Year: 2021

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has used his Christmas Day address to pray for an end to the coronavirus pandemic. Amid a record-setting rise in COVID-19 cases in Italy this week, only a few thousand people flocked to a rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square for Francis’ annual “Urbi et Orbi” (“To

By DEREK GATOPOULOS Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s coast guard says at least 16 people died after a migrant boat capsized in the Aegean Sea late Friday. The Greek coast guard said Saturday that 63 people were rescued after the boat turned over some 8 kilometers (5 miles) off the island of Paros.

By DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian organization that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid to detainees says government regulators have blocked its website. OVD-Info said in a tweet on Saturday that it wasn’t formally notified about the action by Russia’s internet and communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor. The group says it doesn’t

By DANIEL COLE Associated Press MARSEILLE, France (AP) — The staff is tired, the omicron variant is bearing down and the intensive care unit beds are filling fast at a hospital in the French city of Marseille. The unit’s chief doctor is trying to keep his team members motivated as they spend another Christmas tending

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Sudanese protesters have again taken to the streets in the capital Khartoum and elsewhere across the country to denounce the October military coup and subsequent deal that reinstated the prime minister but sidelined the pro-democracy movement. Authorities have tightened security across the capital, deploying troops and closing

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian media are reporting that a road accident in the country’s southwest has killed at least 10 people. The official IRNA news agency says the accident on Saturday took place as a truck hit a minibus carrying laborers on the road linking the city of Khorramshahr with the city of Ahvaz

Associated Press Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s resignation 30 years ago was a momentous event that ended an era by drawing a line under the USSR’s existence. The Moscow photo chief for The Associated Press was the only foreign photographer who caught the terminal moment of the Soviet Union. On Dec. 25, 1991. Liu Heung Shing

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — People strolling across Moscow’s snowy Red Square on the evening of Dec. 25, 1991 witnessed one of the 20th century’s most pivotal moments. That night, the Soviet red flag that flew over the Kremlin was pulled down and replaced with the Russian Federation’s tricolor. Minutes earlier, Soviet

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Two servers at an Albuquerque restaurant got a big surprise when a group of business owners left a $5,555 tip. It was the idea of Battle Tested Business, a local entrepreneurship and leadership organization. Founder Ramon Casaus told KOB-TV that he and his colleagues look for ways to invest back into

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The holiday scene at the White House has been a little less merry under under COVID-19’s shadow. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden replaced the large parties and overflowing buffet tables of the past with food-free open houses, face masks and testing for the unvaccinated.

By BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI Associated Press COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A policeman has opened fire on a group of fellow officers in Sri Lanka, killing four of them and wounding three others. The shooting occurred Friday night inside a police station in the small town of Thirukkovil in eastern Sri Lanka, a police statement said.