AP National News

By HUIZHONG WU Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan is considering an end to its quarantine requirement for all arrivals in mid-October. The island has been one of the few places in the world that has held on to a quarantine for all arrivals throughout the course of the pandemic. In recent months, it

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s central bank is under pressure make another big interest rate hike Thursday, with inflation outpacing other major economies but the U.S. Federal Reserve and other banks acting more aggressively to get prices under control. The Bank of England hiked its benchmark rate last month by half a percentage point to 1.75%,

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Global stock markets sank Thursday after the Federal Reserve delivered another big interest rate hike to cool galloping inflation and raised its outlook for more increases. London and Frankfurt declined after Switzerland’s central bank also raised its benchmark lending rate by its biggest margin to date.

GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland’s central bank has carried out the biggest hike ever to its key interest rate. It’s following the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world in aggressive moves to clamp down on inflation. The Swiss National Bank said Thursday that it couldn’t rule out further increases beyond the rise

By FRANCES D’EMILIO Associated Press ROME (AP) — The main candidates in Italy’s general election Sunday to elect a new Parliament and determine who next governs the country include some familiar names and some lesser-known ones. They range from from three-time Premier Silvio Berlusconi to far-right opposition leader Giorgia Meloni, who is ahead in opinion

HOBART, Australia (AP) — Wildlife experts on Thursday rescued 32 of the 230 whales that were found stranded on the wild and remote west coast of Australia’s island state of Tasmania a day earlier. Half the pod of pilot whales found stranded in Macquarie Harbour were presumed to still be alive on Wednesday, the Department

By KARL RITTER Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine has completed a high-profile prisoner swap with Russia, the culmination of months of efforts to free many of the Ukrainian fighters who defended a steel plant in the port of Mariupol during a months-long Russian siege. In exchange, Ukraine gave up an ally of Russian

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A powerful magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Mexico early Thursday, causing at least two deaths, damaging buildings and setting off landslides. The earthquake struck at 1:19 a.m. near the epicenter of a magnitude 7.6 quake that hit three days earlier in the western state of Michoacan. It was also blamed for two

By FARAI MUTSAKA Associated Press HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Dozens of women holding babies rushed to take their places on wooden benches at a clinic in Zimbabwe while a nurse took a separate group of anxious mothers and their children through a back door and into another room. The nurse quickly closed the door behind

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia has honored Queen Elizabeth II with a day of mourning and a wreath of golden wattle — the plant that blooms in Australia’s national colors in the southern spring. The floral wreath was placed at Parliament House, which Elizabeth opened on a visit three decades

By ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press PRUDYANKA, Ukraine (AP) — The four soldiers lay in the grass, sleeping bags and cans of food, some opened, scattered around them. Beneath nearby trees, their cars were smashed and torn by shrapnel. The men had been dead for months. This region of rolling fields and woodland near the Russian

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 has caused buildings to sway in Mexico’s capital. The earthquake struck early Thursday shortly after 1 a.m., just three days after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake shook western and central Mexico, killing two. The U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday’s earthquake, like Monday’s, was centered

By SYLVIA HUI and FRANK JORDANS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — On a blustery November day last year Britain’s future king stood before world leaders to deliver a rallying cry that they should “act with all despatch, and decisively” to confront a common enemy. The clarion call — in the vast, windowless hall of a

By EBRAHIM NOROOZI Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Nabila works 10 hours or more a day, doing the heavy, dirty labor of packing mud into molds and hauling wheelbarrows full of bricks. At 12 years old, she’s been working in brick factories half her life now, and she’s probably the oldest of all her

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets followed Wall Street lower on Thursday after the Federal Reserve delivered another big interest rate hike and raised its outlook for more to cool galloping inflation. Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney declined. Oil prices edged higher. The dollar rose to nearly 145

BEIJING (AP) — A former justice minister has been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on charges of taking bribes and helping criminals hide illegal activity. Fu Zhenghua’s conviction Thursday adds to a string of senior officials who have been punished for corruption in a long-running crackdown launched after President Xi Jinping took power

By SOPHENG CHEANG and GRANT PECK Associated Press PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The international court that judged the Khmer Rouge for its brutal 1970s rule ended its work by rejecting the last surviving leader’s appeal. The tribunal lasted 16 years and convicted just three men over the regime’s crimes that caused the deaths of

By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer DETROIT (AP) — Some Hyundai and Kia cars and SUVs are missing a “key” anti-theft device, and thieves know. An insurance industry group says these cars are stolen at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the auto industry because their keys lack computer chips for theft “immobilizer”

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian national day of mourning for the late Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday centered on Parliament House, where dignitaries placed sprigs of golden wattle — the national floral emblem — in a wreath. The focus at the ceremony at Parliament’s Great Hall was a portrait