News

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s prime minister says he plans to visit Lithuania in July to attend a NATO leaders’ summit as his country steps up cooperation with the Western organization. Fumio Kishida’s announcement Wednesday ccomes amid China’s increasingly assertive military activity in the Indo-Pacific region. Japan has been strengthening ties

By MUNIR AHMED Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani authorities say they have arrested seven alleged key figures in a human trafficking ring following last week’s sinking of a vessel packed with migrants off Greece. More than 500 migrants are still missing, including Pakistanis. Police said Wednesday that arrests are part of a crackdown on

By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Paying tribute at a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined a crowd of diplomats and dignitaries for a morning yoga session Wednesday at the United Nations, kicking off the public portion of his U.S. visit by calmly flexing India’s cultural reach. With

BERLIN (AP) — A German woman has been convicted of keeping a Yazidi woman as a slave during her time with the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. She was sentenced to nine years and three months in prison. The state court in the western city of Koblenz on Wednesday convicted the 37-year-old of

BY AAMER MADHANI and KRUTIKA PATHI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have developed a relationship based on mutual respect of their scrappy backgrounds and a pragmatism about shared challenges. Biden hosts Modi for a state visit this week, looking to tighten his relationship with the leader

By PAN PYLAS and KIN CHEUNG Associated Press STONEHENGE, England (AP) — All hail the rising sun. Around 8,000 revellers gathered around a prehistoric stone circle on a plain in southern England to express their devotion to the sun, or to have some communal fun. Druids, pagans, hippies, local residents and tourists, many clad in

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will begin two days of hearings before Congress on Wednesday that will likely focus on the question that consumed the central bank last week: How far and how fast will the Fed raise its key interest rate from here? The hearings

By KANIS LEUNG Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — One of Hong Kong’s most reputable sources for public opinion data is limiting its survey scope, including on sensitive topics such as the Tiananmen crackdown. The change comes on the heels of a risk evaluation done by the Hong Kong government, and will likely muffle access

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli army has beefed up its forces across the occupied West Bank and prepared to demolish the homes of two Palestinian gunmen who killed four Israelis in one of the worst attacks in the past year of violence. On Wednesday the families laid to rest the victims in the deadly shooting

By EDNA TARIGAN Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An independent expert working with the United Nations on the issue of human rights in Myanmar has urged the international community to find a different approach to resolve the crisis in the Southeast Asian country, saying the current course of action is not working. Tom Andrews,

BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday called comments by President Joe Biden describing Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a dictator “extremely absurd and irresponsible.” The new clash of words comes just over a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded a visit to Beijing that sought to break the ice in a relationship that

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s powerful conservative ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski is reentering the government as the only deputy prime minister in the Cabinet. The move Wednesday gives him an enhanced position as the country heads toward a general election this fall. Kaczynski is the head of Law and Justice. That’s the party that

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Diplomats from dozens of countries are meeting in London to drum up funds to rebuild Ukraine. That’s a mammoth task whose cost is estimated by the World Bank at more than $400 billion — a figure rising daily alongside the human toll of the 16-month war. U.S.