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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un opened a major political conference dedicated to agriculture, state media reported Monday, as outside assessments suggest the country is facing a serious shortfall of food. South Korean experts estimate that North Korea is short around 1 million tons of grain, nearly 20 percent of its annual demand, after the pandemic likely disrupted unofficial grain imports from China and the […]

BERLIN (AP) — Nearly all flights at Germany’s Cologne-Bonn airport and the majority at nearby Duesseldorf were canceled or diverted on Monday as a result of strikes that also affected local transportation, day-care facilities and local administration in Germany’s most populous region. Cologne-Bonn airport said that all but two of the day’s 136 planned flights wouldn’t depart from or arrive there, German news agency dpa reported. In Dusseldorf, only 89 […]

STECCATO DI CUTRO, Italy (AP) — Rescue crews searched by sea and air Monday for the dozens of people believed still missing from a shipwreck off Italy’s southern coast that drove home once again the desperate and dangerous crossings of migrants seeking to reach Europe. At least 80 people survived Sunday’s shipwreck off the Calabrian coast, but rescue crews recovered 60 bodies, including those of several children and the corpse […]

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani police arrested Monday a retired army general and prominent supporter of former Prime Minister Imran Khan on charges of inciting the public and government employees against national institutions, officials said. The charge against retired Gen. Amjad Shoaib, which carries a seven-year sentence, came after he appeared on Pakistani BOL news channel on Saturday criticizing authorities for keeping Khan’s supporters jailed, especially in remote areas of the […]

Dilbert comic strip creator Scott Adams experienced possibly the biggest repercussion of his recent comments about race when distributor Andrews McMeel Universal announced Sunday it would no longer work with the cartoonist. Andrews McMeel Chairman Hugh Andrews and CEO and President Andy Sareyan said in a joint statement that the syndication company was “severing our relationship” with Adams. In the Feb. 22 episode of his YouTube show, Adams described people […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Last-minute technical trouble forced SpaceX to call off Monday’s attempt to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA. The countdown was halted with just two minutes remaining until liftoff from Kennedy Space Center. With just a split second to blast off, there was no time to deal with the problem, which involved the engine ignition system. SpaceX did not immediately say when […]

GUASTALLA, Italy (AP) — From the day of her birth in Pakistan, Iram Aslam was betrothed to a cousin 17 days older. But to the young woman, who emigrated as a teenager to this Italian farm town on the Po River plain, the cousin felt like a brother. So on a visit to her homeland, she played for time, telling her aunts she wasn’t ready for marriage. “They did everything […]

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A contingent of Chinese companies led by technology giant Huawei is turning out in force to the world’s biggest wireless trade fair, aiming to show their muscle in the face of Huawei’s blacklisting by Western nations concerned about cybersecurity and escalating tensions with the U.S. over TikTok, spy balloons and computer chips. After three years of pandemic disruption, tens of thousands from the tech industry have […]

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen was so far ahead last season that catching the Formula One champion may feel like scaling a mountain. So that’s exactly what Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc did to get himself ready for the challenge, which starts next Sunday at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. The 25-year-old from Monaco headed up to the Italian Dolomites for some “extreme training” that left him “fully recharged and ready for” […]