AP National News

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban say they have held talks with senior leaders of an anti-Taliban alliance, a meeting that took place over the weekend in neighboring Iran. The Taliban-appointed foreign minister of Afghanistan released a short video on Monday saying the alliance leaders were told they could return to Afghanistan and promised their

JERUSALEM (AP) — Two former Israeli prime ministers have faced off in a Tel Aviv courtroom as Benjamin Netanyahu’s defamation suit against Ehud Olmert gets underway. Netanyahu, his wife and son opened their case against Olmert, Netanyahu’s predecessor as prime minister. Olmert sat across the largely empty courtroom and showed no signs of remorse, repeating

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Conscripts in Norway have been told to return their underwear, bras and socks after the end of their military service so that the next group of recruits can use. The Norwegian military says it is struggling with dwindling supplies, in part due to the pandemic. A military spokesman said because of

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Activists and migrants say Libyan security forces have broken up a protest sit-in by migrants outside a former U.N. community center in the capital of Tripoli. They said on Monday the troops came overnight and violently broke up the sit-in. Hundreds of migrants were arrested

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police body-camera video shows a harrowing rescue in California, where a small plane crashed on railroad tracks shortly after takeoff from a suburban Los Angeles airfield. The Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna crashed around 2:10 p.m. Sunday and a Metrolink train came roaring roaring through only minutes later. Luckily a

By LIZ WESTON of NerdWallet Supply chain issues mean many people gave and received gift cards for the holidays. The more time that passes, though, the greater the likelihood that money will go unspent. Make a plan now to get value from your cards by either using, regifting or donating them. Try setting calendar reminders

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Sweden’s prime minister has ordered cafes, bars and restaurants to close at 11 p.m., urged people to work from home when possible and said distance learning is an option in higher education to try to tackle high levels of COVID-19. She says it is necessary to curb the spread of infection

By DAVID PORTER, BOBBY CAINA CALVAN and MICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Doctors are working to save the lives of several people gravely injured when smoke from a fire knocked them out or trapped them in their apartments in a New York City high-rise building. Nineteen people, including nine children, died

By JOSEPH KRAUSS Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is considering whether to extend the detention of a 17-year-old Palestinian with a rare neuromuscular disorder. He has been held without charge for nearly a year in what Israel refers to as “administrative detention.” The use of administrative detention has galvanized demonstrations across the occupied West

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The office of a Taliban-appointed governor in eastern Afghanistan says that an explosion near the border with Pakistan killed nine children and wounded four. A statement from the governor’s office says the blast happened on Monday when a cart selling food items struck an old, unexploded mortar shell in the district

By ROD McGUIRK and MARK D. BAKER Associated Press MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Novak Djokovic has returned to the tennis court for training, having won a legal battle to stay in Australia and play in the Australian Open after his exemption from strict coronavirus vaccine rules was questioned. But the government is still threatening to

MADRID (AP) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says it’s time to consider whether to move away from the detailed tracking that the pandemic has required until now to a flu-like monitoring system. The change would mean treating COVID-19 as an “endemic illness” rather than a pandemic, Sánchez said Monday, adding that deaths as a

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA Associated Press KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Uganda’s schools reopened their gates to students on Monday, ending the longest school disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic anywhere in the world. There’s traffic congestion in some areas of the capital, Kampala, and students can be seen carrying their mattresses in the streets, a back-to-school

BEIJING (AP) — Beijing has accused Washington of inciting Lithuania to “contain China” in a feud over the status of self-ruled Taiwan after U.S. officials expressed support for the European Union-member country in the face of Chinese economic pressure. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman on Monday complained Washington “instigated the Lithuanian authorities.”  Lithuania is the

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has embarked on a fourth term. He leads a coalition that took office Monday amid a nationwide coronavirus lockdown and policy challenges ranging from climate change and housing shortages to the future of agriculture. King Willem-Alexander formally swore in the

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is now speaking about getting the coronavirus vaccination as a “moral obligation.” Francis used some of his strongest words yet calling for people to get vaccinated in a speech to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See on Monday. He denounced how people had been swayed by

By BARBARA SURK Associated Press NICE, France (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron is traveling to the French Mediterranean coast to talk about internal security. Macron has yet to officially confirm he is running for a second term in the election this spring, but his visit to the French Rivera city of Nice had campaign

BEIJING (AP) — Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern states are visiting Beijing for meetings with officials from the world’s second largest economy. The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday gave no details of the agendas for the visits, but said they were expected to “deepen relations between the two sides.” The meetings

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Polish diplomat appointed to improve contacts with Jews worldwide has been fired after he criticized his own government’s approach to regulating Holocaust speech. Jaroslaw Nowak, the plenipotentiary for contacts with the Jewish diaspora, described a Holocaust speech law passed by his country’s ruling party as “stupid.” The Foreign Ministry said

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets fell Friday while Europe opened higher after a Federal Reserve official suggested U.S. interest rates might have to be raised higher than expected to cool inflation. London and Frankfurt advanced while Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo declined. Wall Street futures were lower. Oil