AP National News

By PHILIP MARCELO and PAT EATON-ROBB Associated Press PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — New Englanders bracing for their first hurricane in 30 years are hauling boats out of the water and taking other precautions as Tropical Storm Henri barrels toward the Northeast coast. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Henri is expected to intensify into a

By MATTHEW CHENG and JANICE LO Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s granting of a quarantine exemption to Hollywood star Nicole Kidman is drawing criticism from lawmakers as the city tightens entry restrictions for international travelers to control the coronavirus. Kidman, who reportedly flew to Hong Kong last week from coronavirus-hit Sydney, was

By AHMAD SEIR, TAMEEM AKHGAR and REBECCA SANTANA Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The scene outside the airport in the Afghan capital is still chaotic. People seeking to escape the Taliban-controlled country struggled Friday to get past crushing crowds, Taliban checkpoints and U.S. bureaucracy. Video images showed crowds gathered in the dark outside barbed-wire

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has marked the anniversary of a poisoning attack against him by urging global leaders to focus on combating corruption and to target tycoons close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an article published in three European newspapers, Navalny chided Western leaders

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA Associated Press KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ugandan authorities have suspended more than 50 civic groups for allegedly not complying with regulations, dealing a blow to hundreds of thousands of people who benefit from the organizations’ activities. The suspensions, targeting agencies ranging from rights watchdogs to women’s groups, were announced Friday by the

BERLIN (AP) — A union representing many train drivers at Germany’s national railway operator is calling members out on a new strike. The head of the GDL union said drivers of passenger trains will strike from 2 a.m. Monday to 2 a.m. Wednesday. Freight train drivers will start their strike on Saturday afternoon. It’s the

By CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Seven years after Boko Haram extremists abducted more than 270 schoolgirls in northeast Nigeria, two of the more than 100 still being held by the rebels returned this month, renewing the hope of parents who have all but given up on the long wait for the

By ROD McGUIRK and NICK PERRY Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian state leader is warning that Melbourne may be losing control of a COVID-19 delta variant outbreak that began in Sydney and has also spread to the New Zealand capital. The fast-moving outbreak was first detected in mid-June in Sydney, Australia’s largest

By ELENA BECATOROS and SUZAN FRASER Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Turkey’s president has told Greece’s prime minister that the European Union should assist Afghans both inside Afghanistan and in neighboring countries if it wants to avoid a new influx of migrants. The two leaders discussed the situation in Afghanistan in a telephone call

By EILEEN NG Associated Press KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s longest-governing political party has reclaimed the premiership it lost in a shock 2018 election defeat, after the king named its candidate, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, as the country’s new leader. Ismail was the deputy prime minister under the government of Muhyiddin Yassin, who resigned Monday

By ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A major wildfire that has ravaged a pine forest and burned homes northwest of the Greek capital has been contained, the minister for citizens’ protection says, adding that a prosecutor for organized crime cases is involved in the investigation of major fires in Greece this summer.

By COLLEEN BARRY and KERSTIN SOPKE Associated Press MILAN (AP) — Hundreds of Western nationals and Afghan workers have been flown to safety since the Taliban reasserted control over the country. Yet still unprotected, and in hiding, are untold numbers of Afghans who tried to build a fledgling democracy. They include Afghans who worked with

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer Stocks ended higher on Wall Street Friday but not enough to erase the market’s losses from earlier in the week. The S&P 500 added 0.8% but still posted a weekly loss after two weeks of gains. The benchmark index set a record high on Monday. Trading was mostly subdued

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and GEIR MOULSON Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin have reaffirmed their sharply different views of Moscow’s treatment of imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Merkel traveled to Moscow on Friday, which was the anniversary of Navalny’s poisoning with what European officials later identified as

BEIJING (AP) — China is tightening control over data gathered by companies about the public under a law approved by its ceremonial legislature. The data protection law expands the ruling Communist Party’s crackdown on internet industries. It follows anti-monopoly and other enforcement actions against companies including e-commerce giant Alibaba and games and social media operator

By TERRY SPENCER Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Millions of students in Florida, Texas and Arizona are being required to wear masks in class as school boards in mostly Democratic locales are imposing anti-COVID mandates in defiance of their Republican governors. The three states are all hot spots in the nation’s recent COVID-19

By The Associated Press BOSTON — Taliban websites that delivered the victorious insurgents’ official messages to Afghans and the world at large in five languages have abruptly gone offline. It is not immediately clear why the sites in the Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, English and Dari languages went offline Friday. They had been shielded by Cloudflare,

By DAVID SHARP Associated Press PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A boy who recently hiked the Appalachian Trail is preparing for his next adventure in kindergarten. Five-year-old Harvey Sutton tagged along with his parents over more than 2,100 miles to complete the feat. He was 4 years old when he and his parents began their walk

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has vowed to hold officials accountable over mistakes during recent floods that led to the deaths of hundreds of people in a major provincial capital, including 14 who were trapped when the city’s subway system was inundated. More than than 300 people were killed in last month’s floods

By KELLI KENNEDY and CODY JACKSON Associated Press JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Hospitals are overflowing with COVID patients in northeast Florida, the hot zone in the state’s latest surge. But the patients rapidly filling wards in Jacksonville are younger than last summer’s peak outbreak. And they’re getting sick faster. The caseload is more than double