AP National News

By KATHY GANNON Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An estimated 200 foreigners, including Americans, have left Kabul on an international commercial flight, marking the first large-scale evacuation since U.S. and NATO forces left Afghanistan last week. Their departure represented a breakthrough in the bumpy coordination between the U.S. and Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders. The

By KAREN MATTHEWS Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Even after two decades, the work to rebuild the World Trade Center complex after its destruction in the Sept. 11 attacks is still incomplete. While the memorial plaza and several towers at the site have been finished for years, construction is ongoing at a planned performing

PARIS (AP) — France is paying respects to screen legend Jean-Paul Belmondo with a solemn ceremony led by the president and a public viewing at Napoleon’s final resting place. The tributes reflect his prominent role in France’s cultural world and in living rooms, where families gathered around his films. He notably starred in Jean-Luc Godard’s

ATHENS Political leaders, family members and thousands of fans have paid their final respects to Greek music great Mikis Theodorakis who has been buried on the island of Crete. Holding flowers and olive branches, onlookers dressed in black sang songs composed by Theodorakis as his casket was carried from a chapel to the cemetery near

By JOSEPH KRAUSS Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — For nearly two decades, Israelis and Palestinians have watched Zakaria Zubeidi’s progression from a child actor to a swaggering militant, to the scarred face of a West Bank theater promoting “cultural resistance” to Israeli occupation. In his latest act, Zubeidi has emerged as one of Israel’s most

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel says her party is fighting and was always aware that it wouldn’t “automatically” hold on to Germany’s top job after her 16 years in power. Merkel was downplaying alarming poll ratings as the country’s election nears. Recent polls have shown Merkel’s Union bloc under

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — An International Atomic Energy Agency official says objective, science-based monitoring is the key to safely carrying out the planned release of treated but still radioactive water at Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant. A three-member IAEA team is in Japan for preliminary talks and a visit to the

By NINIEK KARMINI Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The foreign minister of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, is urging the Taliban to respect the rights of women and not allow Afghanistan to become a breeding ground for extremist activities. Retno Marsudi made the comments after meeting with Australia’s foreign and defense ministers,

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The leader of Northern Ireland’s largest British unionist party says the U.K.’s divorce deal with the European Union could collapse the Belfast government and trigger a new era of violence and instability. Democratic Unionist Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said Thursday that the agreement known as the Northern

By FRANCIS KOKUTSE Associated Press ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A delegation of West African leaders is to go to Guinea to meet with the junta that toppled President Alpha Conde in a coup earlier this week. Top officials of West Africa’s influential economic bloc, ECOWAS, are expected to meet in Conakry, Guinea’s capital, with the

By VANESSA GERA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s Senate voted has rejected a media bill seen as targeting a U.S.-owned television network’s ability to keep broadcasting independent news. However, the Senate has no power to stop it altogether. The bill is to return to parliament’s lower house and if it passes there, it

BY DAVID McHUGH AP Business Writer FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Central Bank says it is dialing back some of its massive emergency pandemic support for the economy. The move comes amid signs of increasing business activity and consumer readiness to spend as the 19 countries that use the euro rebound from the coronavirus

MOSCOW (AP) — Smoke alarms went off at the Russian segment of the International Space Station in the early hours of Thursday, and the crew reported noticing smoke and the smell of burnt plastic. Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said the incident took place in the Russian-built Zvezda module and occurred as the station’s batteries were

PARIS (AP) — France will offer free birth control to all women up to age 25 starting next year. The health minister announced the measure on national television. Medical visits around contraception will also be free. Birth control was already free for girls up to 18 years old, but is being expanded to all women

By RONALD BLUM AP Sports Writer SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — Antonee Robinson and Ricardo Pepi scored their first international goals after a halftime change in formation, Brenden Aaronson and Sebastian Lletget added late goals and the United States revived its World Cup qualifying campaign with a 4-1 win over Honduras. U.S. captain Christian

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian government has confirmed it has refused to allow climate change goals to be written into a proposed free trade deal with Britain. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday the trade deal under negotiation with Britain was not the document to include U.N. goals

CAIRO (AP) — State-run media reported an apartment building collapsed in a city just outside Egypt’s capital, killing at least three people. The daily Al-Ahram reported that rescue teams were still searching Thursday for possible victims under the rubble of the four-story building in the city of Shoubra el-Khaima in Qalyubia province. The building collapsed

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s foreign minister has arrived in Libya to reopen the country’s embassy in Tripoli. Heiko Maas said Thursday upon his arrival in Tripoli that “we want to show with the reopening that Germany is and will remain a committed partner of Libya.” German diplomats left Libya in 2014 because of the country’s

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Several Malaysian mothers have won a legal battle for the right to pass their nationality to their children born abroad, in a landmark court decision hailed by activists as a giant step toward gender equality. Malaysia’s constitution gives fathers the automatic right to confer citizenship to their children born abroad,

By KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES Associated Press SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — North Macedonia’s government has declared three days of mourning after a deadly overnight fire in a COVID-19 field hospital left 14 people dead and 12 injured. The blaze broke out late Wednesday in the western city of Tetovo, where the hospital had been set up