AP National News

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Britain’s independent budget watchdog says it would deliver an initial analysis of the government’s economic plan to Treasury officials on Oct. 7. That announcement Friday comes amid efforts to ease financial turmoil triggered by 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) of unfunded tax cuts. The announcement came after

TEQUA, West Bank (AP) — Men clutching the body of a 7-year-old Palestinian boy have marched through a town in the occupied West Bank to his final resting place, a day after his parents say he died from fear of Israeli soldiers. Rayan Suleiman’s funeral Friday came a day after he was killed walking home

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers spent a bit more in August than the previous month, a sign the economy is holding up even as inflation lifts prices for food, rent, and other essentials. Americans boosted their spending at stores and for services such as haircuts by 0.4% in August, after

BRUSSELS (AP) — EU Migration Commissioner Ylva Johansson is urging European Union member countries to clamp down on issuing visas to Russian citizens. She says Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats, his military call up, and his annexation of parts of Ukraine have heightened security fears in Europe. Johansson said Friday that “this is clearly

By JON GAMBRELL and HANNA ARHIROVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties Friday to annex occupied areas of Ukraine and said he would use “all available means” to protect the territory that Ukrainian and Western officials said Russia was claiming illegitimately and in violation of international law. In a

By ARSENE KABORE and SAM MEDNICK Associated Press OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Residents in the capital of Burkina Faso say gunfire rang out early in the morning and the state broadcaster has gone off the air, fueling fears that another coup is underway. The developments Friday come just after coup leader-turned-president Lt. Col. Paul

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nation’s human rights office says that recent initiatives in places like the Americas and Europe to end discrimination against people of African descent are mostly “piecemeal.” The U.N. human rights office said Friday that more efforts are needed to dismantle entrenched racism as it released a new report. It focused

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Would-be NATO member Sweden has announced it will allow the export of arms to Turkey, which had threatened to block the Scandinavian nation’s application to join the 30-member defense alliance. It means that Sweden, which has sought NATO membership along with neighboring Finland, will lift an arms embargo it imposed on Ankara

By HOLLY MEYER Associated Press Dolores Mejia thought the Chicago Bears could use a Hail Mary. In fact, she said the prayer several times as she watched the 1986 Super Bowl, pairing the intercession to the Holy Mother with two other rosary staples — the Our Father and the Glory Be — before her team

By JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of sabotaging the Russia-built gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany. Speaking Friday in Moscow at a ceremony to annex four regions of Ukraine into Russia, Putin said the “Anglo-Saxons” in the West have turned from

By GANTRY MEILANA, NICOLE WINFIELD and BARRY HATTON Associated Press DILI, East Timor (AP) — East Timor’s Catholics have reacted with shock but also expressions of support for revered independence icon and Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo following allegations he sexually abused boys decades ago in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. The

By JON GAMBRELL and HANNA ARHIROVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin opened a Kremlin ceremony Friday to start the process of absorbing parts of Ukraine into Russia by saying he would sign laws to annex them despite international condemnation and protect the newly incorporated regions using “all available means.” The

NEW YORK (AP) — A man has been arrested in the fatal stabbing of a veteran emergency medical worker with New York City’s fire department, police said Friday. Peter Zisopoulos, 34, was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon in the fatal attack on EMS Lt. Alison Russo-Elling, police said in a news

By JOE McDONALD and MATT OTT AP Business Writers Wall Street pointed toward small gains before the open early Friday after investors got more ominous inflation data from Europe as they waited for a U.S. government report on consumer spending. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.1% higher and futures for the S&P

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United Nations says it will seek $800 million more in aid from the international community to help Pakistan’s flood survivors. The upward revision comes weeks after the U.N. issued a flash appeal for $160 million in emergency funding for 33 million people affected by the unprecedented floods that have hit Pakistan

BERLIN (AP) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is suing a senior German lawmaker who called him a “sewer rat,” his lawyer said Friday. Mustafa Kaplan confirmed a report by German weekly Der Spiegel that he had filed a criminal complaint for slander and libel against lawmaker Wolfgang Kubicki on behalf of his client. Kubicki,

By EBRAHIM NOROOZI and RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber struck an education center in a Shiite area of the Afghan capital on Friday, killing 19 people and wounding 27, including teenagers who were taking practice entry exams for university, a Taliban spokesman said. The morning explosion at the center

By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, is set to choose a person who is not a member of its dominant Nehru-Gandhi family as its next president as it struggles to recover before key upcoming elections. Although the party has been led historically by the

By NAOMI HARRIS and JOCELYN GECKER Open Campus and Associated Press The value of an internship is unmistakable. It teaches marketable skills, it builds professional networks, and it helps students test-drive careers. But the benefits are not available to all: Close to half of all internships are unpaid, putting them out of reach for students