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SYDNEY (AP) — A retired Australian judge investigating the convictions of a mother in the deaths of her four children was told Monday there is a “reasonable hypothesis” that could cast doubt on her guilt. The inquiry by retired New South Wales state Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Bathurst into Kathleen Folbigg’s convictions in 2003 resumed on Monday after a two-day hearing in November. It is the second judicial investigation […]

JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Israelis protested outside the country’s parliament on Monday ahead of a preliminary vote on a bill that would give politicians greater power over appointing judges, part of a judicial overhaul proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The committee vote, expected to take place after a stormy session, marked the opening salvo by Netanyahu and his allies in a plan that has divided the country, […]

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Union’s executive branch has raised its economic growth forecast for the year, saying Europe will narrowly avoid a recession and has already passed its inflation peak as natural gas prices fall from astronomical highs. But the European Commission warned Monday that the high prices plaguing consumers will keep holding back the economy for months to come. Growth for 2023 should reach 0.8% for the […]

JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian man was killed and at least seven others were injured Monday during a shootout with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian officials said. It was the latest death in a surge of Israeli-Palestinian violence that shows no signs of slowing. The Israeli military said it carried out raids across the West Bank overnight, and that troops came under fire during […]

SYDNEY (AP) — The wife of a former U.S. military pilot accused by the United States of illegally training Chinese aviators said Monday her husband was being held in inhumane conditions as he fights extradition from Australia. Saffrine Duggan said her husband Daniel Duggan had already been kept 115 days in a “tiny cell” in Sydney’s Silverwater Correctional Complex because of U.S. charges that had yet to be heard in […]

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Fifteen years after the Australian Parliament’s historic apology to its Indigenous people for past wrongs, the government on Monday announced 424 million Australian dollars ($293 million) in new funding to improve the lives of Australia’s original inhabitants. In 2008, a newly elected center-left Labor Party government apologized to the Indigenous population for “laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering […]

TOKYO (AP) — The next president at Japan’s top automaker Toyota, Koji Sato, introduced a management team Monday that he said will lead an aggressive push on electric vehicles. Sato stressed that “electrification” is a key theme for his team and promised to develop a totally new, next-generation electric vehicle by 2026. That will be a Lexus, while Toyota Motor Corp. will also beef up all its EV model offerings, […]

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s police arrested at least 50 suspects in the kidnapping and lynching of a man already detained on charges of blasphemy, officials said Monday. A mob of hundreds of enraged Muslims descended on the police station in the Nankana district of eastern Punjab province on Saturday. Members of the mob had been alerted that a man identified only as Waris desecrated a copy of Islam’s holy […]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — One of Cambodia’s last free media outlets, Voice of Democracy radio, on Monday ceased operations after Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered its closure for allegedly slandering his son by misreporting a story about aid to earthquake-struck Turkey. The story, which was also published on the website of VoD, as the station is better known, claimed that Hun Sen’s son, Lt. Gen. Hun Manet, had signed […]