AP World News

By GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA Associated Press SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian police launched Thursday a police operation to dismantle a major tax evasion and money-laundering scheme in the fuel sector. The group under investigation is the country’s largest tax debtor, owing more than 26 billion reais ($4.8 billion), authorities said. Local and state authorities are

By KATIE MARIE DAVIES Associated Press U.S. proposals to end the war between Russia and Ukraine offer a starting point for talks, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, as he told Ukrainian forces to pull back or be overrun by Russia’s bigger army. “We need to sit down and discuss this seriously,” Putin told reporters

By CHINEDU ASADU and ASSANA SAMBU Associated Press BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau (AP) — Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau on Thursday announced a new junta leader, cementing a forceful takeover of power that began after this week’s disputed presidential election and led to deposed President Umaro Sissoco Embaló departing for neighboring Senegal. The military high command in the West

BANGKOK (AP) — Excited families greeted relatives released from Myanmar’s Insein Prison on Thursday as part of a mass amnesty granted by the country’s military rulers ahead of next month’s election. At least eight buses carrying prisoners were welcomed outside the gate of the Yangon prison at 11:30 a.m. by relatives and friends who had

VARCES, France (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday unveiled a new program meant to bolster France’s armed forces by training thousands of volunteers aged 18 and 19 starting next year, part of a broader response to concerns over Russia’s threat to European nations beyond the war in Ukraine. The young volunteers will serve in

By NICOLE WINFIELD, SUZAN FRASER, SERRA YEDIKARDES and ANDREW WILKS Associated Press ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Pope Leo XIV encouraged Turkey to be a source of stability and dialogue in a world riven by conflict, as he opened his first foreign trip as pope on Thursday with a plea for peace amid efforts to end

By CHRIS MEGERIAN and FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday’s “heinous assault” on two National Guard members near the White House proves that lax migration policies are “the single greatest national security threat facing our nation.” “No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival,” he said.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico unveiled plans Wednesday to build what it claims will be Latin America’s most powerful supercomputer — a project the government says will help the country capitalize on the rapidly evolving uses of artificial intelligence and exponentially expand the country’s computing capacity. Dubbed “Coatlicue” for the Mexica goddess considered the earth

By MARTÍN ADAMES and DÁNICA COTO Associated Press SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — The Dominican Republic has authorized the arrival of 800 new flights to accommodate a surge in tourists who were originally planning to vacation in Jamaica and other nearby islands but were rerouted following the devastation of Hurricane Melissa. The flights, a

By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The disappearance of a New Zealand father with his children in a forest for several years before he was discovered and shot dead by the police has prompted the government to launch a major inquiry into how officials handled the case. The public inquiry —

By DÁNICA COTO Associated Press SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader announced Wednesday that he has authorized the U.S. government to operate inside restricted areas in the Caribbean country to help in its fight against drug trafficking. For a limited time, the U.S. can refuel aircraft and transport equipment and

By JOHN LEICESTER Associated Press PARIS (AP) — The leaders of a pro-Russia group in France behind a poster campaign declaring “Russia is not my enemy” have been taken into custody and are being held on suspicion of intelligence-gathering for a foreign power. The SOS Donbass group confirmed the arrest of its founder, Anna Novikova,

LIMA, Peru (AP) — A Peruvian court on Wednesday sentenced former President Martín Vizcarra to 14 years in prison after finding him guilty of taking bribes while serving as governor of a southern state. Vizcarra was sentenced to immediate imprisonment and a nine-year ban from public office. He is expected to appeal the decision. “This

By YUNUSA UMAR and OPE ADETAYO Associated Press PAPIRI, Nigeria (AP) — Several parents of the over 300 schoolchildren seized by armed men in the latest mass abduction in Nigeria tell The Associated Press the government has told them nothing about rescue efforts and the stress has been so high that one parent has died

By LAURIE KELLMAN, SAM McNEIL and AAMER MADHANI Associated Press LONDON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war closely mirrors the tactics he used to end two years of fighting between Israel and Hamas: bold terms that favor one side, deadlines for the combatants and vague outlines for

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian government said young children will be banned from social media next month as scheduled despite a rights advocacy group on Wednesday challenging the world-first legislation in court. The Sydney-based Digital Freedom Project said it had filed a constitutional challenge in the High Court on

By ILLIA NOVIKOV and SAM MCNEIL Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A senior Kremlin official confirmed Wednesday that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to visit Moscow next week as efforts pick up speed to find a consensus on ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine. But Yuri Ushakov, Russian President

By CHAN HO-HIM and KEN MORITSUGU Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades burned through the night, leaving at least 44 people dead and 279 reported missing with rescuers still pulling residents from blazing high-rise apartment buildings into the morning. Police had arrested three men on suspicion of manslaughter in

By WAFAA SHURAFA, JULIA FRANKEL and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel handed over the bodies of 15 Palestinians on Wednesday, a day after Hamas returned the remains of an Israeli hostage. This is the latest exchange as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire reached last month, whose first phase is

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV is embarking on his first foreign trip, a pilgrimage to Turkey and Lebanon that would be delicate under any circumstances but is even more fraught given Mideast tensions and the media glare that will document history’s first American pope on the road. Leo

By JAMES BROOKS Associated Press NORTH SEA, Denmark (AP) — Appearing first as a dot on the horizon, the remote Nini oil field on Europe’s rugged North Sea slowly comes into view from a helicopter. Used to extract fossil fuels, the field is now getting a second lease on life as a means of permanently

By TAIJING WU and HUIZHONG WU Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te on Wednesday announced a special $40 billion budget for arms purchases, including to build an air defense system with high-level detection and interception capabilities called Taiwan Dome, as the U.S. pressures the island to increase its defense spending. The

By PAN PYLAS and JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Britain’s unpopular center-left Labour government sought to seize the political narrative Wednesday with a tax-raising budget that it hopes will boost economic growth by fostering a stable debt outlook, reduce child poverty and ease cost-of-living pressures. But the entire contents of the budget were

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hundreds of women marched through Mexico City’s streets Tuesday to protest violence against women in a country where gender violence remains pervasive. Among the hundreds of marchers clad in purple or with green bandanas, some beat drums and others carried signs. One read: “Today I am the voice of those who