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By CHALIDA EKVITTHAYAVECHNUKUL Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Parliament has approved a constitutional amendment changing how lawmakers are elected, a move expected to allocate more seats to big parties at the expense of smaller ones. The amendment is a legacy of the long and bitter political struggle between supporters and opponents of former Prime

By KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES Associated Press SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — North Macedonia’s health minister has resigned nearly two days after a fire tore through a COVID-19 field hospital killing 12 patients and two visiting relatives. He made the announcement Friday, shortly after his deputy minister and two senior two hospital administrators also stepped down. There

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa has started vaccinating some children and adolescents as part of the global Phase 3 clinical trials of China’s Sinovac Biotech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged between 6 months and 17 years. The global study will enroll 2,000 participants in South Africa and 12,000 others will

By BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI Associated Press COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sunil Perera, a versatile Sri Lankan singer, musician, composer and entertainer, has died of apparent complications from COVID-19. He was 68. Perera entertained generations of Sri Lankans with captivating songs, but won their minds and hearts with his outspoken comments against social injustice, corruption, racism

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation at the wholesale level climbed 8.3% last month from August 2020, the biggest annual gain since the Labor Department started calculating the 12-month number in 2010. The Labor Department reported Friday that its producer price index — which measures inflationary pressures before they reach consumers

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writer Three of the nation’s largest food delivery companies are suing New York City over a limit on fees it put in place during the pandemic to protect restaurants devastated by the forced closure of their dining rooms. The city has continued to extend those caps even as vaccinations allow

BERLIN (AP) — The struggling center-right candidate to succeed German Chancellor Angela Merkel is touting his party’s law-and-order and security credentials as he tries to turn around disappointing polls, questioning his left-leaning rival’s stance toward the police and the military. Armin Laschet has been tapped by Merkel’s center-right Union bloc to succeed her after 16

Associated Press CHENNA TEKLEHAYMANOT, Ethiopia (AP) — At the scene of one of the deadliest battles of Ethiopia’s 10-month Tigray conflict, witness accounts reflect the increasingly blurred line between combatant and civilian after the federal government urged all capable citizens to stop the Tigray forces “once and for all.” Survivors in the village of Chenna

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associatd Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s outspoken vaccinations minister, Taro Kono, has announced that he is running to become the head of the governing party, who usually is chosen prime minister, and pledged to be reform-minded and gets things done. Kono, a Georgetown University graduate who is fluent in English, has many

By MEG KINNARD and EMILY SWANSON Associated Press A decade after the 9/11 attacks, Americans were reasonably positive about the state of their rights and liberties. Today, 20 years since Sept. 11, not as much. That’s according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The survey builds on work conducted