With warmer oceans serving as fuel, Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to rapidly intensify from wimpy minor hurricanes to powerful and catastrophic, a study said Thursday.Last month Hurricane Lee went from barely a hurricane at 80 mph (129 kph) to the most powerful Category 5 hurricane with 155 mph
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pentagon report on China’s military power says Beijing is exceeding previous projections of how quickly it is building up its nuclear weapons arsenal and is “almost certainly” learning lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine about what a conflict over Taiwan might look like. The report released Thursday also warns that China
ATLANTA (AP) — Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, entered the
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A court in Amsterdam sentenced a Polish-Canadian national to two months in prison on Thursday for projecting a message alluding to an antisemitic conspiracy theory onto the Anne Frank House museum.Robert Wilson was charged with insulting a group and inciting discrimination for using a laser projector in February to display
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovakia’s president announced Thursday that she is postponing the appointment of a new Cabinet following last month’s parliamentary election because she cannot accept the nomination of a climate change skeptic as environment minister.Liberal President Zuzana Caputova said Rudolf Huliak, who was nominated by the ultranationalist and pro-Russian Slovak National Party, could
TOKYO (AP) — Japan and Australia agreed Thursday to further expand defense ties, including with joint military exercises, under their upgraded security pact that took effect two months ago amid mutual concern about China’s growing influence in the region. The two countries have rapidly developed close defense ties in recent years, and Japan considers Australia
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Thousands of information technology workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI and Department of Justice officials said.The Justice Department said Wednesday that IT workers dispatched and contracted by North Korea to
PARIS (AP) — Organizers of next year’s Paris Olympics said their headquarters have again been visited by French financial prosecutors who are investigating suspicions of favoritism, conflicts of interest and misuse of funds in the awarding of contracts.The Paris organizing committee said Thursday in a short statement that the national financial prosecution service visited its
BRUSSELS (AP) — Abdesalem Lassoued had been denied residency in four European countries by the time he chased two Swedish men into a building in Brussels this week and gunned them down at close range with a semiautomatic rifle.The 45-year-old Tunisian arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa in a smuggler’s boat in 2011. He
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Once an activist in a left-leaning youth movement, Rubén Dávalos is now among the millions of disaffected voters in Argentina planning to cast their ballots for right-wing populist and self-described anarcho-capitalist, Javier Milei. “In this country, you can’t plan for the future,” said the 30-year-old Dávalos, who began selling cellphone
