Wire News

• AP

RIO RANCHO, N.M, (AP) — The July Fourth holiday hurts me every year. Waving flags seems out of place, and wearing anything stars and stripes makes me feel like Apollo Creed in "Rocky." Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless The U.S.A." doesn’t invoke patriotism inside of me, and I never take advantage of those exclusive, one-day mattress sales.

• AP

BEIRUT (AP) — Alaa Arnous and his family found the photo of his father Mohammed online last week, the first proof of his fate since he was seized by Syrian government forces seven years ago. The image showed his corpse, his face battered and bruised, his mouth hanging open.

• AP

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s Victoria state recorded 108 new coronavirus cases Saturday, forcing authorities to lock down nine public housing towers and three more Melbourne suburbs.

• AP

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican soldiers patrolling in the border city of Nuevo Laredo came under fire from drug cartel gunmen Friday, then killed 12 of their attackers in a gunbattle, the military said.

• AP

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An online video and messages purportedly claiming responsibility for a fire that analysts say damaged a centrifuge assembly plant at Iran's underground Natanz nuclear site deepened the mystery Friday around the incident — even as Tehran insisted it knew the cause but would not make it public due to “security reasons.”

• AP

BERLIN (AP) — German lawmakers have finalized the country's long-awaited phase-out of coal as an energy source, backing a plan that environmental groups say isn't ambitious enough and free marketeers criticize as a waste of taxpayers' money.

• AP

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Koreans have waited 16 long years for a savory, crispy bite that would satisfy their taste buds and right an infamous wrong. This week, they finally could fill a bowl with the cereal they wanted all along: green onion-flavored Chex.

• AP

HONG KONG (AP) — Prominent Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law has left the city for an undisclosed location after testifying in a U.S. congressional hearing about a tough new security law imposed by mainland China on the semi-autonomous territory.

• AP

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged officials to maintain alertness against the coronavirus, warning that complacency risked “unimaginable and irretrievable crisis,” state media said Friday.

• AP

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — As nearby nations grapple with uncontrolled spread of the novel coronavirus, the poor, landlocked nation of Paraguay appears to be controlling the disease, with just a few thousand confirmed cases and a few dozen deaths.

• AP

TORONTO (AP) — All 30 Major League Baseball teams will train at their regular-season ballparks for the pandemic-shortened season after the Toronto Blue Jays received a Canadian federal government exemption on Thursday to work out at Rogers Centre.

• AP

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Four U.S. states — Arizona, California, Florida and Texas — reported a combined 25,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases Thursday as the infection curve rose in 40 of the 50 states heading into the July Fourth holiday weekend.

• AP

IRAPUATO, Mexico (AP) — The killing of 26 people in an unregistered drug rehabilitation center in central Mexico is the deadliest such attack in a decade and has led to calls for change in a prosperous state that has become a cartel battleground.

• AP

LONDON (AP) — A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro control of nearly $2 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault because Britain does not recognize the socialist leader as president of the Latin American nation.

• AP

IRAPUATO, Mexico (AP) — The killing of 26 people in an unregistered drug rehabilitation center in central Mexico is the deadliest such attack in a decade and has led to calls for change in a prosperous state that has become a cartel battleground.

• AP

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Vitoria Gabrielle crawled all the time and was starting to walk this year with a little help, hanging on to her 4-year-old brother's arm while exploring her mother's small apartment on a cobblestone street in Rio de Janeiro's working-class Piety neighborhood.

• AP

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Moscow and Washington are intertwined in a complex and bloody history in Afghanistan, with both suffering thousands of dead and wounded in conflicts lasting for years.

• AP

CAIRO (AP) — Noha, an Egyptian engineer, should feel lucky after winning a visa lottery that randomly selects people from a pool of more than 14 million applications for about 55,000 green cards that would let them live permanently in the United States.

• AP

PARIS (AP) — The French Open will allow fans to attend this year's postponed tournament.

• AP

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — A photo of a toddler sitting on the chest of of his dead grandfather has outraged residents of Indian-controlled Kashmir after the victim’s family accused government forces of shooting the 65-year-old man during a clash with rebels in the disputed region.

• AP

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The message was dropped into a WhatsApp group used by suburban moms in South Africa. Amid the grumblings over homeschooling during lockdown, one mom went off topic: “Does anyone know where to get illegal cigarettes? I just need a few. I'm desperate.”

• AP

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s highest administrative court on Thursday began considering a request to turn Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia, which now serves as a museum, back into a mosque.

• AP

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Seven years ago, Najibullah Seddiqi closed his oxygen factory, frustrated with power cuts and with rampant corruption that kept him from getting contracts with hospitals.

• AP

LONDON (AP) — From Tokyo to Brussels, political leaders have swiftly decried Beijing’s move to impose a tough national security law on Hong Kong that cracks down on subversive activity and protest in the semi-autonomous territory.