Wire News

• AP

PARIS (AP) — French oil and gas company Total said it has decided to withdraw from energy association American Petroleum Institute because it disagrees on climate-related policies.

• AP

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 2 million Friday, crossing the threshold amid a vaccine rollout so immense but so uneven that in some countries there is real hope of vanquishing the outbreak, while in other, less-developed parts of the world, it seems a far-off dream.

• AP

WUHAN, China (AP) — Couples go on dates, families dine out at restaurants, shoppers flock to stores. Face masks aside, people are going about their daily life pretty much as normal in the Chinese city that was first hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

• AP

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard conducted a drill Friday that saw “suicide drones” crash into targets and explode, triangle-shaped aircraft that strongly resembled those used in a 2019 attack in Saudi Arabia that temporarily cut the kingdom's oil production by half.

• AP

MILAN (AP) — Italy’s fashion chamber is opening on Friday the first Milan Fashion Week that won't have VIPS populating runway front rows, as the reality of Italy's persistent resurgence of the coronavirus has forced an all-virtual format for presenting menswear previews.

• AP

MAMUJU, Indonesia (AP) — A strong, shallow earthquake shook Indonesia's Sulawesi island just after midnight Friday, toppling homes and buildings, triggering landslides and killing at least 42 people.

• AP

BEIJING (AP) — A city in northern China is building a 3,000-unit quarantine facility to deal with an anticipated overflow of patients as COVID-19 cases rise ahead of the annual Lunar New Year travel rush.

• AP

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea displayed new submarine-launched ballistic missiles under development and other military hardware in a parade that underlined leader Kim Jong Un’s defiant calls to expand the country's nuclear weapons program.

• AP

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top challenger in upcoming elections is promising a tough line toward Iran and the Palestinians, yet expressed confidence he has the tools to avoid what appears to be a collision course with the incoming Biden administration.

• AP

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil's federal police arrested Argentine golfer Ángel Cabrera on Thursday for extradition to his homeland to face charges for several crimes allegedly committed from 2016 to last year, two officers said.

• AP

SAO PAULO (AP) — Dozens of COVID-19 patients in the Amazon rainforest's biggest city will be flown out of state as the local health system collapses, authorities announced Thursday as dwindling stocks of oxygen tanks meant some people were starting to die breathless at home.

• AP

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia on Thursday commemorated the 10th anniversary since the flight into exile of iron-fisted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was pushed from power in a popular revolt that foreshadowed pro-democracy uprisings, strife and civil war in the region during what became known as the Arab Spring.

• AP

LONDON (AP) — In 1948, John Peake won a silver medal at the Olympic Games in London. In 2021, also in London, he struck what many would consider gold, receiving his first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.

• AP

BEIRUT (AP) — It was a choice between containing a spiraling virus outbreak and resuscitating a dying economy in a country that has been in steady financial and economic meltdown over the past year. Authorities in Lebanon chose the latter.

• AP

WUHAN, China (AP) — A global team of researchers arrived Thursday in the Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic was first detected to conduct a politically sensitive investigation into its origins amid uncertainty about whether Beijing might try to prevent embarrassing discoveries.

• AP

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right party is choosing a new leader this weekend, a decision that will help shape German voters' choice of her successor at the helm of the European Union's biggest economy after her 16-year tenure.

• AP

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said a lot of nice things about Donald Trump over the years, from expressing admiration for the U.S. president to suggesting he might be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

• AP

TOKYO (AP) — Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency to seven more prefectures Wednesday, affecting more than half the population amid a surge in infections across the country.

• AP

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ugandan authorities appeared to cut off internet access in the country Wednesday night on the eve of a tense presidential election, while a lawyer for leading opposition candidate Bobi Wine said all contact had been lost with him.

• AP

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Security forces in Central African Republic repelled attacks by rebels trying to seize the capital early Wednesday after intense fighting on the city’s outskirts, officials said, in a major escalation of violence that has rocked the country since last month.

• AP

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Some lost a leg, some gaze out from permanently scarred faces, others live forever bound to a wheelchair. All these men were injured in Tunisia’s democratic uprising 10 years ago, and they are begging the government to recognize them as official victims of the revolution.

• AP

LONDON (AP) — Ireland’s prime minster issued a formal state apology Wednesday to the thousands of unmarried women and their children who endured pain, shame and stigma at church-run institutions, saying his government was determined to start righting the country’s wrongs.

• AP

MOSCOW (AP) — Top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he plans to go home to Russia next weekend despite the authorities' threats to put him once again behind bars.

• AP

BERGSCHENHOEK, Netherlands (AP) — Residents of a Dutch town filed into a sports hall Wednesday to take part in the country's first mass coronavirus testing program, which aims to find out more about the spread of a new more transmissible coronavirus variant.