6 mins read

Dry, hot summers are putting Dutch dikes at risk and threatening German river trade

WADDINXVEEN, Netherlands | Jeroen Wouda and Dirk Boom walk slowly along a Dutch dike, prodding at the bone dry surface with metal rods and scanning the parched grass for patches of green that could give away the location of a leak. In a scene that brings to mind the fictional Dutch boy who heroically plugs […]

7 mins read

Cargo ship reports being struck in Strait of Hormuz as US, Iran claims about talks diverge

CAIRO | A British maritime monitoring agency said a cargo ship reported being hit by a projectile overnight off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States and Iran made opposing claims about whether they were holding talks. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said the two sides are resuming […]

9 mins read

Ken Martin hunkers down at the Democratic National Committee as a storm gathers around party leader

NEW YORK | Ken Martin is in survival mode. Desperate to save his job as chair of the Democratic National Committee, he is avoiding media appearances, monitoring his critics’ social media posts and refusing — at least so far — to make any substantive changes at his troubled organization. A half dozen state leaders and […]

5 mins read

Republicans want voters to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices and move court to the right

TOPEKA, Kan. | Kansas voters will decide Tuesday whether to elect state Supreme Court justices rather than have the governor appoint them, a push from conservatives who have chafed for years over court decisions they disagreed with on issues such as abortion, school funding and the death penalty. If the constitutional amendment passes, supporters hope […]

4 mins read

Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has rare meeting with International Red Cross

BANGKOK | Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with the International Committee of the Red Cross’ representative in the capital on Monday, the military-backed government said, a rare moment of contact with the outside world for the Nobel laureate who has been held out of public view since the military seized power […]

8 mins read

Iran déjà vu: Trump once again threatens massive escalation against Tehran only to walk back

WASHINGTON | President Donald Trump has played this hand before during the 5-month-old Iran war. It starts with a grim warning to Tehran that the Republican president is on the cusp of ordering U.S. forces to “obliterate” its power plants or seize key parts of its oil industry if its leaders don’t quickly agree to […]

7 mins read

Democrats’ future is on the line as El-Sayed and Stevens make final push in Michigan primary

DETROIT | Abdul El-Sayed sat quietly alongside his wife and Black political leaders in a packed Detroit church Sunday morning, clapping as the congregation sang and the pastor preached. Then he stood before the room and asked for their votes. Less than 10 miles away, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens was making her own appeal at […]

4 mins read

Water-dropping planes battle Athens wildfire as England records driest-ever July

ATHENS, Greece | A prolonged heat wave and lack of rainfall led to the driest July in England and Wales in nearly two centuries of record-keeping, according to provisional statistics, the U.K.’s weather service said Monday . All of Wales and more than half of England are officially in drought, the Met Office said. The […]

11 mins read

AP Exclusive: Child soldiers recount horrors of Sudan’s war and presence of Colombian mercenaries

KHARTOUM, Sudan | The teenage boy’s hands and legs were shackled to the anti-aircraft gun mounted on a pickup as Sudanese warplanes attacked. He saw another child chained to the steering wheel. As their captors sought cover, the terrified children were ordered to stay and shoot down the jets over the capital, Khartoum. If they […]

4 mins read

Ceuta grapples with aftermath of border surge after most migrants leave the Spanish territory

CEUTA, Spain | Ceuta over the weekend no longer looked like a city on edge, but residents were still rattled by the events of the week. Most of the 60,000 migrants who swam, scrambled and later charged into the tiny Spanish exclave in North Africa this week had walked back to Morocco by Sunday, but […]