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...

Americans read an average of 12.6 books during the past year, according to a new Gallup poll released. That represents the lowest number of books read compared to any previous survey dating back to 1990, Gallup said. In three polls conducted between 2002 and 2016, Gallup surveys showed that Americans read an average of 15.2 books per year. The results are based on a Dec. 1-16 poll of a random s...

The percentage of Americans who identify as Christian dropped 15 percentage points over the past 14 years, while those who consider themselves religiously unaffiliated increased by 14 percentage points, a Pew study released indicates. Pew's National Public Opinion Reference Survey found that the majority of Americans - 63 percent - consider themselves Christian, down from 78 percent in 2007. Mea...

Enrollment of foreign students in US colleges and universities plunged 15 percent in the 2020-21 school year even though American institutions remain in high esteem, research showed. Fewer than 1 million foreign students enrolled for either online or in-person classes at US universities in the 2020-21 school year, marking a 15 percent year-over-year decrease from the previous school year, accord...

China's birth rate plummeted to a record low last year, official data showed, as analysts warn that faster-than-expected aging could deepen economic growth concerns. Beijing has been grappling with a looming demographic crisis as it faces a rapidly aging workforce, slowing economy and the country's weakest population growth in decades. The birth rate of the world’s second-biggest economy sli...