AP National News

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Police say a bomb exploded in a bakery in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Baluchistan province killing at least one person and wounding six others, including a woman and a child. Police said the bomb exploded at a shop in the main bazaar in the district of Awaran. He said “anti-state elements,” a

LONDON (AP) — Police on the Channel Island of Jersey say an explosion and fire in an apartment building has killed one person and left several people missing. The chief officer of the States of Jersey Police said “around a dozen” residents were missing on Saturday following the blast in the town of St Helier.

By JULHAS ALAM Associated Press DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Tens of thousands of opposition supporters have rallied in Bangladesh’s capital to demand the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resign and install a caretaker before next general elections expected to be held in early 2024. The supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former

BERLIN (AP) — German police say they have ended a hostage situation in the eastern city of Dresden, following reports of shots fired Saturday morning. Authorities had urged people to avoid an area in the city center and ordered Dresden’s Christmas market to remain closed while the operation was underway. Shortly after noon, police announced

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A defense lawyer says a special court for narcotics cases in Pakistan has acquitted the country’s interior minister of drug smuggling charges, in a case filed against him during the previous administration. Rana Sanaullah, who also previously served as law minister for Punjab province, was arrested in July 2019 by federal

By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces have turned the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut into ruins, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while Ukraine’s military on Saturday reported missile, rocket and air strikes in multiple parts of the country that Moscow is trying to conquer after months of resistance. The latest battles

By JULHAS ALAM Associated Press DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Tens of thousands of opposition supporters have rallied in Bangladesh’s capital to demand the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resign and install a caretaker before next general elections expected to be held in early 2024. The supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former

By BASSEM MROUE and SUZAN FRASER Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — After weeks of deadly Turkish airstrikes in northern Syria, Kurdish forces and international players are trying to gauge whether Ankara’s threats of a ground invasion are serious. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly warned of a new land incursion to drive Kurdish groups

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s parliament has enacted a law to restrict malicious donation solicitations by religious and other groups, which mainly targets the Unification Church, whose fundraising tactics and cozy ties with the governing party caused public outrage. The South Korean-based religious group’s decades-long ties with Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles City Council member embroiled in a scandal over racist remarks and an activist fought at a Friday night holiday event. The activist and Kevin de León got into an altercation at a toy giveaway and holiday tree lighting at Lincoln Park, the Los Angeles Times reported. Earlier on

By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Over the grinding wail of a chainsaw pruning trees, Oleh Braharnyk recalls how his crew sprang into action in Kyiv a week earlier to repair power lines downed by Russian missiles and keep electricity flowing to his beleaguered fellow Ukrainians. Braharnyk, an electric company foreman, knows

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Hundreds of people have marched in the Philippine capital protesting what they say is a rising number of extrajudicial killings and other injustices under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The protesters, led by the rights groups alliance Karapatan, gathered at a public square on Saturday before marching toward the

By PAOLO SANTALUCIA Associated Press ROME (AP) — Batool Haidari used to be a prominent professor of sexology at a Kabul university before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. She taught mixed classes of male and female students, and helped patients struggling with gender identity issues. Her husband owned a carpet factory, and together they did

By JAMES BROOKS Associated Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — From a dank Kyiv bomb shelter to the bright stage lights of Europe’s theaters, a Ukrainian youth choir’s hymns in praise of freedom offer a kind of healing balm to its war-scarred members. The Shchedryk ensemble is described as Kyiv’s oldest professional children’s choir. The group

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Hundreds of people have marched in the Philippine capital protesting what they say is a rising number of extrajudicial killings and other injustices under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The protesters, led by the rights groups alliance Karapatan, gathered at a public square on Saturday before marching toward the

By BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Chris Bullock has a lot to be grateful for as she decorates her new home for Christmas, after spending much of the past year in a camper with her family. One year ago Saturday, a massive tornado obliterated wide swaths of her Kentucky hometown of Dawson

By NUHA DOLBY Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Drought in California meant Raquel Krach, a rice farmer and graduate student in the Sacramento Valley, planted very little. Using groundwater, she and her husband planted 75 acres this year to maintain their markets. The rest of the 200 acres she typically sows remained empty due

By JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Less than three days after Democrats celebrated victory in the final Senate contest of the 2022 midterms, the challenges facing the party heading into the next campaign came into sharp relief. The decision by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to leave the Democratic Party on Friday

By REGINA GARCIA CANO Associated Press LIMA, Peru (AP) — When Pedro Castillo won Peru’s presidency last year, it was celebrated as a victory by the country’s poor — the peasants and Indigenous people who live deep in the Andes and whose struggles had long been ignored. His supporters hoped Castillo, a populist outsider of