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By KATHY GANNON Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Officials say at least four planes chartered to evacuate several hundred people seeking to escape the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan have been unable to leave the country for days. Conflicting accounts emerged Sunday about why the flights weren’t able to take off as pressure ramps up

LONDON (AP) — Singer Sarah Harding of the British pop group Girls Aloud has died at 39 after a battle with breast cancer. Her mother announced the death Sunday. The singer said last August that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and it had spread to other parts of her body. Her mother Marie

By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS. (AP) — When Ida knocked out power and dumped buckets of rain in their streets, hurricane-hardened residents of New Orleans did what they always do: They banded together to help each other out. Restaurants and amateur chefs dished out free food, residents with generators charged their neighbors’ cellphones

By DEMETRIS NELLAS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s Communist Party says composer and politician Mikis Theodorakis will be buried on Sept. 9 in Crete next to his parents and brother. A family dispute had developed over Theodorakis’s burial place following his death Thursday and an Athens court had suspended funeral arrangements Friday after

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey says it has “neutralized” nearly 18,500 people whom it calls “terrorists” over the past six years. Defense MInistry spokesperson Maj. Pinar Kara told journalists in Ankara on Sunday that included 1,865 people this year. The ministry uses the term “neutralized” to describe killed, wounded or captured combatants. The vast majority of

By HUIZHONG WU Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The parent company of a defunct pro-democracy paper in Hong Kong, Apple Daily, is liquidating its assets and the board is stepping down. Next Digital, a publicly traded company, said in an announcement that all members of its board would resign, and that they hoped to

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis says he’ll be traveling to the “heart of Europe” when he makes a pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia later this month. Francis reminded pilgrims, tourists and Romans in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that he’ll be traveling to Hungary on Sept. 12 and then going on to Slovakia. He will

By MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press WATFORD CITY, N.D. (AP) — The fastest-growing county in the U.S. is in the oil fields of North Dakota. That’s according to new figures from the Census Bureau. The first newcomers to arrive in McKenzie County were oil workers drawn by the drilling boom. Soon they brought families who needed

By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A shortage of computer chips that sent auto prices soaring had appeared, finally, to be easing back in the spring. Some relief for consumers seemed to be in sight. That hope has now dimmed. A surge in COVID-19 cases from the delta variant in several

By KRISHAN FRANCIS Associated Press COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The mother of an Islamic State-inspired extremist who stabbed shoppers in a New Zealand supermarket said her son was radicalized by neighbors from Syria and Iraq. She said they had “brainwashed” her son while helping him recover from an injury. She spoke Saturday in an

ROME (AP) — Police at Rome airport say they prevented a Naples tobacco shop owner suspected of running off with a customer’s winning game card ticket from boarding a flight abroad on Sunday. Italian news reports cited police as saying the man didn’t have the filched card worth 500,000 euros ($580,000). But the LaPresse news