said the blast happened at the Hamex company compound in the town of Vrhinika. Videos from the scene showed huge amounts of smoke billowing from

LONDON (AP) — TikTok said Friday that it’s planning two more European data centers, as the popular Chinese-owned video sharing app seeks to allay growing concerns about data privacy for its users in the West. TikTok has been under fire from European and American authorities over concerns that it could scoop up masses of user

By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden built his 2020 White House run around promises to beat Donald Trump “like a drum.” As Biden gears up for an expected reelection campaign, he insists he can do it again. But what if Trump isn’t next year’s Republican nominee? Though the GOP primary

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A storm over the North Sea on Friday led to dozens of cancellations of train and ferry connections in northern Denmark and southern Norway, with the Danish Meteorological Institute saying gusts of hurricane force can be expected. The storm, named Otto, is set to move east over Sweden and the Baltic

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s space agency has aborted the inaugural launch of its next-generation H3 rocket after the auxiliary booster engines failed to ignite. Officials say the main engine of the rocket, which is carrying an observation satellite and an experimental sensor to detect missile launches, had already ignited when

By KARL RITTER Associated Press MUNICH (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy planned to give the opening address Friday at a major annual conference on international security policy, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was expected to dominate the event after almost a year of war that has produced worldwide repercussions. About 40 heads of state

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — A farmworker charged with killing seven people last month in back-to-back shootings at two Northern California mushroom farms has pleaded not guilty. Chunli Zhao is charged with seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The Mercury News reports Zhao appeared Thursday behind a glass partition in the

By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press GENEVA (AP) — Chinese envoys have defended Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong and Muslim minorities during an unusual public confrontation at a U.N. meeting. During the meeting of the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the officials also rejected complaints that China’s ruling Communist Party hampered the global

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Saudi sovereign wealth fund now holds 8.26% of the stock in the video game maker Nintendo, making it the largest outside investor in the Japanese gaming company, a company filing said Friday. The investment comes as part of efforts by the kingdom’s Public

By DAVID KLEPPER and STEPHEN McGRATH Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook allowed an exiled Moldovan oligarch with ties to the Kremlin to run ads calling for protests and uprisings against the pro-Western government, even though he and his political party were on U.S. sanctions lists. The ads featuring politician and convicted fraudster Ilan Shor

By MIKE SCHNEIDER Associated Press U.S. cities and towns that have challenged their 2020 census population figures appear to be winning only small victories. The U.S. Census Bureau has resolved and made public a dozen or so municipal appeals. The biggest gain so far has been for tiny Whiteville, Tennessee, which won recognition for an

By MAURICIO SAVARESE and DAVID BILLER Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s Carnival is back. Glittery and outrageous costumes were prepared again. Samba songs were ringing out ’til dawn at Rio de Janeiro’s sold-out parade grounds. Hundreds of raucous, roaming parties were flooding the streets. And working-class communities were buoyed, emotionally and economically,

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — Shares slipped in Europe and Asia on Friday after benchmarks on Wall Street had their biggest drop in four weeks as investors registered disappointment over an inflation reading that came in hotter than expected. Oil prices and U.S. futures also declined after the S&P 500 fell

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The company that owns one of Europe’s busiest aviation hubs, Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, slumped to a net loss of 77 million euros ($82 million) last year as months of travel chaos hit its bottom line. CEO Ruud Sondag said Friday: “Never before in Schiphol’s history have we disappointed so many travelers and

By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea threatened Friday to take “unprecedently” strong action against its rivals, soon after South Korea announced a series of planned military drills with the United States to hone their joint response to the North’s increasing nuclear threats. North Korea has halted weapons testing activities

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — There are reports of more collapsed buildings Turkey in Syria after another 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey’s Hatay province which was devastated by a massive tremor two week ago. Syria’s state news agency, SANA, is reporting six people have been injured in Aleppo from falling debris, while the mayor of Hatay

By VANESSA GERA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Months after Russian forces occupied southern Ukraine’s Kherson province last year, they started paying visits to the home of a Ukrainian woman and her Russian husband. They smashed their refrigerator and demanded possession of their car. One day, they seized the wife and her teenage daughter,