News

By DAVE KOLPACK Associated Press FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out the death sentence for a man convicted in the 2003 slaying of a North Dakota college student. Judge Ralph Erickson ruled Friday that misleading testimony from a medical examiner and limitations on mental health evidence violated Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.’s constitutional

By ANITA SNOW and NOREEN NASIR Associated Press MESA, Ariz. (AP) — Young Sikh Americans still struggle with discrimination a generation after Sept. 11 unleashed bias against them and their older relatives, ranging from school bullying to racial profiling to hate crimes. The attacks often make it hard fhaior them to embrace the Sikh concept

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — Vatican officials are refusing to say whether women will have a vote when Pope Francis convenes the Catholic hierarchy and experts to the Vatican for a meeting on the Catholic church in 2023. For years, women activists and even nuns have pressed to be able to vote

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — London has honored American Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, with a blue plaque outside his former home in the British capital. Henson lived in London from 1979 until his death in 1990 at age 53. He was also known for his work on “Sesame Street”

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency have asked Japan for full and detailed information about a plan to release treated but still radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean. The three-member team, which is assisting Japan with the planned release, met with

MADRID (AP) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is convening an urgent meeting of a committee that oversees efforts to fight hate crime after hooded attackers beat a 20-year-old man in Madrid and used a knife to carve a profanity on one of his buttocks. A government spokesperson said Tuesday that Sánchez wants to “take

By KATHY GANNON Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban’s interim government for Afghanistan is all men and stacked with veterans of their hard-line rule from the 1990s and the 20-year battle against the U.S.-led coalition. The choices seem unlikely to win the international support the new leaders desperately need to avoid an economic

By ALEXANDRA OLSON and MAE ANDERSON AP Business Writers NEW YORK (AP) — The early months of the coronavirus pandemic shined a spotlight on essential workers. Strict shutdowns left the hardest-hit U.S. cities desolate, except for those fulfilling society’s basic needs. The virus has since spread, evolved and unleashed new challenges. The arrival of vaccines

By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ-rights organization, has fired its president because of developments related to the sexual harassment case that prompted Andrew Cuomo’s resignation as governor of New York. The ousted president, Alphonso David, responded with an

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese judge has summoned North Korea’s leader to face demands for compensation by several ethnic Korean residents of Japan who say they suffered human rights abuses in North Korea after joining a resettlement program there. A lawyer and a plaintiff say North Korean leader Kim Jong

By DARIA LITVINOVA Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — A prominent lawyer who represented both a former Russian journalist accused of treason and the team of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny has left Russia after authorities launched a criminal probe against him. A rights group he headed has also shut down under government pressure. In a

By CARA ANNA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Tigray forces in Ethiopia say at least 150 people starved to death last month in the Tigray region amid a near-complete blockade of food aid by federal and allied authorities. Close to half a million people face famine conditions there after 10 months of war. The