AP National News

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon is celebrating the victory of a female dance troupe from this crisis-hit Mideast country in the America’s Got Talent competition show. Lebanese politicians and officials on Thursday rushed to congratulate the all-female dance troupe online. Many Lebanese struggling with years of political and economic turmoil saw

By MATT OTT AP Business Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell again last week to a four-month low even as the Federal Reserve continues its aggressive interest rate cuts to bring inflation under control. Applications for jobless aid for the week ending Sept. 10 fell by 5,000 to

By MARGERY A. BECK and DAVID PITT Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donations are pouring in to help a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim who was ordered by a court to pay $150,000 to the family of a man she stabbed to death after he raped her. A GoFundMe campaign set up for Pieper

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo has described claims by the Bosnian Serb leader that his security services are eavesdropping on the American ambassador to Sarajevo as “blustering.” It added that his separatist policies are “gambling” with the future of the Serb entity in the Balkan state. Milorad Dodik, a member of

LONDON (AP) — Shell CEO Ben van Beurden is stepping down at the end of 2022 after nine years in charge as oil and natural gas companies are under pressure to shift away from fossil fuels. Shell said Thursday that he will replaced by Wael Sawan, who is now director of integrated gas, renewables and

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Six men were arrested Thursday in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for allegedly raping and killing two teenage girls whose bodies were found hanging from a tree a day earlier. The 15- and 17-year-old girls belonged to the Dalit community, the lowest rung of India’s rigid caste hierarchy, and

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Two minutes of silence will be observed Monday across the United Kingdom at the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey. That’s to give the British public a chance to pay their respects to the late monarch. Buckingham Palace released details Thursday of the

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says it would be “perfectly acceptable” for King Charles III to continue to advocate for climate change action in his new apolitical role as monarch. Albanese was speaking ahead of his departure for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. Albanese says the new

By CIARÁN GILES Associated Press MADRID (AP) — Spain’s Queen Letizia has turned 50. It’s only a birthday but Spain is taking the opportunity on Thursday to assess its scarred monarchy and ponder how the arrival of a middle-class commoner may help shake up one of Europe’s most storied royal dynasties into a modern and

By LORNE COOK Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers say Hungary’s nationalist government is deliberately trying to undermine the bloc’s democratic values. They deplore the failure of the 26 other EU countries to take action to bring Hungary back into line. The parliamentarians raised concerns Thursday in a resolution about Hungary’s electoral system,

By SAMUEL PETREQUIN Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s executive arm is proposing legislation to force manufacturers to ensure that devices connected to the internet meet cybersecurity standards. The aim is to make the 27-nation bloc less vulnerable to attacks. The EU says a ransomware attack takes place every 11 seconds. The global

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordanian rescue teams pulled another body from the rubble of a collapsed building in the capital on Thursday, bringing the death toll from the incident to 10. It remained unclear what caused the collapse of the four-story residential building in Amman on Tuesday. Ten people were wounded. Rescue teams have been

By MATTHEW BARAKAT AP Business Writer ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — President Joe Biden says a deal has been reached to avert a looming freight rail strike that could have disrupted numerous commuter rail services across the country. Commuter rail services in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere would have been

By DAVID RISING Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — China’s Foreign Ministry is accusing the United States of violating its commitment to the “One China” principle and interfering in internal Chinese affairs. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations committee approved a new bill that could significantly increase American defense support for the island of Taiwan. A Chinese

By CIARÁN GILES Associated Press MADRID (AP) — Spain’s Queen Letizia has turned 50. It’s only a birthday but Spain is taking the opportunity on Thursday to assess its scarred monarchy and ponder how the arrival of a middle-class commoner may help shake up one of Europe’s most storied royal dynasties into a modern and

By AVET DEMOURIAN Associated Press YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — A cease-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan is holding following two days of fighting that killed 176 soldiers on both sides. The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, said the truce brokered thanks to international mediation took effect at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Armenia’s Defense Ministry said late Thursday

ROME (AP) — Police in Italy and Belgium have arrested five people accused of smuggling migrants carrying fake diplomatic passports into Europe aboard luxury jets. Italian police said Thursday that migrants paid up to 10,000 euros (dollars) each to be flown from Turkey aboard jets fraudulently booked for diplomats between October and December 2020. The

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — The organization that handles claims on behalf of Jews who suffered under the Nazis says Germany has agreed to pay approximately $1.2 billion (euros) for home care and compensation for Holocaust survivors living around the world in 2023. That brings the overall amount of compensation Germany has

By JOSH FUNK, JOSH BOAK and ZEKE MILLER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Rail companies and their workers reached a tentative agreement Thursday to avert a nationwide strike that could have shut down the nation’s freight trains and devastated the economy less than two months before the midterm elections. President Joe Biden announced the deal,

By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The leaders of South Korea and Japan are to meet next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in the countries’ first summit in nearly three years amid tensions over history. Seoul officials say the two sides have agreed on