JERUSALEM (AP) — When Israel struck an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to open diplomatic ties in 2020, it brought an electrifying sense of achievement to a country long ostracized in the Middle East.
GENEVA (AP) — Much of the Alps just don't look right for this time of year. Sparse snowfall and unseasonably warm winter weather in Europe’s central mountains are allowing grass to blanket hillsides across the region, causing headaches for ski slope operators and aficionados of Alpine white.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union nations will try again on Wednesday to mold a coordinated approach on if and how authorities should check incoming airline passengers from China for any new COVID-19 variants after several member nations announced individual efforts over the past week.
MACAO (AP) — Only a few tourists crisscrossed the wavy black and white paving of Macao's historic Senado Square on a recent weekday and many of the shops were shuttered.
The gaming hub on China’s south coast near Hong Kong has endured some of the world’s strictest anti-virus controls for nearly three years, and a loosening of border restrictions after China rolled back its “zero-COVID” strategy in early December is widely expected to boost its tourism-driven economy.
BEIJING (AP) — Australia and Canada have joined a growing list of countries requiring travelers from China to take a COVID-19 test prior to boarding their flight, as China battles a nationwide outbreak of the coronavirus after abruptly easing restrictions that were in place for much of the pandemic.
SUPAI, Ariz. (AP) — President Joe Biden has approved a disaster declaration made by the Havasupai Tribe in northern Arizona, freeing up funds for flood damage as it prepares to re-open for tourists after nearly three years.
JERUSALEM (AP) — The tourism minister of Israel's new hardline government on Sunday promised to invest in developing the West Bank, calling the occupied area “our local Tuscany.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Sonya Yoncheva, a soprano at the top of her profession, worries about classical music.
Amiah Manlove used most of her savings to buy a $711 airline ticket to go home for the holidays. Then the Army private got stuck midway through the over 4,000-mile journey from Hawaii to Indianapolis and had to sleep on an airport floor.
PARIS (AP) — France, Spain and England will implement tougher COVID-19 measures for passengers arriving from China, authorities said Friday.
France's government is requiring negative tests, and is urging French citizens to avoid nonessential travel to China.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is assessing Beijing's rollback of its strict anti-infection controls but refrained Thursday from immediately following EU member Italy in requiring coronavirus tests for airline passengers coming from China.
The U.S. announced new COVID-19 testing requirements Wednesday for all travelers from China, joining other nations imposing restrictions because of a surge of infections.
The increase in cases across China follows the rollback of the nation's strict anti-virus controls.
BEIJING (AP) — China says it will resume issuing passports for tourism in another big step away from anti-virus controls that isolated the country for almost three years, setting up a potential flood of Chinese going abroad for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Grand Canyon tour helicopter made a hard landing at a Las Vegas-area airport, injuring seven people, officials said Wednesday. Authorities are investigating the cause.
Local responders and the National Transportation Safety Board characterized it as a “hard landing” around 4:30 p.m.
PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) — A monthslong Toni Morrison tribute at Princeton University, where the Nobel laureate taught for 17 years, will range from music created and performed by Grammy-winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant to a spring lecture series and three-day symposium featuring author Edwidge Danticat, among others.
DALLAS (AP) — Families hoping to catch a Southwest Airlines flight after days of cancellations, missing luggage and missed family connections suffered through another wave of scrubbed flights, with another 2,500 pulled from arrival and departure boards Wednesday.
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong will scrap some of its COVID-19 restrictions, including PCR tests for inbound travelers and vaccination requirements to enter certain venues, the city’s leader said Wednesday.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Tuesday that Japan will tighten border controls for COVID-19 by requiring tests for all visitors from China starting Friday as a temporary emergency measure against the surging infections there.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Buffalo residents hovered around space heaters, hunted for cars buried in snow drifts and looked for more victims Monday, after 28 people died in one of the worst weather-related disasters ever to hit western New York.
BEIJING (AP) — China will drop a COVID-19 quarantine requirement for passengers arriving from abroad starting Jan. 8, the National Health Commission announced Monday in the latest easing of the country’s once-strict virus-control measures.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A frigid winter storm killed at least 18 people as it swept across the country, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses and leaving millions of people on edge about the possibility of Christmas Eve blackouts.
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong's leader said Saturday that China has agreed to a reopening of the city's border with the mainland, which has been largely closed by pandemic restrictions, and that he is aiming for a mid-January start.
Thousands of travelers were stranded at airports or stuck on hold trying to rebook flights this week as a massive storm snarled travel in the U.S.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal lawmakers have changed 19th-century maritime liability rules for accident victims and their families in response to the 2019 boat fire off the coast of Southern California that killed 34 people.
LONDON (AP) — Air travelers faced possible delays at U.K. airports Friday as government employees who check passports went on strike in the latest of a spate of walkouts over pay amid a cost-of-living crisis.
Polar bears in Canada's Western Hudson Bay — on the southern edge of the Arctic — are continuing to die in high numbers, a new government survey of the land carnivore has found. Females and bear cubs are having an especially hard time.
NEW DELHI (AP) — India has begun randomly testing international passengers arriving at its airports for COVID-19, the country’s health minister said Thursday, citing an increase in cases in neighboring China.
MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Thousands of flights were canceled and homeless shelters were overflowing Thursday amid one of the most treacherous holiday travel seasons the U.S.
Concerns about illness or inflation aren’t stopping Americans from hitting the roads and airports this holiday season. But a massive winter storm might.
NEW YORK (AP) — The first legal dispensary for recreational marijuana in New York is set to open Dec. 29, marking a long-awaited launch of a cannabis industry that could become one of the country's most lucrative.
HONOLULU (AP) — A strong winter storm downed trees, knocked out power and flooded soccer fields as it moved across the Hawaiian Islands. Snow fell on the Big Island's tallest peaks.
National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Rozanski said Tuesday that the weather is typical of the kind of storm Hawaii occasionally gets in December and January.
The latest injuries from airplane turbulence were on flights to Honolulu and Houston, leading to a total of 41 people being hurt or receiving medical treatment in just two days — Sunday and Monday.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The former Confederate capital has secured an $11 million grant to build an interpretive center that city officials hope will someday be part of an ambitious, long-envisioned memorial campus honoring the memory of enslaved people.
NEW YORK (AP) — At a small patch of Central Park flanking New York's Harlem neighborhood, scores came Monday to remember the injustice that imprisoned five Black and Latino teenagers after they were wrongly accused and convicted of the 1989 rape of a white jogger.
HONOLULU (AP) — Tiffany Reyes had just gotten back to her seat from the bathroom and was about to buckle her safety belt when Hawaiian Airlines Flight 35 dipped.
In an instant, Reyes found herself on the aisle floor, staring up at caved-in ceiling panels and a cracked bathroom sign that was hanging.
HONOLULU (AP) — Severe turbulence rocked a flight from Phoenix to Honolulu Sunday, seriously injuring 11 people in what an Hawaiian Airlines official called an isolated and unusual event.
Jon Snook, the airline's chief operating officer, said the airline hasn't experienced “an incident of this nature in recent history.” The flight was full, carrying 278 passengers and 10 crew members, he said during an afternoon news conference.
ATLANTA (AP) — Forecasters are warning of treacherous holiday travel and life-threatening cold for much of the nation as an arctic air mass blows into the already-frigid southern United States.
“We’re looking at much-below normal temperatures, potentially record-low temperatures leading up to the Christmas holiday,” said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
CHENNAI, India (AP) — Arjun Viswanathan stood on the street, his hands folded, eyes fixed on the idol of the Hindu deity Ganesh.
On a humid morning, the information technology professional was waiting outside the temple, the size of a small closet – barely enough room for the lone priest to stand and perform puja or rituals for the beloved elephant-headed deity, believed to be the remover of obstacles.
The Transportation Security Administration is raising the fine for people caught with a gun in their carry-on bag after intercepting a record number of firearms at security checkpoints this year.
The TSA said Friday it’s raising the maximum fine to $14,950.
BERLIN (AP) — A huge aquarium in Berlin burst, spilling debris, water and hundreds of tropical fish out of the AquaDom tourist attraction in the heart of the German capital early Friday.
Police said parts of the building, which also contains a hotel, cafes and a chocolate store, were damaged as 1 million liters (264,000 gallons) of water poured from the aquarium shortly before 6 a.m.
RAPA NUI, Chile (AP) — The hillside of Rano Raraku volcano on Rapa Nui feels like a place that froze in time.
Embedded in grass and volcanic rock, almost 400 moai – the monolithic human figures carved centuries ago by this remote Pacific island’s Rapanui people -- remained untouched until recently.
NEW YORK (AP) — Two sailors who drifted hundreds of miles in the Atlantic Ocean for 10 days after a storm hit their sailboat off North Carolina thanked the crew of the tanker that rescued them and said they were lucky to have survived.