Prince William on Thursday defended the British royal family after his younger brother Harry and wife Meghan accused them of racism in a bombshell interview watched around the world. "We're very much not a racist family," William told reporters during a visit to a multi-racial school in a deprived area of east London. The Duke of Cambridge, son of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, added that h...

LONDON (AFP) -- Suicidal thoughts, a racist relative and an heir-to-the-throne trapped by tradition -- Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have lifted the lid on life inside Britain's royal family with an explosive interview that reverberated around the world. The two-hour sit-down with Oprah Winfrey by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex was the most startling since Harry's late mother Princess Diana m...

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Infectious disease experts are expressing concern about Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Iraq, given a sharp rise in coronavirus infections there, a fragile health care system and the unavoidable likelihood that Iraqis will crowd to see him. No one wants to tell Francis to call it off, and the Iraqi government has every interest in showing off its relative stability by welcomi...

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The United States on Saturday authorized Johnson & Johnson's Covid vaccine for emergency use, giving the nation a third shot to battle the outbreak that has killed more than 500,000 Americans. The single-shot vaccine is highly effective in preventing severe Covid-19, including against newer variants, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said before giving it a green light. ...

China faces a “critical and urgent” task to overhaul Hong Kong’s electoral system, Beijing’s top official for the city said, in the latest sign that authorities were mulling major changes in the coming weeks. Beijing needed to reform the city’s electoral system “to ensure that Hong Kong’s governance is firmly controlled by patriots,” Xia Baolong, director of China’s cabinet-level Hong Kong and M...

The US stood Sunday at the brink of a once-unthinkable tally: 500,000 people lost to the coronavirus. A year into the pandemic, the running total of lives lost was about 498,000 -- roughly the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and just shy of the size of Atlanta. The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University surpasses the number of people who died in 2019 of chronic lower respiratory diseas...

MANDALAY (AP) -- Two anti-coup protesters were shot dead by riot police who fired live rounds Saturday in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, local media reported. One of the victims was shot in the head and died at the scene, according to Frontier Myanmar, a news and business magazine based in Yangon, the country’s largest city. Another was shot in the chest and died en route to the hospit...

LONDON (AFP) -- Britain’s Prince Harry will relinquish his honorary military appointments and patronages after confirming to Queen Elizabeth II that he and wife Meghan Markle will not return as working royals, Buckingham Palace announced Friday. “The Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of The Royal Family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and d...

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- The first dose of the Pfizer vaccination is 85 percent effective against coronavirus infection between two and four weeks after inoculation, according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal. The survey was carried out on healthcare workers at the largest hospital in Israel, which on December 19 launched a mass vaccination campaign regarded as the world‘s fastest. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Donald Trump was acquitted Saturday of inciting the horrific attack on the US Capitol, concluding a historic impeachment trial that spared him the first-ever conviction of a current or former US president but exposed the fragility of America's democratic traditions and left a divided nation to come to terms with the violence sparked by his defeated presidency. Barely a month s...

His rallying cry to supporters has been dissected. His videos, press conferences and calls to Fox News have played on loop. His Twitter account is once again dominating news coverage, his missives read aloud in the Senate chamber. More than three weeks removed from the White House, Donald Trump’s voice is again permeating the nation’s capital — but not on his terms. Stripped of his social media...

Pressure is coming from all sides in Japan for Yoshiro Mori to step down as the president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday held his first call as president with Xi Jinping, pressing the Chinese leader about trade and Beijing's crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong as well as other human rights concerns. The two leaders spoke just hours after Biden announced plans for a Pentagon task force to review US national security strategy in China and after the new US president annou...

A World Health Organization team has left China after gaining some new insights into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 2.3 million people but with the major questions still unanswered. The visit was politically sensitive for China which is concerned about any allegations it didn't handle the initial outbreak properly and has been closely watched around the world. ...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced concern Wednesday over China's incursions into Japanese territorial waters, recommitting to the ally's defense. In a telephone call, Blinken and Japanese foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi "expressed concern over increased Chinese assertiveness around the Senkaku Islands following China's enactment of a new coast guard law," State Department spokesman ...