AP National News

By WANJOHI KABUKURU Associated Press MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Droughts, flooding and a shrinking Lake Chad caused in part by climate change is fueling conflict and migration in the region and needs to be better addressed, a report said Thursday. Human rights group Refugees International called for the issue to be central to a high-level

By RIAZAT BUTT Associated Press LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Aman, a 22-year-old transgender man from the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, says he was always close to his father. When he was little and it was cold out, his father held his hands to warm them. When he was at university, his father would wait

By NICK PERRY ASSOCIATED PRESS WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was praised around the world for her handling of the nation’s worst mass shooting and the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, said Thursday she was leaving office. Ardern was facing mounting political pressures at home and a

By JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder goes on trial next week in a case that alleges a $60 million bribery scheme federal prosecutors call the largest corruption case in state history. Jurors must decide whether the ousted Republican lawmaker and former Ohio Republican Party chair

BEIJING (AP) — China has accused “some Western media” of bias, smears and political manipulation in their coverage of China’s ending of its strict “zero-COVID” policy. That came as part of a defense of actions taken to prepare for the change in an editorial Thursday in the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily. The move in

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — When New York’s first licensed recreational marijuana outlet opened last month, the chief of the state’s Office of Cannabis Management, Chris Alexander, proudly hoisted a tin of watermelon-flavored gummies above the crowd. Outside the Manhattan shop, he displayed another purchase — a jar containing dried

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian officials and media reports say Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian schoolteacher and a militant during a military raid in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the men were killed early Thursday in the Jenin refugee camp. The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, said one

PARIS (AP) — French workers angry over proposed changes to retirement rules are halting high-speed trains, disrupting electricity supplies and taking to the streets Thursday in a day of nationwide strikes and protests seen as a major test for Emmanuel Macron and his presidency. French workers would have to work longer before receiving a pension

By SUMAN NAISHADHAM and BRIAN MELLEY Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — As Californians tally the damage from recent storms, some are taking stock of the rainwater captured by cisterns, catches, wells and underground basins — many built in recent years to provide relief to a state locked in decades of drought. The banked rainwater

By DANIEL POLITI and FRANKLIN BRICEÑO Associated Press LIMA, Peru (AP) — People poured into Peru’s coastal capital, many from remote Andean regions, for a protest Thursday against President Dina Boluarte and in support of her predecessor, whose ouster last month launched deadly unrest and cast the nation into political chaos. Supporters of former president

By JOSH BOAK Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The countdown toward a possible U.S. government default is in the offing — with frictions between President Joe Biden and House Republicans raising alarms about whether the U.S. can sidestep a potential economic crisis. The Treasury Department projects that the federal government will on Thursday reach its

By KANIS LEUNG Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s leader says the city will scrap its mandatory isolation rule for people infected with COVID-19 from Jan. 30 as part of its strategy to return to normalcy. For most of the pandemic over the last three years, Hong Kong has aligned itself with China’s

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament has passed a budget that sustains a high level of defense spending despite economic troubles as leader Kim Jong Un pushes for an aggressive expansion of his nuclear arsenal amid stalled diplomacy. State media reports indicated Kim didn’t attend the Supreme

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were trading mixed Thursday, as investors grew cautious after Wall Street’s biggest pullback of the year. Shares dipped in Tokyo, but rose in Seoul and Sydney, where they recouped earlier losses by late morning. Hong Kong shares were slightly lower, while Shanghai shares were

Associated Press LIMA, Peru (AP) — Protesters set fire to the police station and judicial office in the Peruvian town of Macusani Wednesday after two people were killed and another seriously injured by gunfire amid antigovernment protests. The deaths were confirmed by Macusani health official Dr. Iván Fernández and brought to 53 the number of

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer A sharp spike in Greenland temperatures since 1995 showed the giant northern island 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) hotter than its 20th-century average, the warmest in more than 1,000 years, according to new ice core data. Until now Greenland ice cores — a glimpse into long-running temperatures before thermometers

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Israel’s U.N. ambassador is accusing the Palestinians of stabbing a knife into any chance for reconciliation by seeking an advisory opinion from the U.N.’s highest court on Israel’s decades-old occupation. The Palestinian U.N. envoy is accusing Israel’s new government of seeking to crush its people.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian media say Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinians during a raid in the occupied West Bank, as Israeli-Palestinian violence continued to surge. The official news agency Wafa identified the dead early Thursday as Jawad Bawatqa and Adham Jabarin. They were shot in the Jenin refugee camp. Bawatqa was

By GAVIN GOOD Associated Press CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — Mackenzie Holmes scored 30 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and Grace Berger added 18 points to lead No. 6 Indiana to an 83-72 win over No. 21 Illinois on Wednesday. Holmes hit six of seven shots and scored 14 points in the third quarter as the