AP National News

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO Associated Press Jacobo Rendon knows dozens of birds by name and grew up drawing them. During the coronavirus pandemic, the 14-year-old from the Antioquia region of Colombia turned that passion into a conservation project and a labor of love. He has been working on a photographic and illustrated bird guide that

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is trying to hammer out the world’s next steps against rapidly worsening climate change in a private, virtual session with a small group of other global leaders. Friday’s session at the White House opened with Biden announcing a new U.S.-European pledge

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s foreign minister says he will visit Bahrain later this month, the first such visit by an Israeli minister to the Gulf Arab country following a diplomatic agreement reached last year. Yair Lapid announced the visit in a conference call on Friday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and officials from

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Anthony Doerr, Richard Powers and Lauren Groff are among this years nominees on the National Book Awards’ fiction longlist, which also includes Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ debut novel “The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois,” already an Oprah Winfrey selection and finalist for the

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch defense minister has resigned, a day after parliament passed a motion of censure against her for her handling of chaotic evacuations from Kabul of translators who worked for Dutch forces in Afghanistan. Ank Bijleveld is the second minister in the Netherlands’ caretaker coalition government to resign over the

By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — The World Health Organization’s director general is deeply concerned about the impact of Lebanon’s economic meltdown and multiple crises on the people’s wellbeing. He says the migration of health care workers is particularly worrisome. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been in Lebanon over the past two days,

By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press LA PINE, Ore. (AP) — From dusty towns to forests in the West, illegal marijuana growers are taking water in uncontrolled amounts when there often isn’t enough to go around for even licensed users. Conflicts about water have long existed but amid a severe drought, illegal marijuana farms add additional

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — Slovenia will start mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for all government employees, further tightening anti-virus measures that sparked a major riot in the small Alpine state earlier this week. The measure adopted on Friday compels all government employees to receive one shot by Oct. 1 a second by Nov. 1, unless they get

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has been named as one of 17 special advisers to the new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Clooney was appointed Friday as an adviser on the Darfur region of Sudan, where prosecutors allege that government forces and militias backed by Khartoum carried

By MATTHEW PERRONE and LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — An influential federal advisory panel has overwhelmingly rejected a plan to give Pfizer booster shots against COVID-19 to most Americans, but it endorsed the extra doses for those who are 65 or older or run a high risk of severe disease. The twin votes

NEW BOSTON, Texas (AP) — A Texas man linked to the “boogaloo” movement who livestreamed threats to kill police was sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison after being convicted of attempted murder of a peace officer. The Texarkana Gazette reports that on Thursday, a jury in Bowie County found 38-year-old Aaron Caleb Swenson guilty

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A very special document will be auctioned off later this year — a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution. Sotheby’s announced Friday — appropriately on Constitution Day — that in November it will put up for auction one of just 11 surviving copies of the

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The British government is simplifying its rules for international travel to England during the coronavirus pandemic, heeding complaints from travelers and businesses that the country’s regulations were cumbersome and ineffective. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the U.K. is scrapping its “traffic light” system that ranks countries as

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Armenia is taking its decades long territorial dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan — that erupted into armed conflict again last year — to the United Nations’ highest court. Armenia has filed a case at the International Court of Justice alleging breaches of an international convention that

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a mock-up of the next generation of greener super high-speed trains, known in France as TGVs — four decades after the first TGV was launched. It will carry more passengers — 740 compared to the current train’s 600 — and is planned to enter service in

By KAREN MATTHEWS Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Police say a host at a popular New York City restaurant was assaulted by three women from Texas after she asked for proof they had been vaccinated against COVID-19. Police say the women repeatedly punched the host and broke her necklace Thursday. Proof of vaccination is

The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — United Airlines suffered a brief system outage and the Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop of less than an hour for all United flights. The ground stop order was lifted before 8 a.m. at the airline’s request, according to an advisory issued by the FAA. The airline

By ROB GILLIES Associated Press TORONTO (AP) — The man who might oust Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from power advertised himself a year ago as a “true-blue conservative” who would “take back Canada” when he became his party’s leader. Instead, Erin O’Toole has tried to pull the Conservative Party toward the political center, especially in

By RIZWAN ALI AP Sports Writer RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) — New Zealand has abandoned its cricket tour of Pakistan because it was wary of the team being attacked outside Rawalpindi Stadium, according to the Pakistan government. New Zealand Cricket declined to reveal the nature of the security alert from its own government that prompted the

By SYLVIA HUI Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Prince William has announced 15 inaugural finalists for the Earthshot Prize, his ambitious global environmental award that aims to find new ideas and technologies to tackle climate change, air pollution and the Earth’s most pressing challenges. The finalists include a 14-year-old student who proposes using solar energy