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BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Smoke from wildfires in the western U.S. and Canada is blanketing much of the continent, including thousands of miles away on the East Coast. And experts say the phenomenon is becoming more common as human-caused global warming stokes bigger and more intense blazes.
MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of wildfires engulf broad expanses of Russia each year, destroying forests and shrouding regions in acrid smoke.
Northeastern Siberia has had particularly massive fires this summer amid record-setting heat.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A mysterious ailment has sickened and killed thousands of songbirds in several mid-Atlantic states since late spring. While scientists are still racing to confirm the cause, it seems juvenile birds may be most susceptible.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A $26 billion settlement between the three biggest U.S. drug distribution companies and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and thousands of states and municipalities that sued over the toll of the opioid crisis is certainly significant — but it is far from tying a neat bow on the tangle of still unresolved lawsuits surrounding the epidemic.
BOSTON (AP) — Human rights and press freedom activists are up in arms about a new report on NSO Group, the notorious Israeli hacker-for-hire company. The report, by a global media consortium, expands public knowledge of the target list used in NSO's military-grade spyware.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California will hold a recall election Sept. 14 that could remove first-term Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom from office. The date was set by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat and Newsom ally, after election officials certified that 1.7 million valid petition signatures had been turned in to qualify the election for the ballot.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa has been rocked by the worst violence since the nation achieved democracy in 1994. Here is a closer look at the unrest.
WHAT TRIGGERED THE VIOLENCE?
The unrest began on July 8 when former President Jacob Zuma started serving a 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers’ most consequential battle this year over President Joe Biden’s expansive domestic agenda will snake through a legislative maze that's eye-rolling even by Congress’ standards.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — When Blue Origin launches people into space for the first time, founder Jeff Bezos will be on board. No test pilots or flight engineers for Tuesday’s debut flight from West Texas, just Bezos, his brother, an 82-year-old aviation pioneer and a teenage tourist.
Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, called this week on the administration of President Joe Biden to greenlight a plan to transmit the internet to people in Cuba via high-altitude balloons when their government has blocked access.
The Texas voting bills that prompted state Democrats' flight to Washington this week include a raft of tweaks and changes to the state's election code.
HAVANA (AP) — The street protests that erupted over the weekend in Cuba were the biggest at least since those a quarter century ago, when then-President Fidel Castro personally went into the streets to calm crowds of thousands furious over dire shortages that gripped the island following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had long backed its socialist ally.
Just because Pfizer wants to offer COVID-19 vaccine boosters doesn’t mean people will be lining up anytime soon -- U.S. and international health authorities say that for now, the fully vaccinated seem well protected.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The investigation into the July 7 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse has so far resulted in at least 23 arrests, with three suspects killed, but no clear picture yet of who ordered the killing and why.
Texas statehouse Democrats are camping out in Washington to try and block the GOP's sweeping elections overhaul bill that makes it harder to vote in the state. A similar move successfully killed an earlier version of the bill on the last day of the legislative session in late May, and lawmakers are hoping for a repeat during the 30-day special session called by the state's Republican governor, Greg Abbott.
TOKYO (AP) — A virus state of emergency began Monday in Japan's capital, as the number of new cases is climbing fast and hospital beds are starting to fill just 11 days ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
Virgin Galactic will become the first rocket company to launch the boss when Richard Branson straps into one of his sleek, shiny space planes this weekend.
The self-described tie-loathing adventurer and troublemaker will join five company employees for Sunday’s test flight from New Mexico's southern desert — the company’s fourth trip to the edge of space.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse seemed to have thrown an already turbulent nation into chaos on Wednesday, with a muddled line of succession. Here is a look at the situation:
ROME (AP) — The Vatican has detailed laws, rituals and roles to ensure the transfer of power when a pope dies or resigns. But none of them apply when he is sick or even unconscious, and there are no specific norms governing what happens when a pope becomes incapacitated.
HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese regulators have clamped down on the country’s largest ride-hailing app, Didi Global Inc., days after its shares began trading in New York. Authorities told Didi to stop new registrations and ordered its app removed from China’s app stores pending a cybersecurity review.
LONDON (AP) — Pope Francis has had surgery to remove part of his left colon in what the Vatican has described as a planned procedure. Doctors say the bowel problems that the 84-year-old pope was experiencing are very common in older people, although only about 10% to 20% of people with similar problems require surgery.
ROME (AP) — The Vatican has set a July 27 trial date for 10 people, including a once-powerful cardinal and papal contender, on charges related to the Holy See’s 350 million-euro investment in a luxury London real estate venture.
NEW YORK (AP) — The criminal tax fraud charges unsealed against Donald Trump’s company Thursday are a blow to a business already reeling from canceled deals following the insurrection at the U.S.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California will hold a recall election Sept. 14 that could remove first-term Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom from office. The date was set by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat and Newsom ally, after election officials certified that enough valid petition signatures had been turned in to qualify the election for the ballot.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the last U.S. combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan, the question arises: When is the war really over?
For Afghans the answer is clear but grim: no time soon. An emboldened Taliban insurgency is making battlefield gains, and prospective peace talks are stalled.
Though pro leagues are slowly adjusting to the reality that marijuana is not a performance-enhancing drug, it remains squarely on the banned list for Olympic sports.
That reality will force American sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson to miss the Olympics this month.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. job market is storming into summer. Job creation and wages rose sharply in June. And more and more Americans are confident enough to quit their jobs and look for a better one.
Negotiators from 130 countries have agreed on a major overhaul of how the world’s biggest companies are taxed in an effort to deter international avoidance schemes that have cost governments billions in revenue.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bill Cosby's sexual assault conviction was thrown out Wednesday by Pennsylvania's highest court in a ruling that swiftly freed the actor from prison more than three years after he was found guilty of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York City election officials created doubt about the integrity of the city's mayoral primary Tuesday when a failure to clear old data from a computer system led to inaccurate vote tallies in the closely watched contest.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — After saying for months that it kept the coronavirus at bay, North Korea on Wednesday came closest to admitting that its anti-virus campaign has been less than perfect.
Kim Jong Un’s mention of a “great crisis” created by a “crucial” failure in national pandemic measures during a ruling party meeting has triggered outside speculation about how bad the situation in North Korea may be.
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers representing former president Donald Trump's company say they believe the Manhattan district attorney plans to ask a state grand jury to indict the Trump Organization in an investigation that involves fringe benefits paid to employees.
SEATTLE (AP) — Portland, Oregon, broke its all-time heat record on Saturday. It then broke it again on Sunday, registering a temperature of 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 Celsius) — besting the record set a day earlier by 4 degrees.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Included in the bipartisan infrastructure deal reached with President Joe Biden last week is a plan to eliminate the country's remaining lead pipes and service lines, which for decades have posed a risk for contaminated water in millions of homes and schools.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets in recent days to protest against President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, whose security forces and supporters have violently dispersed them.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many working-age people assume that Medicare covers just about every kind of health care that an older person may need.
CHICAGO (AP) — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to more than 22 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd.
Search teams have been using drones, sonar, highly sensitive microphones and a range of other new and established technologies to help search for people in the oceanside condominium building near Miami that collapsed into a smoldering pile of rubble.
TORONTO (AP) — Leaders of Indigenous groups in Canada say investigators have found more than 600 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school for Indigenous children, which follows the discovery of 215 bodies at another school last month.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears told a judge at a dramatic hearing Wednesday she wants an end to the conservatorship that has controlled her life and money for 13 years.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has railed against it. Republicans in the U.S. Senate introduced a resolution condemning any requirement for teachers to be trained in it. And several Republican-controlled states have invoked it in legislation restricting how race can be taught in public schools.
NEW YORK (AP) — Ranked choice voting made its debut in New York City's mayoral primary Tuesday in one of the most high-profile tests yet for a system gaining use in pockets across the U.S.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain’s government granted pardons on Tuesday to the nine imprisoned instigators of an illegal 2017 secession bid for Catalonia in a bold move to defuse the festering political crisis in the nation's affluent northeastern corner.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — When Britney Spears, who turns 40 this year, speaks to a Los Angeles judge at her own request on Wednesday, she'll do it 13 years into a court-enforced conservatorship that has exercised vast control of her life and money.
A committee of U.S. Catholic bishops is getting to work on a policy document that has stirred controversy among their colleagues before a word of it has even been written.