WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday presented the 2025 Kennedy Center honorees with their medals during a ceremony in the Oval Office, hailing the slate of artists he was deeply involved in choosing as “perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class” ever assembled. This year’s recipients are actor Sylvester Stal...

A six-episode, behind-the-scenes Disney+ docuseries about Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and Rian Johnson’s third “Knives Out” movie, “Wake Up Dead Man,” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ ent...

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Hungarian László Krasznahorkai, who won the Nobel Prize in literature for his surreal and anarchic novels that combine a bleak world view with mordant humor, gave a lecture in Stockholm on Sunday in one of his rare public appearances.The lecture was part of the Nobel week that is underway in Stockholm and Oslo with...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — When Danny Ramirez looks back at the starting point of his acting career, it feels as if the universe, in its own unique way, had chosen a soccer field to mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.“I always say that the universe is the best writer, the most efficient writer,” says Ramirez.He was a...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Researchers, documentary filmmakers and others will soon be able to get their hands on screenwriter and director Lawrence Kasdan’s papers at his alma mater, the University of Michigan.Archivists are about a quarter of the way through cataloging the 150-plus boxes of material that document the 76-year-old fil...

Scotty James met his billionaire-heiress wife shortly after a chance encounter with her brother in a bathroom. He lives in Monaco and has spent his life jet-setting across the world piling up fame and fortune.Yet any inkling that everything Australia’s best snowboarder touches turns to gold is dismissed mere seconds into his new au...

The Japanese writer-director Mamoru Hosoda has made some amazing films that take profound leaps into dreamlike worlds.Hosoda’s “Mirai” (2018) is about a 4-year-old boy who’s resentful of his newborn sister. But in his backyard garden, he meets his sister as a teenager. This is just the first of many domestic time travels, as the bo...

Kate Winslet is due a very thoughtful Christmas gift this year. The veteran actor made a pretty extraordinary maternal gesture, directing, producing and starring in a film her son, Joe Anders, wrote, “Goodbye June,” which is in limited release this weekend and streaming on Netflix Dec. 24.While it might be worth pointing out that t...

Charli XCX is making a trip to the Sundance Film Festival in January. The pop singer-songwriter appears in three films premiering at the 2026 festival, including a mockumentary that she produced and stars in. Programmers on Wednesday unveiled a lineup of 90 feature films set for the festival’s last hurrah in Park City, Utah. The sl...

“I can’t trust my brain right now,” says our hero, Ella, deep into James L. Brooks’ bafflingly disjointed, uneven, unfunny and illogical “Ella McCay.”And finally, nearly two hours into a perplexing muddle of a storyline, we have some clarity of thought. No, dear, we want to tell Ella, played by the lovely Emma Mackey, who is truly...

Imogen Poots has been thinking about a Sam Shepard quote: “People here have become the people they’re pretending to be.”Those 10 words, from a poem in his “Motel Chronicles” collection, are kind of about her character in “Hedda,” the quietly courageous Thea. But they’re also kind of about everything. After 20 years of acting in mov...

NEW YORK (AP) — Raul Malo, the soulful tenor and frontman of the genre-defying, Grammy-winning band The Mavericks, has died. He was 60.Malo died Monday night, his wife, Betty Malo, posted on his Facebook page. He had been battling cancer. The frontman of The Mavericks had documented his health journey on social media since he discl...

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Grammy-nominated singer Jubilant Sykes was stabbed to death at his home in Santa Monica, California, and his son was arrested on suspicion of murder, authorities said Tuesday. Officers responded to a 911 call Monday night reporting an assault in progress at the residence in the coastal city west of Los A...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Crystal Hernández steadies her violin and scans the crowd from the sixth floor of SoFi Stadium as 70,000 fans stream into a Los Angeles Rams home game. Below her, blue-and-gold jerseys mix with charro suits and sombreros, and the low rumble of pregame noise swells into the opening notes of the late Ozzy Osbourne’...

Hamas is expected to hand over the body of the last Israeli captive held in Gaza in the coming days and has commented that it would be open to discussing “freezing” its weapons to facilitate entering the second phase of the ceasefire.Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the second phase would be...

As the chapter closes on Yasser Abu Shabab, 32, the “Popular Forces” militia leader who appeared in Rafah during the war and was widely viewed as a collaborator with Israel, Ghassan al-Duhaini has been named his successor.Soon after Abu Shabab was killed last Thursday, reportedly during a family dispute mediation, al-Duhaini, who w...

Benin’s President Patrice Talon has claimed that the situation is “completely under control” in the Western African nation after the government thwarted an attempted coup on Sunday.Calm returned on Monday to Cotonou, Benin’s administrative centre, after sporadic gunshots were heard across the city throughout Sunday, but a heavy pre...

Syrians are marking the first anniversary of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, as the fractured nation struggles to overcome sectarianism and rebuild its economy following 14 years of civil war.The 53-year-long rule of the al-Assad family ended on December 8, 2024, after a lightning 11-day offensive that took Syria and the world by...

United States President Donald Trump’s administration claims Europe is facing “civilisational erasure” due to mass migration, a narrative often used by far-right parties to drum up support during elections on the continent.In a 33-page “national security strategy” document released late on Thursday, the Trump administration accused...

Australia will introduce the world’s first outright ban on social media for under-16s on Wednesday.The move marks the first time a country has imposed a blanket age-based ban on social media platforms of this scale, raising questions over how it will work and whether it will protect young people.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsl...

Deadly fighting has erupted between Thailand and Cambodia, weeks after the two sides signed a ceasefire deal in Malaysia presided over by United States President Donald Trump.Now the Trump-brokered peace agreement is on the brink of collapse after soldiers from the two Southeast Asian neighbours clashed again on Monday. At least 12...

Yemen’s main southern separatist group, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), claims it has consolidated control across the country’s south.The announcement on Monday, which marks a major power shift, comes following a military operation launched last week.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Are Yemen’s non-Houthi grou...

The richest 10 percent of the world’s population now owns three-quarters of all personal wealth, according to the newly released World Inequality Report 2026.Income is not much different, where the top 50 percent of earners take home more than 90 percent, while the poorest half of the world receives less than 10 percent of total in...

Miami voters on Tuesday elected Democrat Eileen Higgins as mayor, ending a nearly three-decade dry spell for her party after she defeated a Republican endorsed by Donald Trump in the predominantly Hispanic city.While the election was officially nonpartisan, the race took on national significance, pitting Higgins against Republican...

When New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani moves into Gracie Mansion, the elegant 18th-century house long associated with New York’s political elite on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in January, he will leave behind the rather more modest, rent-controlled Queens apartment he has lived in for several years.For a democratic socialist who...

Conservationists have raised the alarm about the Botswana government’s decision to increase its annual trophy-hunting quota for elephants, reigniting a debate over how the country should manage the world’s largest elephant population.Botswana, a largely dry nation which is home to 2.3 million people, has more than 130,000 elephants...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission on Thursday approved licenses for dispensaries, a key step to making medical marijuana available in the state after years of delay.Commission Chairman Rex Vaughn estimated the products will be available in the spring of 2026. The state’s medical marijuana program has b...

California cities pay far more for water on average than districts that supply farms — with some urban water agencies shelling out more than $2,500 per acre-foot of surface water, and some irrigation districts paying nothing, according to new research. A report published Thursday by researchers with the UCLA Institute of the Enviro...

NEW YORK (AP) — The former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch faces a March court hearing to determine whether he’s competent to stand trial on sex trafficking charges after being hospitalized in recent months for dementia and Alzheimer’s symptoms.If he’s found mentally fit, Michael Jeffries could have his day in court by late October, U.S...

The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued new guidance telling airlines they do not have to cover passenger expenses, such as meals or hotel stays, when flight cancellations or long delays are caused by aircraft recalls.The guidance, released on Wednesday, comes after widespread disruptions last month amid the busy Thanksgiv...

Young men housed in Connecticut’s adult prisons have spent long periods in isolation, receiving almost no programming or mental health services, few visits, little recreation and frequent strip searches — conditions that have caused downward mental health spirals in some of these youths, the state Office of the Child Advocate said...

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Conservation groups and an Iñupiat-aligned group sued Thursday to overturn the recent approval of an exploratory drilling program in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, saying it was improperly analyzed by the federal government and could harm caribou and important habitat areas. The U.S. Bureau of Land Man...

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) — The commission that oversees public television in Arkansas voted Thursday to sever ties with PBS, making it the first state to end its contract with the broadcast giant that provides popular television programs such as “Sesame Street,” “Nova” and “Antiques Roadshow.”The eight-member Arkansas Educational...

NEW YORK (AP) — Lululemon Athletica Inc, said Thursday that its CEO Calvin McDonald is stepping down effective Jan. 31 as the athletic wear maker wrestles with a year of disappointing sales. The company, based in Vancouver, Canada, said that McDonald and the board are working together to manage a “smooth transition,” and he will se...

NEW YORK (AP) — “The Eras Tour was a lifetime within my life,” Taylor Swift told the room at a screening of the first two episodes of her new Disney+ docuseries, “The End of an Era.” “It feels insane.”Swift spoke to the small New York crowd on Tuesday — a year and one day since she concluded the history-making Eras Tour. In the roo...

A federal appeals court on Thursday backed a ruling that held Apple in civil contempt for brazenly defying an order designed to open its iPhone app store to other payment systems besides its own, but the decision also reopened a door for the company to collect commission from the rival options. The unanimous decision by a three-jud...

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s economy contracted at an annual pace of 2.3% in the July-September period, the government reported Monday, as exports suffered from the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and public investments slipped.The decline in Japan’s gross domestic product, or the sum value of its goods and services, transl...

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks pulled away from their record heights on Monday.The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% for just its second loss in the last 11 days, but it remains within 0.6% of its all-time high set in October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 215 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite edged down by 0.1%.Berkshire Hatha...

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks largely held in place on Tuesday as Wall Street waits to hear what the Federal Reserve will say Wednesday about where interest rates are heading.The S&P 500 edged down by 0.1% and remained near its all-time high set in October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 179 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq...

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market rose to the edge of its record on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve cut its main interest rate to bolster the job market, and hopes strengthened for more cuts to come in 2026.The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% and finished just shy of its all-time high, which was set in October. The Dow Jones Industria...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve reduced its key interest rate by a quarter-point for the third time in a row Wednesday but signaled that it may leave rates unchanged in the coming months. The cut decreased the Fed’s rate to about 3.6%, the lowest it has been in nearly three years. Lower rates from the Fed can bring down borro...

NEW YORK (AP) — The author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott revealed $7.1 billion in donations to nonprofits in 2025 Tuesday, marking a significant increase in her annual giving from recent years. Writing in an essay on her website, Scott said, “This dollar total will likely be reported in the news, but any dollar amount is a van...

Disney is investing $1 billion in OpenAI and will bring characters such as Mickey Mouse, Cinderella and Luke Skywalker to the AI company’s Sora video generation tool, in a licensing deal that the two companies announced on Thursday. At the same time, Disney went after Google, demanding the tech company stop exploiting its copyright...

When people talk about baking, they often focus on the final product. The tender cookies, the domed muffins, the rich brownies. But the real draw of baking starts long before you roll out the pie crust.Baking can be many things: an act of creation, connection, control. There’s something comforting about the structure of it: the mea...

NEW YORK (AP) — As a child growing up in Italy, Lidia Bastianich recalls seeing one particular cookbook in just about everyone’s kitchen. It was called “The Talisman of Happiness” and it was often given as a wedding present to couples starting new lives together.“It has all the basic recipes. And it says the basic thing — that food...

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somali migrant Mohamed Abdi Awale endured horrors on an ill-fated journey across Africa to seek a better life in the West — but he’s determined to try again one day, even aiming for the U.S. despite increasing restrictions.Awale is one of 165 Somali migrants recently repatriated after being detained in Lib...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s advisers and Ukrainian officials say they’ll meet for a third day of talks on Saturday after making progress on finding agreement on a security framework for postwar Ukraine.The two sides also offered the sober assessment that any “real progress toward any agreement” ultimately will depend...

LONDON (AP) — Germany’s president laid a wreath Friday at Coventry Cathedral in central England, symbolically atoning for the atrocities of World War II as his country and the United Kingdom seek to bolster an alliance to combat the new war raging in Europe.Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s pilgrimage commemorates the Nazi bombing of Coven...

LONDON (AP) — European Union regulators on Friday fined X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, 120 million euros ($140 million) for breaches of the bloc’s digital regulations, in a move that risks rekindling tensions with Washington over free speech.The European Commission issued its decision following an investigation it opened two...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has set forth a new national security strategy that paints European allies as weak and aims to reassert America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The document released Friday by the White House is sure to roil long-standing U.S. allies in Europe for its scathing critiqu...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Frank Gehry, who designed some of the most imaginative buildings ever constructed and achieved a level of worldwide acclaim seldom afforded any architect, has died. He was 96.Gehry died Friday in his home in Santa Monica after a brief respiratory illness, said Meaghan Lloyd, chief of staff at Gehry Partners LLP.G...

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Charles Schwab Cup champion Stewart Cink and Jason Caron combined for 22.5 points in two matches Friday to help the Americans pull closer to Europe heading into the final session of singles in the Skechers World Champions Cup.Europe got solid performances from three former Ryder Cup captains — Darren Clarke,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The World Cup final will kick off at 3 p.m. EDT next July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.FIFA announced the start times for the tournament’s 104 matches on Saturday, a day after the draw for the expanded 48-nation tournament to be played in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The kickoff time allows...

LONDON (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met British, French and German leaders in London on Monday in a show of European support for Ukraine at what they called a “critical moment” in the U.S.-led effort to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.Prime Minister Keir Starmer held talks with Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ge...

BRUSSELS (AP) — A top European Union official on Monday warned the United States against interfering in Europe’s affairs and said only European citizens can decide which parties should govern them.European Council President António Costa’s remarks came in reaction to the Trump administration’s new national security strategy, which...

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union officials on Monday were finalizing a major overhaul of its migration system, including streamlined deportations and increased detentions, after years of fierce debate on the issue has seen the rise of far-right political parties.Since a surge in asylum-seekers and other migrants to Europe a decade ag...

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania’s government on Tuesday declared a national emergency over security risks posed by meteorological balloons sent from Russia-allied Belarus that have violated its airspace in recent weeks, while the Belarusian leader called for negotiations on border tensions and said his country “does not need wa...

PRAGUE (AP) — Populist billionaire Andrej Babiš was sworn in Tuesday as the Czech Republic’s new prime minister, following October’s parliamentary election, as the next government is expected to steer the country away from supporting Ukraine and reject European Union policies on issues like the environment.Babiš, previously prime m...

LONDON (AP) — Google faces fresh antitrust scrutiny from European Union regulators, who opened an investigation Tuesday into the company’s use of online content for its artificial intelligence models and services. The latest regulatory flexing by Brussels risks antagonizing President Donald Trump’s administration, though EU officia...

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that the Trump administration’s new national security strategy underscores the need for Europe to become “much more independent” from the United States in terms of security policy.Merz also pushed back against the notion that European democracy needs saving. The U.S. strat...

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovakia’s parliament approved on Tuesday a government plan to dismantle an independent office that protects those who report corruption and other criminal activities.A total of 78 lawmakers representing the coalition government led by populist Prime Minister Robert Fico voted in favor of the move in the...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had no time to hold a traditional news conference during a whirlwind, 36-hour trip across Europe this week, so he improvised.For the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of his country, Zelenskyy — who usually takes reporters’ questions in person while trotting t...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is expected to vote this week on a bill authorizing $900 billion for military programs, including boosting pay for service members, cutting Pentagon diversity efforts and requiring footage to be released of forces blowing up alleged drug boats.The National Defense Authorization Act is traditionally a str...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said he and European leaders discussed proposals to end the war in Ukraine in “pretty strong terms” Wednesday, adding that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “has to be realistic” about his country’s position on a peace plan.As tension builds around a U.S. push for a settlement, the leade...

BRUSSELS (AP) — As sympathy for immigrants erodes around the world, European nations agreed Wednesday to consider changes that rights advocates say would weaken migrant protections that have underpinned European law since World War II.The consensus coalesced as mainstream political parties across Europe have adopted tougher migrati...

Most American teenagers use YouTube and TikTok daily, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, and roughly one in five said they were on one of the two platforms “almost constantly.”The survey, which looked at the habits of 1,458 teens between ages 13 and 17, suggests that despite growing concern over the...

When a Chinese company bought the Dutch chipmaker Nexperia in 2019, its head quickly began plotting to move research and technology to China, according to the chipmaker’s former chief executive.The effort came as China was trying to build up its capacity in crucial semiconductor chips — and went largely unchecked.Now, those early m...

He grew up in a family of Palestinian refugees in Jordan. His one-room home, filled with eight siblings, their parents and cows, lacked electricity and running water. Early on, a schoolbook’s depiction of atomic building blocks caught his eye. When he was 15, his father, a butcher, sent him to study in the United States.Now a profe...

The bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery has seen the titans of Netflix and Paramount courting President Trump at the White House and even at the Kennedy Center.Every new meeting is ratcheting up the pressure — not just on the deal, but on a little-known government official named Gail Slater.Ms. Slater, 54, heads the Department o...

Two years ago, Guillaume Broche stepped into a small theater on the back streets of Paris armed with motion-capture equipment and an angsty script about a mythical being known as the paintress who has the power to kill anyone with a flick of her brush.The actors who rehearsed with iPhones strapped to their heads, capturing every ey...

In 2021, after Apple gave up on its secretive plans to build a driverless electric car, Doug Field left the technology company to embark on a mission impossible meant to save the American auto industry.He rejoined Ford Motor, where he had started his career decades earlier, with the grand ambition of designing electric vehicles tha...

Do Kwon, a crypto entrepreneur who created two virtual currencies that spectacularly melted down, prompting a market crisis in 2022, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday.Mr. Kwon, 34, became a cautionary tale of crypto hubris when the digital currencies he designed — TerraUSD and Luna — lost all their value practically o...

President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that aims to neuter state laws that limit the artificial intelligence industry, a win for tech companies that have lobbied against regulation of the booming technology.The order grants broad authority to the attorney general to sue states and overturn laws that do not support th...

In its rivalry with the United States, China has racked up a series of wins in recent weeks.The Trump administration has softened its criticism of China’s Communist Party in a strategy document. It has reopened a channel for high-end chip sales that Washington once treated as untouchable. And President Trump has held his tongue as...

I didn’t expect to invite thousands of strangers into one of my most personal choices. But one evening in September, with a time-sensitive decision to make, I opened my laptop, went to Reddit and posted photos of myself in three potential wedding dresses.The comments arrived within minutes. “For sure, dress #2. No comparison,” one...

Australia this week became the first country to bar anyone under the age of 16 from gaining access to social media apps like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok as part of a push to prevent children from being exposed to the potential harm caused by using the platforms.The decision has stirred debate, with some people expressing skeptic...

Over the summer, the chip maker Intel made an offer to buy Rivos, a start-up that designs artificial intelligence chips.Intel’s bid, described by two people with knowledge of the talks, was part of a sale process by Rivos, which was eventually snapped up by Meta in October. What Meta paid to buy Rivos was not disclosed, but the sta...

When Mark Zuckerberg revamped Meta’s artificial intelligence operations this year, he recruited a new leader — Alexandr Wang, a 28-year-old entrepreneur — to build a team of top researchers from rivals like OpenAI and Google.That team, called TBD Lab (for “to be determined”), was placed in a siloed space next to Mr. Zuckerberg’s of...

In a watershed moment for Hollywood and generative artificial intelligence, Disney said on Thursday that it would buy a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and bring its characters to Sora, the A.I. company’s short-form video platform.A curated selection of videos made with Sora will be available to stream on Disney+ as part of the three-ye...

Just before Thanksgiving, Google boasted that its new and improved artificial intelligence model, Gemini 3, had surpassed the technology from its young rival OpenAI and was now the best in the world.Less than a month later, OpenAI has released a new model of its own, GPT-5.2, and has claimed that it is “the best model yet for real-...

The United States has approved the sale of advanced technology and upgrades for Pakistan’s F-16 fighter planes worth approximately $686m.The deal was struck amid simmering tensions between Pakistan and its neighbour, India, which engaged in a five-day war following a rebel attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in May this year. The...

A judge in the United States has ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention.The ruling on Thursday from US District Judge Paula Xinis is the latest turn in the case of Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported by the administration of US President Donald Trump to El Salvador in March.Recommended Stories...

Washington, DC – American journalist Dylan Collins wants to know “who pulled the trigger” in the 2023 Israeli double-tap strike in south Lebanon that injured him and killed Reuters video reporter Issam Abdallah.Collins and his supporters are also seeking information about the military orders that led to the deadly attack. But more...

An oil tanker seized off the coast of Venezuela will be brought to a United States port, according to White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, who floated the possibility of Washington seizing more sanctioned ships in the region.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Leavitt addressed a US military operation a day prior to take contr...

A federal judge has said the administration of United States President Donald Trump acted unlawfully in ending a programme aimed at helping communities become more resilient to natural disasters.The Trump administration had targeted the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) programme as part of a wider effort to...

The Midwestern state of Indiana has dealt a setback to United States President Donald Trump’s redistricting push ahead of the pivotal 2026 midterm elections, voting down legislation to redraw its congressional map.Late on Thursday afternoon, Indiana’s state Senate voted 31 to 19 to reject the proposed congressional districts, despi...

Intense rains that triggered “catastrophic flooding” in North America’s Pacific Northwest have finally eased, though meteorologists warn the effects of overflowing rivers and floodwaters will continue to be felt for several days.Tens of thousands of people were told to evacuate on Thursday across the US states of Oregon and Washing...

Here’s where things stand on Thursday, December 11:Fighting Ukrainian sea drones hit and disabled a tanker involved in trading Russian oil as it sailed through Ukraine’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea to the Russian port of Novorossiysk, a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) official said. The Dashan tanker was sailing at m...

Ukrainian forces have reported an unusually large Russian mechanised attack inside the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, where Russia has reportedly massed a force of some 156,000 troops to take the beleaguered and now destroyed former logistics hub.“The Russians used armoured vehicles, cars, and motorcycles. The convoys attempte...

Italian cuisine, long cherished for its deep regional traditions, has been officially recognised by UNESCO as an “intangible cultural heritage” – a designation the country hopes will elevate its global prestige and draw more visitors.“We are the first in the world to receive this recognition, which honours who we are and our identi...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged European leaders to “go further” in modernising the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), arguing that the treaty is no longer fit for purpose in an era of irregular migration and as far-right political parties gain influence across Europe.On Wednesday, European countries agreed t...

Widespread disruption has hit Portuguese air travel and trains, hospitals and schools after trade unions called the biggest nationwide strike action in more than a decade against government labour reforms.Heavy disruption on Thursday has been felt across public sectors as workers protest against a draft law aiming to simplify firin...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is holding urgent talks with leaders and officials from approximately 30 countries backing Kyiv’s efforts to secure more favourable terms in negotiations to end the war with Russia, deep into its fourth year.Ukraine is facing mounting pressure from Russia on the battlefield in its eastern Don...

Bulgaria’s government has resigned following weeks of street protests against its economic policies and its perceived failure to tackle corruption.Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov announced the resignation of his cabinet in a televised statement on Thursday, minutes before parliament had been due to vote on a no-confidence motion.Re...

Austria’s lower house of parliament has passed a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools after a previous ban was overturned on the grounds that it was discriminatory.Lawmakers passed the new legislation on Thursday by a large majority, meaning that girls younger than 14 will not be permitted to wear headscarves that “cover the head i...

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the United States is pushing for Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the Donetsk region to establish a “free economic zone” in the Kyiv-held parts of eastern Ukraine that Moscow wants to control.Zelenskyy confirmed on Thursday that his country had presented the US with a 20-point set of count...

Police in southwest England say more than 600 artefacts linked to the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth have been stolen from the Bristol Museum’s collection.Avon and Somerset Police released images of four suspects on Thursday as part of an appeal for information.Investigators say the items, described as having “signi...

Here’s where things stand on Friday, December 12:Fighting Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked the Russian army after its forces reportedly took control of the town of Siversk in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s military responded, saying it remained in control of the town. News agencies were unable to verify the battlefield claims a...

Spending hours observing Laduma Ngxokolo, one can tell that he has long been haunted — and propelled — by a single question: What, exactly, makes a man?Mr. Ngxokolo, 38, who created MaXhosa Africa, a luxury knitwear label that has found fans in Michelle Obama and Beyoncé, grew up in Port Elizabeth, a coastal city in South Africa’s...

The West African country of Benin was thrown into a state of confusion on Sunday after an attempted coup by members of the military, which the government insisted had been quelled, raised questions about the nation’s stability.Patrice Talon, president of Benin, appeared on state television Sunday evening after a day of chaos and co...

One hundred children who were abducted from a Catholic school in northwestern Nigeria last month have been released, government and church officials said on Monday, but it is still unclear when the children will be reunited with their families.The released abductees were among more than 260 mainly primary and nursery school childre...

Repeated strikes on a kindergarten and hospital in Sudan killed 114 people, including 63 children, and targeted the responders who were trying to get the wounded to safety, the World Health Organization said on Monday.The attack was the kind of mass atrocity that has marked Sudan’s two-and-a-half-year civil war, in which civilians...

After 128 years in exile, the artifacts were finally home.On display at the Benin City National Museum in Nigeria last month were about 100 Benin Bronzes — priceless items that British forces looted from a nearby royal palace in 1897. There were bronze animal statues, carved elephants tusks and imposing sculptures of the kings, cal...

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, a world-renowned expert on elephants who was one of the first to study their social behavior in the wild and who dedicated his later years to fighting poaching, died on Monday at his home in Nairobi, Kenya. He was 83.His daughter Dudu Douglas-Hamilton confirmed the death, but did not specify a cause.Mr. Dougl...

A rebel militia backed by Rwanda announced on Wednesday that it had seized the city of Uvira in the Democratic Republic of Congo, just days after President Trump hosted the leaders of both countries to sign a peace deal.By capturing Uvira, the militia, M23, now controls both the North and South Kivu regions in eastern Congo. Uvira...

The first contraction came sharp and sudden, curling through Edith Ingasiani’s body as the sun peeked over Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh.Listen to this article with reporter commentaryShe had kept her pregnancy a secret, hiding her growing belly beneath loose and lengthy robes as she scrubbed floors and folded laundry for a middle...

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal vaccine advisory committee voted on Friday to end the longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born.A loud chorus of medical and public health leaders decried the actions of the panel, whose current members were all appointed by U.S. Health Secretary R...

NEW YORK (AP) — The number of Americans signing up for Affordable Care Act health insurance for 2026 is moderately higher than it was at a similar time last year, initial new federal data shows, even as subsidies set to expire at the end of 2025 will make the coverage more expensive for many.Seen at face value, the data from the Ce...

When Alessandro Barbera was rushed to a California hospital with infant botulism in October, his father had barely heard of the disease, never mind the rare and costly treatment that likely saved the newborn’s life.Now, however, Tony Barbera is deeply grateful for BabyBIG, the sole antidote to the paralyzing and potentially deadly...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Food and Drug Administration officials have opened a safety review of two injectable drugs used to protect babies and toddlers from RSV, the respiratory virus that sends thousands of American children to the hospital each year.The long-acting drugs from Merck and Sanofi are not vaccines, but the government review...

The Trump administration kicked off what could be a contentious process to rework the trade deal that governs North American business this week, as it began holding hearings about the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that President Trump signed into law in 2020 during his first term.Farmers, academics, trade groups and others assembled...

Last month, we reported on new research that found home insurance prices have increased drastically, particularly in areas most exposed to climate-related risk.And the research showed something new and equally worrisome: The effects of the higher rates are spilling over into the broader real estate market, suppressing home prices i...

Before President Trump’s tariffs took effect this year, the Chicken of the Sea factory in Lyons, Ga., was running its production lines full speed, canning enough imported tuna to build up four to six months of inventory in warehouses around the United States.It was an effort to mitigate the effect of tariffs, and it worked — tempor...

At a congressional hearing in June, Jerome H. Powell touched briefly on his goals for his final year at the helm of the Federal Reserve.“All I want to do in what’s left of my time at the Fed is to have the economy be strong, have inflation be under control and have a solid labor market,” Mr. Powell told members of the House Financi...

On President Trump’s proclaimed “Liberation Day” in April, when he announced the tariffs that have upended global trade, he vowed that “jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country.” The imposition of taxes on imports, the president promised, “will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers,” leadi...

The dot-com boom, a period of wild exuberance and extreme hype that began in the mid-1990s, built the foundations for the contemporary wired world. When the internet mania turned to bust in March 2000, it made a bit of a mess.The trouble spread from Silicon Valley to the larger economy, which went into recession. More than $5 trill...

In the first few months after President Trump returned to the White House, he held firm to an American technology policy that stretches back to the depths of the Cold War.Don’t sell your adversaries America’s most advanced technology, the thinking went in those early months — starting with the computing power that has given the Uni...

The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday in a highly contentious decision. The split among policymakers suggested that the central bank may be done lowering borrowing costs for the time being unless there are clear signs that the labor market is weakening further.The decision to cut...

This was supposed to be the moment that President Trump put the country’s focus on his economic agenda. But as he embarked this week on a messaging campaign to assure the American public he is concerned about the cost of living, the president made one thing clear: He’d rather talk about anything else.Mr. Trump didn’t mention the wo...

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services narrowed more than 10 percent from August to September, as the Trump administration’s tariffs continued to weigh on trade, data from the Commerce Department showed on Thursday.Imports grew just 0.6 percent from August to $342.1 billion, while exports rose 3 percent in the month, to $289....

Paired with high-deductible healthcare plans, health savings accounts help ease healthcare costs. HSAs are a triple tax-advantaged vehicle in the tax code, allowing for pretax contributions, tax-free compounding, and tax-free withdrawals for qualified medical expenses. However, few owners fund their HSAs to the maximum, and even fe...

If you’re in the market for a new vehicle, the remaining weeks of December could very well be a great time to buy. Several recurring industry trends converge at year-end, creating favorable conditions that can help you save money. The auto experts at Edmunds have come up with three key reasons why December often delivers the opport...

NEW YORK (AP) — The new Met Gala co-chairs have been announced, and it’s a high-powered quartet: Beyoncé, Venus Williams and Nicole Kidman will join Vogue’s Anna Wintour in hosting the star-packed event next May.Williams, who has never hosted before, takes the role seven years after her younger sister and fellow tennis champion, Se...

In Tuscany, schiacciata — which is pronounced skee-ah-CHA-tah and roughly means “crushed,” “flattened” or “squashed” — is a versatile word applied to a variety of breads and bread-like things, from a piece of sweet focaccia studded with roasted grapes around the autumn harvest to a savory situation that more closely resembles a pan...

As shoppers flood stores across the country during the year’s biggest shopping season, retail workers are bracing for what many describe as the most demanding — and often demoralizing — stretch of the job.“It magnifies everything,” said Nick Leighton, host of the podcast “Were You Raised by Wolves?,” which he co-hosts with comedian...

Sophie Kinsella, who has died at age 55, had a special talent for characters who persevered through the most embarrassing mishaps — often of their own making. Here are five novels that helped keep readers laughing, and relating, over the past 30 years.“The Tennis Party” (1995)Fellow writers could only envy Kinsella’s success, how e...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Compas, a beloved Haitian music and dance genre inspired by merengue and infused with percussion, made UNESCO’s cultural heritage list on Wednesday.The syncopated rhythm, created in the 1950s, wafts from bars, bedrooms and businesses across Haiti, lifting spirits and providing solace from the country’s...

NEW YORK (AP) — Melanie Moore, who runs the Ohio-based Cincy Book Bus, is one of hundreds of booksellers who received a pleasant surprise for the holidays: a check for $500 from author James Patterson. “I’ve never taken a salary. All profits from the bookstore go to buy books for kids in need,” Moore said in a statement released th...

NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point Wednesday for the third time since September, bringing its key rate to about 3.6%, the lowest in nearly three years. Before September, it had gone nine months without a cut. The benchmark rate is the rate at which banks borrow and lend to one ano...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — As Australia began enforcing a world-first social media ban for children under 16 years old this week, Denmark is planning to follow its lead and severely restrict social media access for young people.The Danish government announced last month that it had secured an agreement by three governing coalition...

NEW YORK (AP) — You don’t need to major in astrophysics at Harvard to become an actor — but it doesn’t necessarily hurt, either.“I thought that’s what you go there to do. It’s like why are you paying all this money to go to this fancy school if you’re not going to study a hard science to try to save the world? … But I was quickly h...

The Powerball jackpot has grown to an estimated $1 billion for Saturday night’s drawing after lottery officials said no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Wednesday night.The U.S. has seen more than a dozen lottery jackpot prizes exceed $1 billion since 2016. Here is a look at the largest U.S. jackpots won and the places where th...

ROME (AP) — Italian food is known and loved around the world for its fresh ingredients and palate-pleasing tastes. The U.N.'s cultural agency gave foodies on Wednesday another reason to celebrate their pizza, pasta and tiramisu by listing Italian cooking as part of the world’s “intangible” cultural heritage.UNESCO added the rituals...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — With eyes closed and a small mallet in hand, the Rev. Kyohei Mikawa gently struck the bronze Himalayan singing bowl resting in his palm and bathed the Buddhist sanctuary in a resonant hum.Mikawa spent the next 45 minutes skimming bowls, playing a tongue drum and chanting to create an immersive experience called a...

FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s effusive praise for Donald Trump and the decision by the world football governing body to award a peace prize to the US president have triggered a formal complaint over ethics violations and political neutrality.Human rights group FairSquare said on Tuesday that it has filed a complaint with FIFA’s...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of Congress clashed Thursday over President Donald Trump’s use of the National Guard in American cities, with Republicans saying the deployments were needed to fight lawlessness while Democrats called them an extraordinary abuse of military power that violated states’ rights.Top military officials faced qu...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some of the country’s most prestigious colleges are enrolling record numbers of low-income students — a growing admissions priority in the absence of affirmative action.America’s top campuses remain crowded with wealth, but some universities have accelerated efforts to reach a wider swath of the country, recruitin...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Joel Brennan, a former top official in Gov. Tony Evers’ administration, announced Thursday that he is running to succeed the two-term Democrat, joining a crowded primary field for the 2026 election.Brennan, president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, told The Associated Press that he would be a governor who b...

NEW YORK (AP) — When senators voted on rival health bills Thursday, they had two chances to address expiring COVID-era subsidies that will result in millions of Americans saddled with higher insurance costs in the new year.But the Senate rejected both, and hopes of solving the problem this year are running dry. Affordable Care Act...

SHAKOPEE, Minn. (AP) — Mike Lindell, the fervent supporter of President Donald Trump known to TV viewers as the “MyPillow Guy,” officially entered the race for Minnesota governor Thursday in hopes of winning the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Gov. Tim Walz in 2026.Lindell made the announcement at a news conference at...

Senators from both parties pushed Thursday for changes to a massive defense bill after crash investigators and victims’ families warned the legislation would undo key safety reforms stemming from a collision between an airliner and Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people. The head of the National Transportation...

Advocates and state agency directors pitched recommendations to lawmakers Tuesday on how to prioritize legislative funds for the health and well-being of women, children and families during the upcoming legislative session. The nine-member Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families, chaired by Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican...

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is proposing to overhaul a regulatory panel that monitors the nation’s financial stability, by advocating for looser regulations. The Financial Stability Oversight Council, a U.S. body created in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, monitors risks to the financial sys...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The man accused of killing a Ukrainian refugee on a commuter train in North Carolina’s largest city appeared in court on a federal count Thursday, hours before the government announced a similar charge against a different man for an unrelated, non-fatal stabbing on the same light rail system.Decarlos Brown Jr...

A meeting by a council appointed by President Donald Trump that was meant to announce recommended reforms to the Federal Emergency Management Agency was abruptly canceled Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter and a separate White House official, prolonging months of anticipation over how the administration will o...

At a California State Senate committee hearing this year, the director of CalTrans, Tony Tavares, showed a simple chart that might have caused the assembled lawmakers some alarm.It was a series of black bars representing the death toll on California’s roads in each of the past 20 years. Fatalities had been falling until 2010, when...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday dismissed an effort to impeach President Donald Trump brought by Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, the second time this year that the Democrat’s efforts to launch impeachment proceedings have been turned aside.The House voted 237-140 to shelve Green’s impeachment resolution, with 47 Democrat...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The crime-fighting arm of the IRS spent less time tracking down tax evaders this year, instead picking up some new responsibilities, such as helping with immigration enforcement and supporting National Guard deployments in two Democratic-led cities.IRS Criminal Investigations Chief Guy Ficco spoke with The Associa...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Local officials in Florida’s capital city have voted to sell a city-owned golf course built on top of the graves of enslaved people to a once-segregated country club, despite vocal opposition from local residents and historians.Evidence of Florida’s slave-holding past lies just beneath the surface of the ma...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve’s governing board unanimously approved the reappointment of nearly all of the Fed’s 12 regional bank presidents, a group that has come under scrutiny by the Trump administration. The Fed’s board approved the reappointment of 11 of the presidents, with the only exception being the Atlanta Fed, w...

The U.S. Mint unveiled the designs for coins commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence next year. They depict the founding documents and the Revolutionary War, but so far, not President Donald Trump, despite a push among some of his allies to get his face on a coin. The Mint abandoned designs developed during Joe...

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration has not sold off his multimillion-dollar stake in the airline he led since 1999 despite a promise to do so as part of his ethics agreement, according to a Democratic senator.In a letter to Bryan Bedford this week, Sen. Maria Cantwell said he vowed to sell all his shares in Republic Ai...

More than 18,000 Amtrak workers will receive a $900 bonus before the end of the year, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced on Thursday evening. Funding for the bonuses will come from Amtrak’s executive leadership team bonus packages, the statement said. The federal administration urged executive leadership “to forgo 50%...

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore billions of dollars in canceled FEMA disaster mitigation funding, siding with 22 states and the District of Columbia that sued over the canceled grants this summer.President Donald Trump’s administration said in April it was “ending” the Buildi...

President Donald Trump issued a symbolic pardon for Tina Peters on Thursday, but it alone won’t free the former Colorado elections administrator who was convicted under state laws of orchestrating a data breach scheme driven by false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.Trump’s pardon power does not extend to state cri...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Two lawsuits seeking to redraw Wisconsin’s congressional districts were scheduled to be discussed in court Friday as a pair of three-judge panels, never-before-used in the state, meet for the first time.The Wisconsin Supreme Court last month ordered that the redistricting cases be first heard by the three-judge...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two dozen House Republicans joined Democrats Thursday to pass a bill that would restore collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees, an attempt to overturn an executive order that President Donald Trump issued earlier this year.The measure passed 231-195 after reaching the fl...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A grand jury declined for a second time in a week to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday in another major blow to the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute the president’s political opponents. The repeated failures amounted to a stunning rebuke of prosecutors’ bid to resurrect a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group in Congress is urging the Education Department to add nursing to a list of college programs that are considered “professional,” adding to public outcry after nurses were omitted from a new agency definition.The Trump administration’s list of professional programs includes medicine, law and theol...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Many political candidates like to talk up their résumé in their stump speech.Ryan Crosswell reads from his resignation letter.A former federal prosecutor now running for Congress, he quit in February when President Donald Trump’s administration dropped corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump successfully harnessed voter anxiety over the economy, immigration and crime last year to retake the White House — and lift plenty of other Republicans into office with him. But as the party tries to keep its grip on complete control in Washington, that strategy may be harder to replicate. R...

BANGKOK (AP) — An airstrike by Myanmar ’s military destroyed a hospital in an area controlled by a leading rebel armed force, killing 34 patients and medical staff, according to a rescue worker and independent media reports Thursday.About 80 other people were injured in the attack Wednesday night on the general hospital in Mrauk-U...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The landmark Dutch museum that holds some of the most famous paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer announced Thursday that it is planning a new branch in the southern city of Eindhoven to give more people access to its vast trove of art and artifacts.The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which has more than a mil...

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — The United States on Thursday warned it could cut foreign aid to South Sudan, accusing the government of imposing exorbitant fees on humanitarian groups and obstructing their operations.In a strongly worded statement, released by the State Department’s Bureau for African Affairs, the U.S. said these actions...

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan on Thursday urged major social media platforms to crack down on accounts linked to militant groups, warning that failure to act could lead to stricter government measures or legal action.At a news conference in Islamabad, Deputy Interior Minister Talal Chaudhry said scores of accounts on X were operating f...

NEW YORK (AP) — A new digital platform designed to combat censorship is being established to preserve the archives of news outlets that have been shut down or are facing extinction in authoritarian countries.The platform is called Kronika, Russian for “chronicle,” in honor of The Chronicle of Current Events, which kept track of hum...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Tanzania’s main opposition party called Thursday for the establishment of a transitional government after a disputed election that it was barred from taking part in, saying the current government has “no legitimacy.”John Heche, vice chair of the opposition party Chadema, said the United Nations and African con...

NEW YORK (AP) — Accompanying Time’s annual person of the year selection Thursday is a magazine cover that resembles the “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photograph from the 1930s showing eight of the “ Architects of AI ” sitting on the beam.“This was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it beca...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis was elected Thursday as president of the Eurogroup — a move that would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago when the country was in the throes of a deep financial crisis that almost saw it tossed out of the eurozone altogether.The Eurogroup is the informal body of...

GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland’s long-celebrated yodeling has received a response from the U.N. cultural agency: The Alpine tradition of chant and song is indeed worthy of classification in a list of the world’s cultural heritage. A committee of Paris-based UNESCO, meeting in New Delhi, on Thursday listed yodeling in its list of intangi...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said Thursday that his administration is partnering with Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI to bring artificial intelligence into more than 5,000 public schools.The millennial leader, who previously made El Salvador the first nation to make bitcoin leg...

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss singer Nemo, who won the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, said Thursday they will return the winner’s trophy because Israel is being allowed to compete in the politically troubled pop music competition.In an Instagram video, Nemo held the microphone-shaped glass ornament and said “today I no longer feel like this t...

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday linked the seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela to the Trump administration’s counterdrug efforts in Latin America as tensions escalate with the government of President Nicolás Maduro.Noem’s assertion, which came during her testimony to the House Homeland Security C...

SAO PAULO (AP) — More than 1.3 million Sao Paulo residents remained without electricity late Thursday after strong winds caused trees to fall onto the Brazilian metropolis’ grid the day before. Authorities said almost 400 flights were canceled.Utility Enel said in a statement it had returned services to 1.2 million of its 2.2 milli...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. imposed sanctions on three nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, among others, on Thursday as President Donald Trump looks to inflict further pressure on the South American nation.The new sanctions on Franqui Flores, Carlos Flores and Efrain Campo come a day after Trump announced that the U.S. h...

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Nearly 30,000 live animals were rescued in a monthlong global operation against wildlife trafficking that resulted in a record number of seizures, the international police body Interpol said on Thursday.Operation Thunder 2025 from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 involved law enforcement agencies and wildlife and...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed “solidarity with the Venezuelan people” on Thursday amid growing tensions between Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, and the Trump administration.The Kremlin said in a statement that Putin spoke with Maduro by phone and reaffirmed his support for Venezuelan leader’s policy o...