President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he will ask Congress for $2.6 billion for foreign aid programs that promote gender equality worldwide, more than double the size of last year's request. Biden announced his intentions on International Women's Day, which is set aside to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world. Biden created the first-ever...

China is considering buying or increasing stakes in Russian energy and commodities companies, such as gas giant Gazprom PJSC and aluminum producer United Co. Rusal International PJSC, according to people familiar with the matter. Beijing is in talks with its state-owned firms, including China National Petroleum Corp., China Petrochemical Corp., Aluminum Corp. of China and China Minmetals Corp., ...

Google agreed to acquire cybersecurity company Mandiant Inc. for $5.4 billion, its second-biggest deal ever. With Mandiant, Alphabet Inc.’s Google gets more tools to protect its cloud clients by responding quickly to online threats. The company is working to recruit and support cloud customers amid stiff competition from Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. Google will purchase Mandiant for $23 ...

Energy giant Shell said Tuesday that it will stop buying Russian oil and natural gas and shut down its service stations, aviation fuels and other operations in the country amid international pressure for companies to sever ties over the invasion of Ukraine. The company said in a statement that it would withdraw from all Russian hydrocarbons, including crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas a...

The proportion of US adults identifying as LGBT has increased to a high of 7.1 percent, double the figure from 2012 when Gallup first started measuring it, reflecting a generational shift, the polling firm said. Gallup asks Americans whether they personally identified as straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual, as part of the demographic information i...

BRUSSELS (AP) --NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Thursday that the military alliance would defend every inch of its territory should Russia attack a member country, as he slammed Moscow for launching a brutal act of war on Ukraine. Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on its neighbor, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling. Ukraine's government said Russian tanks and...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Britain is slapping sanctions on five Russian banks and three wealthy individuals over Russia's latest military moves on Ukraine. Johnson told lawmakers that sanctions would hit Rossiya Bank, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank. He said three Russian oligarchs with interests in energy and infrastructure -- Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenb...

Germany has taken steps to halt the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday, as the West started taking punitive measures against Moscow over the Ukraine crisis. Scholz said his government made the decision in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's recognition of the independence of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine tha...

Russia announced Tuesday that its recognition of independence for areas in eastern Ukraine extends to territory currently held by Ukrainian forces _ further raising the stakes amid Western fears that Moscow a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine is imminent. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia has recognized the rebel regions' independence ``in borders that existed when they proclaimed'...

Volkswagen AG is preparing an initial public offering of Porsche, seeking a listing of its most profitable asset to help boost the parent’s valuation and fund the push into electric vehicles. VW’s preferred shares surged as much as 10% after the announcement Tuesday on a possible IPO outline between the carmaker and and Porsche Automobil Holding SE, a company controlled by the billionaire Porsch...

North Korea retreated four notches in an annual international corruption ranking to 174th among 180 countries last year, a report by an anti-corruption watchdog showed. The reclusive country scored 16 out of 100 in the Corruption Perceptions Index report issued by Berlin-based Transparency International, down two points from the previous year. The index evaluates countries based on how corru...

South Korea’s defense technologies were assessed to be the world’s ninth most advanced as of last year, a triennial government report showed, noting progress in artillery, submarines and other sectors. According to the report by the Korea Research Institute for Defense Technology Planning and Advancement, South Korea ranked ninth among 16 countries, compared with the previous report in which t...

Members Members of the Mexican press union staged a demonstration against violence against their colleagues, in Merida, Mexico, Jan. 25. Thousands of journalists from all the states of the country demonstrated to demand justice for the recent murders of informants and the end of the violence against the union. A protester holds a picture of Mexican journalist Lourdes Maldonado who was killed in...

A makeshift memorial is seen outside the New York City Police Department‘s 32nd Precinct near the scene of a shooting that occurred days earlier in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, Jan. 24, 2022. Calvin Hunt of Harlem pays his respects at the memorial, holding a photo of officer Jason Rivera, who the memorial is dedicated to. Jason Rivera was shot while responding to a domestic violence call...