KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Singapore's deputy leader Lawrence Wong was sworn in Wednesday as the nation's fourth prime minister in a carefully planned political succession designed to ensure continuity and stability in the Asian financial hub. A U.S.-trained economist, Wong, 51, succeeds Lee Hsien Loong, 72, who ste...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Joe Biden said Wednesday on social media that he won't participate in the campaign debates sponsored by a nonpartisan commission, instead challenging Republican Donald Trump to a pair of debates. "Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020," Biden posted on X, the site formerly kn...

MADRID (AP) - Canadian historian and writer Michael Ignatieff has won Spain's Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences for his "critical reflections on the major conflicts of our time," prize organizers said Wednesday. With more than 20 books that range from human rights, foreign policy, economics, and ...

GENEVA (AP) - Switzerland's top criminal court on Wednesday convicted a former interior minister of Gambia for crimes against humanity over his role in repression committed by the west African country's security forces under its longtime dictator, a legal advocacy group said. Ousman Sonko, Gambia's interior minister fr...

PARIS (AP) - At least two people were killed and three were seriously injured overnight in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, French media reported Wednesday, as President Emmanuel Macron convened a meeting of top ministers to discuss the spiraling violence. It was the third day of violent unrest over a con...

BALTIMORE (AP) - Incumbent Brandon Scott beat out one of his predecessors in Baltimore's Democratic primary for mayor on Tuesday, all but ensuring a second term in office. Scott was originally elected in 2020, when he also campaigned against former Mayor Sheila Dixon and won by a narrow margin. This was Dixon's third a...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland State Sen. Sarah Elfreth has defeated former U.S. Capitol police officer Harry Dunn in a crowded congressional Democratic primary. Elfreth prevailed in a primary with 22 candidates to replace outgoing Rep. John Sarbanes, who announced in October he would not seek a 10th term. The heavily ...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Congresswoman Carol Miller has held off a challenge from convicted Jan. 6 riot participant Derrick Evans to win the Republican primary for her U.S. House seat in West Virginia. Miller defeated Evans in the 1st Congressional District and will try to capture her fourth term in November. Miller fo...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, two congressional aides said Tuesday. It's the first arms shipment to Israel to be announced by the administration since it put another arms transfer - consisting of 3,...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Brad Knott has won the Republican primary runoff for the 13th Congressional District in North Carolina. Knott won the nomination over Kelly Daughtry on Tuesday. Daughtry had received the most votes among 14 candidates in the initial March 5 primary, but she didn't reach the threshold needed to avoi...

DENVER (AP) - The nameplate above the locker for Valeri Nichushkin has already been removed at the Colorado Avalanche's practice facility. It could be just for now - or possibly for good. For a second consecutive year, the Avalanche are on the brink of elimination from the playoffs with Nichushkin, one of their top pla...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani pleaded not guilty Tuesday to bank and tax fraud, a formality ahead of a plea deal he's negotiated with federal prosecutors in a wide-ranging sports betting case. Prosecutors say Ippei Mizuhara stole nearly $17 million from Ohtani to p...

LYON, France (AP) - An American accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania college student in 2013 and later sending her a Facebook message that said, "So I raped you," has been detained in France after a three-year search. A prosecutor in Metz, France, confirmed Tuesday that Ian Thomas Cleary, 31, of Sara...

HALLE, Germany (AP) - A court on Tuesday convicted one of the best-known figures in the far-right Alternative for Germany party of using a Nazi slogan in a speech and ordered him to pay a fine. The verdict in Björn Höcke's trial comes months before a regional election in the eastern state of Thuringia in whic...

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - Hunter Biden's federal gun case will go to trial next month, a judge said Tuesday, denying a bid by lawyers for the president's son to delay the prosecution. U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected Hunter Biden's request to push the trial until September, which the defense said was necess...

NEW YORK (AP) - Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe returned to the witness stand and could face a bruising round of questioning from the former president's lawyers as soon as Tuesday. Michael Cohen 's testimony this week has linked Trump to all aspects of a hush money scheme that prosecutors say was aimed at stifling stor...

NEW YORK (AP) - Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen awaits a bruising round of questioning from the former president's lawyers on Tuesday after testimony linked their celebrity client to all aspects of a hush money scheme that prosecutors say was aimed at stifling stories that threatened his 2016 campaign. Tr...

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - The Georgian parliament on Tuesday approved in the third and final reading a divisive bill that sparked weeks of mass protests. The bill requires media and nongovernmental organizations and other nonprofits to register as "pursuing the interests of a foreign power" if they receive more...

BRUSSELS (AP) - European Union nations endorsed sweeping reforms to the bloc's failed asylum system on Tuesday as campaigning for Europe-wide elections next month gathers pace, with migration expected to be an important issue. EU government ministers approved 10 legislative parts of The New Pact on Migration and Asylum...

BEIJING (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a two-day state visit to China this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. Putin will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his visit starting on Thurday, it said. The Kremlin in a statement confirmed the trip and said Putin was going on Xi's invitatio...

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - An Australian judge sentenced a former army lawyer to almost six years in prison on Tuesday for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. David McBride, 60, was sentenced in a court in the capital, Canberra, to five years an...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. The visit comes less than a month after Congress approved a long-delayed fo...

BALTIMORE (AP) - Crews conducted a controlled demolition Monday to break down the largest remaining span of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. It marked a major step in freeing the grounded Dali container ship, which has been stuck amid the wreckage since it lost power and crashed into one of the brid...

NEW YORK (AP) - The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial, Michael Cohen, took the stand Monday, and his testimony could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president. Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and personal fixer, is by far the Manhattan district attorney's mos...

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - Separatist parties appear to be in danger of losing their decade-long hold of power in Spain's northeastern Catalonia region as the pro-union Socialist Party is poised to win the most votes in Sunday's regional election with 85% of ballots counted. The four pro-independence parties, led by the T...

VILCHA, Ukraine (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed removing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu from his post. Putin nominated First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov for the role. His appointment must now be approved by Russian lawmakers. The change comes weeks after Timur Ivanov, a Russian depu...

An apartment block partially collapsed in the Russian border city of Belgorod Sunday. Officials blamed Ukrainian shelling and said there were deaths. Online footage showed rescuers searching for survivors among the remnants of the building's stairwell, then fleeing the scene as part of the roof crashed to the ground. I...

ISLAMABAD (AP) - The U.N. food agency says more than 300 Afghans have died in flash floods that also destroyed more than 1,000 houses in the northern province of Baghlan. The World Food Agency said Saturday it was distributing fortified biscuits to the survivors of one of the many floods that hit Afghanistan over the l...