Iraqi officials, including lawmakers, arrested on corruption charges in overnight raid

June 30, 2026

BAGHDAD (AP) — Dozens of Iraqi political officials have been arrested on corruption charges, Iraq’s state-run Iraqi News Agency reported Sunday. It said the arrests were based on a statement made by former Deputy Minister of Oil Adnan al-Jumaili, who was arrested last month, and “included members of Parliament whose immunity had been lifted.” Iraqi security forces sealed off all entrances to the capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone early Sunday and carried out raids inside the compound that houses key government institutions and foreign embassies. The state news agency ...

The scars of war among survivors in Sudan

June 30, 2026

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Three years of war have devastated much of Sudan. The impact has been pressed into the skin of survivors, and their memories. Thousands of people are dead. Millions are displaced. Associated Press journalists spent more than a week in and around the capital after the ...

Chinese dissident who fled to South Korea by dinghy arrives in Canada

June 30, 2026

HONG KONG (AP) — A Chinese political dissident who fled to South Korea last month in a dinghy has arrived in Canada, his friend said on social media on Saturday. Dong Guangping was aboard a 3.3-meter (10.8-foot) inflatable boat in the waters off a western South Korean island in May when he was detained by South Korea’s coast guard for allegedly violating the country’s immigration law. It was his fourth known attempt to flee China. At a court hearing in South Korea, he told reporters that he hopes to go to Canada to reunite with his wife and daughter, who have already been ...

Trump presses Syria to take on Hezbollah, raising alarm in Lebanon and Israel

June 30, 2026

BEIRUT (AP) — As the White House has soured on Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, U.S. President Donald Trump has shocked many in the region by pushing an alternative: Let Syria fight the Iran-backed militant group instead. He has suggested that the battle-hardened and Islamist-led insurgents who overthrew Syria’s autocratic President Bashar Assad a year and a half ago and formed a new government would do a better job of rooting out Hezbollah than the Israeli army. Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has said he has no interest in doing so, and has asserted that Trump’s ...

Some paid the ultimate price to enact voting rights. Their survivors see America turning backward

June 30, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — Holiday gatherings and major life events have come with an empty seat. Certain dates on the calendar meant time at a cemetery, standing before granite stones. They are a relatively small group of people, scattered across different states, but they share a common bond ...

France records around 1,000 additional deaths as extreme heat breaks European records

June 29, 2026

BERLIN (AP) — France saw around 1,000 additional deaths last week at the height of its record-smashing heat wave, the country’s public health agency said Sunday, as the head of the World Health Organization warned that Europe is now the fastest-warming continent and needs to do more to protect its citizens. Temperature records were toppled in several countries on the weekend, wildfires were sparked in Germany and Berlin police used water cannons to cool down the crowds. Meanwhile, the heat wave slowly moved toward eastern parts of the continent. Germany marked a new record for ...