Good riddance to 2021. Let 2022 bring fresh hope. That was a common sentiment Friday as people around the world got ready to welcome in the new year. In many places, plans for New Year's Eve celebrations were muted or cancelled for the second straight year due to a surge of coronavirus...

An estimated 580 homes, a hotel and a shopping center have burned and tens of thousands of people were evacuated in wind-fueled wildfires outside Denver, officials said Thursday evening. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said only one injury has been reported, but didn’t rule out finding out...

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Stand News online media outlet says it is ceasing operations following a police raid and arrests of current and former editors and board members. The outlet issued a statement Wednesday saying its website and social media are no longer being updated and will be...

A total of 116 cities in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia were in a state of emergency because of flooding on Tuesday due to heavy rains that have been pounding the region since the end of November. Cities in at least five other states in Brazil's north and southeast have also been...

After struggling with the coronavirus for far too long, the world understands all too well Belgium's word of the year, “knaldrang!” — the urge to party, the need to let loose. Yet as New Year celebrations approach, the omicron variant is casting more gloom. Several countries are considering...

At least 47 people lost their lives in the massive floods in Malaysia as of Sunday, according to local media. Many regions in the country were flooded due to heavy rains that were effective for three days from Dec.17, the Asian News International said. Police officials reported that the...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Outside a foreign currency exchange in Zimbabwe’s capital, hordes of people desperate for U.S. dollars are pushed up against each other. “That’s it, keep it tight,” some shout, trying to prevent others from jumping the line to buy the money that could get them a...

BOSTON (AP) — Staff absences for COVID-19 tripled this month in London’s hospitals, and nearly 10% of the city’s firefighters called out sick. In New York, about 2,700 police officers were absent earlier this week — twice the number who are ill on an average day. And on Cape Cod in...

CAIRO (AP) — More than 160 migrants drowned in two separate shipwrecks off Libya over past week, a United Nations migration official said Tuesday. The fatalities were the latest disasters in the Mediterranean Sea involving migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Safa Msehli, a spokeswoman...

BOSTON (AP) — The nation’s second-largest city called off its New Year’s Eve celebration Monday, and its smallest state re-imposed an indoor mask mandate as the omicron variant leaped ahead of other variants to become the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S. Omicron accounted for...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The death toll following the strongest typhoon to batter the Philippines this year has risen to more than 200, with 52 other people still missing and several central towns and provinces grappling with downed communications and power outages and pleading for food and...

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Former leftist student leader Gabriel Boric will be under quick pressure from his youthful supporters to fulfill his promises to remake Chile after the millennial politician scored a historic victory in the country's presidential runoff election. Boric spent months...

At least 27 people were feared killed on Friday when a fire broke out in a commercial building in a shopping district in the Japanese city of Osaka. Police were investigating the cause of the fire on the fourth floor of the eight-storey building for suspected arson, Kyodo News reported,...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The omicron variant is offering more hints about what it may have in store as it spreads around the globe: A highly transmissible virus that may cause less severe disease, and one that can be slowed — but not stopped — by today’s vaccines. An analysis Tuesday of data from...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A spike in violence has deepened hunger and poverty in Haiti while hindering the very aid organizations combating those problems in a country whose government struggles to provide basic services. Few relief workers are willing to speak on the record about the...

Climate change is “an aggravating factor” for instability, conflict and terrorism, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday. The U.N. chief said the regions that are most vulnerable to climate change “also suffer from insecurity, poverty, weak governance and the scourge of...

Mousa and Rasha Alkhafaji were already anxious when they emigrated from Iraq to the United States in 2017. Even though Mousa Alkhafaji had finally received a Special Immigrant Visa for his work with the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq, his family’s original flight had been canceled when the Trump...

The former interpreter for the U.S. Army counts himself among the lucky as an Afghan who managed to make it through frantic crowds outside the Kabul airport to board a military evacuation flight out of the country with little more than the clothes on his back. Esrar Ahmad Saber now waits,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ready to warn Vladimir Putin during a video call Tuesday that Russia will face economy-jarring sanctions if it invades neighboring Ukraine as Biden seeks a diplomatic solution to deal with the tens of thousands of Russian troops massed near the Ukraine...

MOSCOW (AP) — Ukrainian and Western officials are worried that a Russian military buildup near Ukraine could signal plans by Moscow to invade its ex-Soviet neighbor. The Kremlin insists it has no such intention and has accused Ukraine and its Western backers of making the claims to cover up...