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By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares are mostly lower in muted trading on continuing concerns about surging COVID-19 infections in key regional markets like Japan. Benchmarks fell Tuesday in Japan, China and South Korea in morning trading, although shares rose in Australia. Gains for several Big Tech stocks helped push

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has criticized the country’s prime minister over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. In his monthly radio show Sunday, Murakami said Yoshihide Suga has ignored a growing COVID-19 surge and public concerns about the outbreak. Murakami quoted Suga’s comment that “an exit is

By SAM METZ and JANIE HAR Associated Press/Report for America SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Fire is forcing thousands of people to rush to leave South Lake Tahoe as the entire California tourist city comes under evacuation orders. Wildfire raced toward Lake Tahoe, a large freshwater lake on the California-Nevada state line. Evacuation warnings

By REBECCA SANTANA and JAY REEVES Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Rescuers in boats, helicopters and high-water trucks have brought hundreds of people trapped by Hurricane Ida’s floodwaters to safety. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Monday that crews would keep up the rescue effort and eventually go door-to-door in hard-hit areas to make

By BEN FOX Associated Press NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (AP) — Three prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center have had their first day in court after being held for 18 years without charge in connection with the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and other plots in Southeast Asia. An Indonesian prisoner and two

By KATHY GANNON, TAMEEM AKHGAR and JOSEPH KRAUSS Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters have watched the last U.S. planes disappear into the night sky and then fired their guns into the air. They were celebrating victory after 20-year insurgency that drove the world’s most powerful military out of one of the poorest

By ILAN BEN ZION and LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s defense minister has held talks with the Palestinian president in the occupied West Bank, the first high-level meeting between the two sides in years. On Monday he approved a series of measures to bolster the Palestinian economy. Sunday’s meeting in Ramallah between

By LOLITA C. BALDOR and ROBERT BURNS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. war in Afghanistan is in its final hours as the military flew more desperate evacuees out of the Afghan capital. The Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate is claiming responsibility for targeting the Kabul airport with rockets, but the U.S. military reports

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Tropical Storm Nora is dropping heavy rains along the Gulf of California after weakening from a hurricane that set off floods and landslides on Mexico’s Pacific coast, caused havoc in Puerta Vallarta and left at least one dead and seven missing. Nora weakened from a Category 1 hurricane at midday Sunday

By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The U.N. atomic agency says North Korea appears to have restarted the operation of its main nuclear reactor used to produce weapons fuels. The annual report by the the International Atomic Energy Agency comes as North Korea openly threatens to enlarge its nuclear arsenal amid

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares are mostly higher as investors interpreted comments from the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve as signaling low interest rates were here to stay for some time. Benchmarks in Japan, Australia and Shanghai rose Monday, while shares were little changed in South Korea and