World News

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — When Hungary and Poland joined the European Union in 2004, after decades of Communist domination, they thirsted for Western democratic standards and prosperity.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's closely fought election on Sunday will set the direction of the European Union's most populous country after 16 years under Angela Merkel, whose party is scrambling to avoid defeat by its center-left rivals after a rollercoaster campaign. The environmentalist Greens also are eyeing at least a share of power.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is pressing ahead with its aggressive campaign of offering coronavirus boosters to almost anyone over 12 and says its approach was further vindicated by a U.S. decision to give the shots to older patients or those at higher risk.

NEW YORK (AP) — Two Canadians detained in China on spying charges were released from prison and flown out of the country on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, just after a top executive of Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies reached a deal with the U.S. Justice Department over fraud charges and flew to China.

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The Washington state Department of Health says it will immediately start offering booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to certain people after recommendations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other groups.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Meeting with the leaders of India, Australia and Japan, President Joe Biden declared Friday that the U.S. and other members of the Indo-Pacific alliance known as “the Quad" are showing they “know how to get things done" in an increasingly complicated corner of the globe.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Many leaders saying many things about many topics that matter to them, to their regions, to the world: That's what the U.N. General Assembly invariably produces each year.

NEW YORK (AP) — Prime Minister Imran Khan sought to cast Pakistan as the victim of American ungratefulness and an international double standard in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.

For the United States, COVID-19 was about leadership and “a dose of hope.” For Iran, it was about the inhumanity of sanctions. Tiny Palau, largely virus-free, used its precious speech minutes to praise Taiwan for its support during the pandemic — and, not incidentally, to urge the United Nations to re-admit the island as a member state.

Wall street closed out a choppy week of trading Friday with a mixed finish for the major stock indexes, though the S&P 500 managed its first weekly gain in three weeks.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — At a U.N. General Assembly meeting packed with global gloom, Japan's outgoing leader highlighted what he cast as a moment of inspiration: the Tokyo Olympics, controversially held in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A group of Dutch students has reimagined van life and is hitting the road to Portugal. Just don't call their groundbreaking new solar-powered vehicle a campervan.

NEW YORK (AP) — With cascading crises casting a pall over the proceedings at this year's United Nations General Assembly, Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová had this reminder on the first day of debate: “We cannot save our planet if we leave out the vulnerable — the women, the girls, the minorities.”

JERUSALEM (AP) — In an unusually harsh speech, President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday gave Israel one year to end its occupation of territories the Palestinians want for a future state. He threatened to withdraw recognition of Israel — a cornerstone of three decades of failed peace efforts — if it failed to do so.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Dyane Rodrigues used to enjoy strolling along Rio de Janeiro's iconic Ipanema beach after a hot summer's day. Daylight saving time meant her workday went by faster, and ended early enough for her to take in the golden sunset, the 28-year-old said from her fruit stand, a stone's throw from the seashore.

BERLIN (AP) — The contenders to succeed Angela Merkel as Germany's chancellor sought to mobilize voters Friday as the election campaign neared its close, touting their credentials to lead Europe's biggest economy into a new era as it grapples with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.