WASHINGTON (AP) — As he rounds out his first 100 days in office, President Joe Biden’s focus on reining in the coronavirus during the early months of his administration seems to have paid off: He can check off nearly all his campaign promises centered on the pandemic.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria denied on Wednesday it is holding U.S. journalist Austin Tice or other Americans after President Joe Biden accused the Syrian government of detaining him.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Damascus “denies it had kidnapped or is holding any American citizen on its territories.”
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel and Turkey will restore full diplomatic relations and dispatch ambassadors for the first time in years, the latest step in months of reconciliation between the two countries, the Israeli prime minister's office said Wednesday.
BEIRUT (AP) — The stabbing of author Salman Rushdie has laid bare divisions in Lebanon's Shiite Muslim community, pitting a few denouncing the violence against fervent followers of the Iran-backed Shiite militant Hezbollah group who have praised the attack.
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria is not safe yet for millions of refugees to start going back home, a Canadian minister cautioned during a visit to Lebanon on Wednesday. He spoke days after Lebanese officials announced a plan to start returning 15,000 Syrian refugees to their war-shattered country every month.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai International Airport saw a surge in passengers over the first half of 2022 as pandemic restrictions eased and the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar will further boost traffic to the city-state’s second airfield, its chief executive said Wednesday.
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s central bank governor resigned Wednesday as the Middle East's most populous nation struggles to curb inflation triggered by Russia's war in Ukraine, high oil prices and a drop in tourism.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's chancellor said Wednesday that he was “disgusted by the outrageous remarks" made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Berlin, accusing Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians over the years.
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s caretaker prime minister called a meeting of senior political leaders and party representatives Wednesday, seeking a way out of a monthslong crisis amid a power struggle between rival Shiite blocs.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine under a wartime deal appears to have ended up in Syria — even as Damascus remains a close ally of Moscow, satellite images analyzed Tuesday by The Associated Press show.
MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — The man charged with stabbing Salman Rushdie on a lecture stage in western New York said in an interview that he was surprised to learn the accomplished author had survived the attack.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Two sailboats carrying dozens of migrants arrived on a southern Greek island early Wednesday, with the first one running aground on rocks. Nobody was reported injured or missing.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — In the Brazilian Amazon these days, it's nearly impossible to run for office talking up the environment.
More common is a scene like this: A candidate for Congress parades a helicopter — the symbol of illegal gold mining — painted with the Brazilian flag, through the streets of the Amazon city of Boa Vista.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A year after America's tumultuous and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, assessments of its impact are divided — and largely along partisan lines.
MADRID (AP) — While vacationers might enjoy the Mediterranean Sea's summer warmth, climate scientists are warning of dire consequences for its marine life as it burns up in a series of severe heat waves.
BERLIN (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed no regret Tuesday for the deadly attack by Palestinian militants on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics a half century ago, countering that Israel had committed “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians over the years.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday in the second suspected Ukrainian attack on the peninsula in just over a week, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran said Tuesday it submitted a “written response” to what has been described as a final roadmap to restore its tattered nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency offered no details on the substance of its response, but suggested that Tehran still wouldn't take the European Union-mediated proposal, despite warnings there would be no more negotiations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Massive incentives for clean energy in the U.S. law signed Tuesday by President Joe Biden should reduce future global warming “not a lot, but not insignificantly either,” according to a climate scientist who led an independent analysis of the package.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have accepted an invition from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet Thursday to review the deal allowing Ukrainian grain to be shipped to world markets to help alleviate the global grain crisis and discuss ways to end the six-month-old war.
JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian human rights group and an Israeli newspaper reported Tuesday that an explosion in a cemetery that killed five Palestinian children during the latest flare-up in Gaza was caused by an Israeli airstrike and not an errant Palestinian rocket.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian authorities announced Tuesday the first case of monkeypox in the country, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The report said health authorities quarantined a 34-year-old woman living in the southwestern city of Ahvaz.
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a memoir coming out this fall. “Bibi: My Story” will be published Nov. 22, three weeks after parliamentary elections are to be held in Israel.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s state prosecutor on Tuesday released a man who took up to 10 people hostage in a bank at gunpoint while demanding funds from his locked savings account.
In a case that has drawn nationwide attention, food delivery driver Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, 42, fired three warning shots from a shotgun last Thursday at a Federal Bank branch in Beirut.
PARIS (AP) — A French backpacker who had gone missing in Egypt a year ago has safely returned home to Paris, a lawyer representing his family said on Tuesday.
It’s not clear what happened over the past year to Yann Bourdon, whose family had speculated that he might have been detained by Egyptian security services.
BANGKOK (AP) — A group of German air force fighter jets landed in Singapore on Tuesday as part of a marathon bid to fly them some 12,800 kilometers (8,000 miles) from their home base to Southeast Asia in just 24 hours.
With much fanfare, ship after ship loaded with grain has sailed from Ukraine after being stuck in the country's Black Sea ports for nearly six months.
JERUSALEM (AP) — The lawyer for a Palestinian prisoner said Tuesday that her client will appeal his case to Israel’s Supreme Court as he continues what his family says is a 165-day hunger strike against his detention.
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's finance minister resigned Tuesday, two government officials said, over the country's worst political crisis in years involving an influential Shiite cleric and his Iran-aligned rivals.
ADIYAMAN, Turkey (AP) — Stargazers gathered to watch the Perseid meteor shower among ancient statues atop Mount Nemrut in southeastern Turkey.
Hundreds spent the night at the UNESCO World Heritage Site for the annual meteor show that stretches along the orbit of the comet Swift–Tuttle.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani doctor who championed women’s health and rights and spearheaded the breakthrough action plan adopted by 179 countries at the 1994 United Nations population conference, died four days before her 93rd birthday, her son said late Monday.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A judge on Monday denied a family's attempt to sue Lebanon on allegations that the country's security agency kidnapped and tortured their family member before he died in the U.S., and that the agency could not intervene in the case.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The top U.N. envoy for Yemen said Monday he is intensifying efforts to achieve an expanded truce between the warring parties that would hopefully lead to the start of talks on a ceasefire and preparations for resuming a Yemeni-led political process.
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt was in mourning Monday over a blaze at a Coptic Orthodox church that killed 41 people, but many also raised questions about the emergency response, fire safety codes, and restrictions on building houses of worship for the country’s Christian minority.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian official Monday denied Tehran was involved in the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, though he sought to justify the attack in the Islamic Republic's first public comments on the bloodshed.