News

By BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI Associated Press COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Environmentalists in Sri Lanka are challenging a court order that would allow the return of 14 illegally captured wild elephants to people accused of buying them from traffickers. Rights groups and lawyers say the Sept. 6 court order is based on a government decree that

By JIM HEINTZ Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has begun three days of voting for a new parliament that is unlikely to change the country’s political complexion. There’s no expectation that United Russia, the party devoted to President Vladimir Putin, will lose its dominance in the State Duma. The main question is whether it

By JOSEF FEDERMAN Associated Press ATLIT, Israel (AP) — Israel’s just-retired navy chief says the military has stepped up its activities in the Red Sea “exponentially” in the face of growing Iranian threats to Israeli shipping. Vice Adm. Eli Sharvit spoke in an interview with The Associated Press days after completing his five-year term. He

By ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A month after the fall of Kabul, the question of how the world will help Afghanistan’s impoverished people without propping up their Taliban rulers grows more urgent by the day. Donor countries have pledged $1.2 billion in humanitarian aid through the United Nations. But

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer Asian shares are mixed after a hodge-podge of economic data led Wall Street to close mostly lower.  Benchmarks rose in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul but fell in Shanghai and Sydney. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each lost about 0.2% Thursday, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq

By JEFFREY COLLINS Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A prominent South Carolina lawyer has surrendered to face insurance fraud and other charges in what’s described as a failed plot to arrange his own death. Alex Murdaugh was issued a $20,000 bond and released Thursday on his own recognizance to return to drug rehab after

By PATRICK WHITTLE and ROBERT F. BUKATY Associated Press ROCKLAND, Maine (AP) — More than 90 years after starting, Maine’s oldest lobster harvester is still doing it at age 101. Virginia Oliver is the oldest lobster fisher in the state and possibly the oldest one in the world, Oliver still faithfully tends to her 200

By SARAH RANKIN and STEVE HELBER Associated Press GRUNDY, Va. (AP) — Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin clashed over abortion and vaccination policies in Virginia’s first gubernatorial debate of the general election season. Each sought to cast the other as extreme on major issues Thursday. The race is being closely watched as a

By DON THOMPSON Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom handily survived this week’s recall election that could have removed him from office. But his Democratic allies in the Legislature already are seeking changes that could make it harder to mount such a challenge in the future. Those reforms could include raising

By HAU DINH Associated Press VUNG TAU, Vietnam (AP) — The AP’s Hau Dinh set off from Hanoi for the seaside resort of Vung Tau in southern Vietnam for a long weekend in mid-July. The trip came just as the delta variant of the coronavirus began sweeping through Vietnam in the pandemic’s worst wave yet,

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD AP Political Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — California’s long-suffering Republicans endured another embarrassing loss when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom easily defeated an attempt to drive him from office. Returns from Tuesday’s recall election continued a troubling trend for the GOP. Republicans haven’t won a statewide election in California since 2006. In