AP World News

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — The United States, which played a major role in ending border clashes last year between Thailand and Cambodia, will be providing $45 million in aid packages to the two Southeast Asian countries to help ensure regional stability and prosperity, a senior U.S. State Department official said Friday.

By The Associated Press Russia said Friday it used its latest missile against Ukraine for a second time in the nearly 4-year-old war, a forceful signal to Kyiv and its Western allies as U.S.-led peace talks have entered a new and crucial stage. The hypersonic Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile hit Ukraine’s western Lviv region

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — He has been in exile for nearly 50 years. His father, Iran’s shah, was so widely hated that millions took to the streets in 1979, forcing him from power. Nevertheless, Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi is trying to position himself as a player in

By FATMA KHALED Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Yemen’s main separatist group and its institutions will be dismantled effective Friday, the group’s secretary-general said, following weeks of unrest in areas of southern Yemen and a day after its leader fled to the United Arab Emirates. Abdulrahman Jalal al-Sebaihi said the Southern Transitional Council would shut

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — David Bowie’s bedroom could soon be London’s newest tourist attraction. The house where the musician grew from suburban schoolboy to rock ‘n’ roll starman has been bought by a charity that plans to open it to the public. The Heritage of London Trust said Thursday that the

By WAFAA SHURAFA Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes across Gaza have killed at least 13 people, according to health officials, as U.S. President Donald Trump was expected to announce his Board of Peace to oversee the fragile ceasefire. Health officials and family members said at least one child was among

MARTIGNY, Switzerland (AP) — Switzerland will hold a memorial service Friday, part of a national day of mourning to honor the 40 people who were killed in an Alpine bar fire earlier this month during a New Year’s celebration. An additional 116 people were injured, many of them seriously, when the fire broke out less

By OMAR FARUK Associated Press MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Somalia’s capital to protest Israel’s recognition of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, waving Somali flags and chanting patriotic songs in a show of national unity. The protest on Thursday night took place at Taleh Square in downtown Mogadishu, where the crowds

By SAMYA KULLAB and ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a large-scale overnight attack, officials said Friday, killing at least four people in the capital. For only the second time in the nearly 4-year-old war, it used a powerful, new hypersonic

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Protests in Iran raged Friday night in the Islamic Republic, online videos purported to show, despite a threat from the country’s theocracy to crack down on demonstrators after shutting down the internet and cutting telephone lines off to the world. At least 65 people

By OMAR ALBAM Associated Press ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — Syria’s Defense Ministry announced a ceasefire on Friday after three days of clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo that displaced tens of thousands of people. There was no immediate public response from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, while a

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Two things can be true at once. K-pop is an inextricable force in global pop culture, and it has long been undercelebrated at institutions like the Grammys — where K-pop artists have performed but have never taken home a trophy. That could change at next

By JIM GOMEZ, JOEAL CALUPITAN and AARON FAVILA Associated Press MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A massive crowd of mostly barefoot Filipino Catholics joined an annual procession of a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ in the Philippine capital Friday, with some using the gathering to express outrage over a corruption scandal involving influential legislators. After a

By ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Venezuela’s sudden release of detainees Thursday brought relief and guarded optimism to a country consumed by uncertainty. But it was another, less covered news event farther away that some Venezuelan rights advocates said offered their only real hope for justice as long as the government

By FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The top United Nations official on Thursday said the United States has a “legal obligation” to keep paying its dues that fund U.N. agencies after the White House announced that it is withdrawing support from more than 30 initiatives operated by the world body. Secretary-General Antonio

By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — In a remarkable rebuke of Republican leadership, the House passed legislation Thursday that would extend expired health care subsidies for those who get coverage through the Affordable Care Act as 17 renegade GOP lawmakers joined every Democrat in support. The tally, 230-196, signified growing

By OMAR FARUK and DENG MACHOL Associated Press MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia’s government on Thursday denied an allegation by the U.S. government that authorities in Mogadishu destroyed an American-funded warehouse belonging to the World Food Program and seized food aid earmarked for impoverished civilians. The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that it has suspended

By MARÍA VERZA Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government boasted Thursday a sharp decline in homicide rates, presenting the figures as evidence that its security strategy is working, while analysts cautioned that the numbers may not fully reflect the country’s violence. During President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily news conference, officials said Mexico recorded

By REGINA GARCIA CANO, MEGAN JANETSKY and MATIAS DELACROIX Associated Press GUATIRE, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela released a number of imprisoned high-profile opposition figures, activists and journalists — both citizens and foreigners — Thursday in what the government described as a gesture to “seek peace” less than a week after former President Nicolás Maduro was

By JOSEF FEDERMAN and WAFAA SHURAFA Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — A former U.N. Mideast envoy has been chosen to direct U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza, Israel’s prime minister said Thursday, as at least eight more deaths from Israeli strikes were reported there. The appointment of Bulgarian

By ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drone strikes temporarily knocked out power to the entire southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine and left more than 600,000 households in the central Dnipropetrovsk region without electricity, officials said Thursday. The bombardment occurred against the backdrop of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting, nearly

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The U.S. seizure of a Venezuela-linked oil tanker in the North Atlantic was seen by some as the unilateral action of an America-first government with scant regard for other countries’ views. Britain calls it an example of trans-Atlantic cooperation in support of international rules. The U.K. government

By HUIZHONG WU Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Chen Zhi boasted of pulling in $30 million a day, prosecutors in the United States said — a suspected criminal mastermind and onetime internet cafe manager who authorities say presented himself as a legitimate businessman. But in reality, they say, he ran online gambling sites, scams and

By SYLVIE CORBET and DEREK GATOPOULOS Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Dozens of angry farmers demonstrated in France and Greece Thursday, halting traffic and blocking key roads with tractors to protest European Union plans to move forward with a free trade deal with five South American nations. Farmers drove about a hundred tractors into Paris

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s military said Thursday it had concluded the first phase of a plan to fully deploy across southern Lebanon and disarm non-state groups, notably Hezbollah. Israel said the development was encouraging but “far from sufficient,” and its Foreign Ministry said the group still has dozens of compounds