World News

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas and other militant groups said Tuesday they had accepted an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire to end two days of intense fighting with Israel that had pushed the sworn enemies to the brink of a new war. The sudden announcement brought relief to a region that had been paralyzed by hundreds of Palestinian rocket attacks in...

SINGAPORE (AP) — The potential damage to global trade brought on by President Donald Trump’s tariffs battle with Beijing is looming as leaders of Southeast Asian nations, China, the U.S. and other regional economies meet in Singapore this week. Countries across the region, many of which have relied heavily on trade to grow their economies, are responding with strong talk...

PARADISE, Calif. (AP) — The dead were found in burned-out cars, in the smoldering ruins of their homes, or next to their vehicles, apparently overcome by smoke and flames before they could jump in behind the wheel and escape. In some cases, there were only charred fragments of bone, so small that coroner’s investigators used a wire basket to sift...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber struck near an anti-Taliban rally in Kabul on Monday, killing at least four people, officials said, as a lawmaker reported that insurgents killed at least 20 Afghan policemen over the past 24 hours in eastern Ghazni province. According to Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief, the bomber was on foot and...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Razor-thin margins in Florida’s bitter races for the U.S. Senate and governor are raising the specter of possible recounts, potentially prolonging two of the most closely watched contests of the nation’s midterm elections. In the governor’s race, Democrat Andrew Gillum’s campaign said Thursday it’s readying for a possible recount. He conceded to Republican Ron DeSantis on...

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — Ian David Long began his adult life by enlisting in the Marines and getting married. Years after a divorce and a discharge and months after shouting brought a mental health expert to his door, Long killed 12 people at a country music bar outside Los Angeles. Long, 28, was a former military machine gunner who...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine court found former first lady Imelda Marcos guilty of graft and ordered her arrest Friday in a rare conviction among many corruption cases that she’s likely to appeal to avoid jail and losing her seat in Congress. The special anti-graft Sandiganbayan court sentenced Marcos, 89, to serve 6 to 11 years in prison for...

WASHINGTON (AP) — This week’s midterm elections offered revealing lessons for both parties as battle lines begin to emerge for the 2020 presidential election. For Democrats, a string of statewide victories in Rust Belt states opened a potential path back to the White House. But President Donald Trump’s Republican Party found strength in critical states that often hold the keys...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats seized the House majority from President Donald Trump’s Republican Party on Tuesday in a suburban revolt that threatened what’s left of the president’s governing agenda. But the GOP gained ground in the Senate and preserved key governorships, beating back a “blue wave” that never fully materialized. The mixed verdict in the first nationwide election of Trump’s...

HELSINKI (AP) — Center-right leaders and senior politicians from across Europe are gathering to plot their strategy to win the next EU elections, and must also decide whether Hungary’s stridently nationalist ruling party should remain part of their political family. Over two days in Finland starting Wednesday, heavyweights from the European People’s Party — the group uniting Europe’s center-right parties...

GENEVA (AP) — China on Tuesday once again rejected criticism of its treatment of ethnic Muslims, telling the United Nations that accusations of rights abuses from some countries were “politically driven.” At a U.N. review of the country’s human rights record, China characterized the far west region of Xinjiang as a former hotbed of extremism that has been stabilized through...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tweetstorms and a trade war. Kanye in the Oval Office. Kavanaugh in the hearing room. President Donald Trump’s presidency has been a wild, turbulent, two-year ride. Now it’s time for voters to weigh in how much they’re enjoying it. Republicans’ across-the-board control of Congress is at stake in Tuesday’s midterm election, along with command of governors’ offices...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A turbulent election season that tested President Donald Trump’s slash-and-burn political style against the strength of the Democratic resistance comes to a close as Americans cast ballots in the first national election of the Trump era. With voters going to the polls Tuesday, nothing is certain. Anxious Republicans privately expressed confidence in their narrow Senate majority but...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The day of reckoning for American politics has nearly arrived. Voters on Tuesday will decide the $5 billion debate between President Donald Trump’s take-no-prisoner politics and the Democratic Party’s super-charged campaign to end the GOP’s monopoly in Washington and statehouses across the nation. There are indications that an oft-discussed “blue wave” may help Democrats seize control of at least...

WASHINGTON (AP) — No longer reluctant to speak out, former President Barack Obama delivered a closing argument for Democrats that seeks a firm check on President Donald Trump’s policies in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Obama and Trump offered competing visions for the country in a split screen of campaigning on Sunday, seeking to galvanize voter turnout in the fight to control...

PITTSBURGH (AP) — As the first funerals for the victims of the Pittsburgh massacre began, two rabbis and five other volunteers approached the sawhorses cordoning off the Tree of Life synagogue, and an FBI agent led them into the crime scene. Inside the desecrated temple, the men donned white forensic coveralls, face masks and gloves, and set to work. Judaism...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The normal-looking campaign rally in Somalia’s capital this month was anything but. Dozens of people in T-shirts bearing the smiling candidate’s image and “Security and Justice” were praising the former No. 2 leader of Africa’s deadliest Islamic extremist group, the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, who until recently was the target of a $5 million U.S. reward. Stunned, Somalia’s federal government...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Investigators have been searching coast-to-coast for the culprit and motives behind the bizarre mail-bomb plot aimed at critics of the president, analyzing the innards of the crude devices to reveal whether they were intended to detonate or simply sow fear two weeks before Election Day. Three more devices were linked to the plot Thursday — two addressed...