AP National News

BERLIN (AP) — A leader of the Greens say the multiparty talks on forming a new German government have “a long way to go” and will have to bridge significant policy differences. The center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats held their first round of talks Thursday on a possible coalition.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has recorded a new record-high daily death toll from COVID-19, continuing a persistent rise that has brought new records almost daily in October. The national coronavirus task force reported Saturday that 968 people in Russia died of COVID-19 over the past day. That’s about 100 more daily deaths than were recorded

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — A top British government official is backing a phone company’s proposal for a new tracking service to help protect girls and women walking alone. A phone company executive pitched the idea amid ongoing outrage over the slayings of two women who were targeted near their homes in

By SARAH EL DEEB and ANGELA CHARLTON BEIRUT (AP) — A Syrian pro-government newspaper says that President Bashar Assad has allowed his exiled uncle back into Syria to avoid a four-year prison term in France, where he spent more than 30 years. The 84-year-old Rifaat Assad was sentenced last year for illegally using Syrian state

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A peeling portrait of Polish piano composer Frederic Chopin purchased at a flea market hung modestly in a private house in Poland for almost three decades before an expert dated the painting to the 19th century. The small painting now resides in a bank vault somewhere

BERLIN (AP) — A former Israeli soldier has been assaulted in Germany’s capital in what police describe as an antisemitic incident. The assault took place Friday evening outside the Noeldnerplatz commuter train station in an eastern district of Berlin. Police said Saturday that the 29-year-old former soldier who lives in Berlin had a pullover on

By TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer Facebook has recently taken a harsher tone toward whistleblower Frances Haugen, suggesting that the social network could be considering legal retaliation after Haugen went public with internal research that she copied before leaving her job earlier this year. U.S. law protects whistleblowers who disclose information about potential misconduct to

By HALELUYA HADERO AP Business Writer A spotlight that has been thrown on how many of the rich and powerful shield their wealth is also intensifying a fear among philanthropy experts: That the tax havens being used by the wealthy will increasingly siphon money away from charitable causes. Wealthy Americans have long sought to use

By KATHY GANNON Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban have ruled out cooperation with the U.S. to contain extremist groups in Afghanistan. A senior spokesman staked out the position ahead of the first direct talks between the former foes since America completed its chaotic withdrawal from the country. Senior Taliban officials and U.S. representatives

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The German and French foreign ministers have issued a joint statement saying that Poland has both a moral and legal obligation to respect the common rules of the European Union. The ministers published their statement late Friday in reaction to a Polish constitutional court ruling this week that challenged the supremacy

PRAGUE (AP) — Czechs are voting in a parliamentary election for a final day as polls suggest Prime Minister Andrej Babis has a good chance of retaining power despite a turbulent first term. Two days of balloting to fill 200 seats in the lower house of the Czech Republic’s parliament took place in the immediate

By AMIR VAHDAT and JON GAMBRELL Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran’s first president after the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution who fled Tehran after being impeached for challenging the growing power of clerics as the nation became a theocracy, has died. He was 88. His family and Iranian state television made the

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press ABOARD GEO BARENTS (AP) — U.N. officials say guards at a Libyan detention center for migrants have shot and killed at least six people amid chaos in the overcrowded facility. The development comes a week after authorities rounded up more than 5,000 migrants in a massive crackdown and after U.N.-commissioned

By ZEINA KARAM and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA Associated Press BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s elections on Sunday come with enormous challenges: Iraq’s economy has been battered by years of conflict, endemic corruption and more recently, the coronavirus pandemic. State institutions are failing, the country’s infrastructure is crumbling. Powerful paramilitary groups increasingly threaten the authority of the state,

By JOVANA GEC and DARIA LITVINOVA Associated Press BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Russians are flocking to Serbia to receive Western-approved COVID-19 shots. Although Russia has its own vaccine, known as Sputnik V,  international health authorities haven’t approved its use. That means Russians who want to travel freely need to show of having received a Western-made

By KATHY GANNON and ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP) — Officials say senior Taliban members and U.S. representatives are to hold talks about containing extremist groups in Afghanistan and easing the evacuation of foreign citizens and Afghans from the country. It’s the first such meeting since U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in late August.

By AMY TAXIN Associated Press HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — After a crude oil sheen was detected on the waters off the Southern California coast, environmentalists feared the worst. A week later, Orange County and its signature beaches have been spared a potentially calamitous fate, though the long-term toll on plant and animal life remains

By MARK SHERMAN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration will try to persuade the Supreme Court this week to reinstate the death penalty for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The administration will argue that a jury had no need to examine evidence that prosecutors themselves relied on at

By MAURICIO SAVARESE Associated Press SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil has topped 600,000 virus deaths as it bids to return to pre-pandemic normalcy. Relief in both COVID-19 cases and deaths have been particularly welcome given experts’ warnings that the delta variant would produce another wave of destruction in the country with the second-most victims. So

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, MATTHEW BROWN and AMY TAXIN Associated Press HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Coast Guard investigators say an underwater Southern California oil pipeline was likely struck by an anchor several months to a year before a leak spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude. The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday that