BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Fabian Espinel last year helped organize roadblocks where young people protested against police violence and government plans to increase taxes on lower income Colombians. Now, as his country heads into its presidential election Sunday, he walks the streets of the capital’s working-class sectors handing out flyers and painting murals in support […]
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Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia asserted Saturday that its troops and separatist fighters had captured a key railway junction in eastern Ukraine, the second small city to fall to Moscow’s forces this week as they fought to seize all of the country’s contested Donbas region. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the city of […]
Fleeing the Russians: Evacuations are slow, arduous, fraught
BAKHMUT, Ukraine (AP) — To a threatening soundtrack of air raid sirens and booming artillery, civilians are fleeing towns and cities in eastern Ukraine as Russian forces advance. Negotiating narrow apartment building staircases, volunteers carry the elderly and infirm in their arms, in stretchers or in wheelchairs to waiting minibuses, which then drive them to […]
WHO: Nearly 200 cases of monkeypox in more than 20 countries
LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization says nearly 200 cases of monkeypox have been reported in more than 20 countries not usually known to have outbreaks of the unusual disease, but described the epidemic as “containable” and proposed creating a stockpile to equitably share the limited vaccines and drugs available worldwide. During a public […]
Shanghai lockdown: Residents demand release, and some get it
BEIJING (AP) — On a balmy Sunday night, residents of an upscale Shanghai compound took to the streets to decry lockdown restrictions imposed by their community. By the following morning, they were free to leave. The triumphant story quickly spread on chat groups across the Chinese city this week, sparking one question in the minds […]
Ukraine fears repeat of Mariupol horrors elsewhere in Donbas
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Moscow-backed separatists pounded eastern Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region Friday, claiming to capture a railway hub, as Ukrainian officials pleaded for the sophisticated Western weapons they say they need to stop the onslaught. The advance of Russian forces raised fears that cities in the region would undergo the same horrors inflicted on […]
UK minister: Russian meddling ‘must be stopped’ in Bosnia
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss visited Bosnia’s capital Thursday to reaffirm the U.K.’s commitment to the ethnically divided Balkan country amid growing fears of what she described as malign influence from Russia. Truss was meeting with top officials in Sarajevo to announce a deepened security and economic partnership between Bosnia and […]
Davos updates | Iran’s foreign minister talks war, nuke deal
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Iran’s foreign minister sat before an audience of Western business executives and policymakers at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, fielding questions about why Iran has yet to condemn Russia for its invasion in Ukraine and why efforts to revive its nuclear deal have stalled. It was a […]
Kevin Spacey charged in UK with 4 counts of sexual assault
LONDON (AP) — British prosecutors said Thursday they have charged actor Kevin Spacey with four counts of sexual assault against three men. The Crown Prosecution Service said Spacey “has also been charged with causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.” The alleged incidents took place in London between March 2005 and […]
Russia slams sanctions, seeks to blame West for food crisis
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Moscow pressed the West on Thursday to lift sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, seeking to shift the blame for a growing food crisis that has been worsened by Kyiv’s inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products due to the conflict. Britain immediately accused […]