US and World News

World shares are mixed as investors await the outcome of the U.S. election and other potentially market-rattling events this week. Chinese markets surged on hopes for fresh stimulus for the economy. On Monday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3%, although most of the stocks within the index rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite dipped 0.3%. Beyond Election Day in the United States on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve will also be meeting on interest rates later this week. Investors also hope the Chinese government may announce stimulus for the world’s second-largest economy. Crude prices rose after oil-producing nations delayed planned increases to their production.

As millions of Americans gear up to cast ballots in U.S. elections, Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has people rooting for her from thousands of miles away in a tiny south Indian village. Harris’ maternal grandfather was born in the village of Thulasendrapuram more than 100 years ago. Even though Harris has never visited the village, locals still venerate her family and find her journey a source of inspiration. On Tuesday, they held special prayers for her victory. If Harris becomes the President it would be a first for a South Asian American, a sign of just how far people with Indian roots have come in the U.S.

Rescue workers are sifting through smoldering debris and thick mud in search of survivors a day after a volcano on Indonesia’s remote island of Flores erupted with fury, killing at least nine people with its searing lava and ash. Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki spewed thick brownish ash as high as 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) into the air, and lava, gravel and ash were thrown up to seven kilometers (4.3 miles) from its crater. The National Disaster Management Agency on Tuesday lowered the known death toll from an earlier report of 10, saying a person trapped under tons of debris in a collapsed house who was feared dead was eventually rescued alive but in critical condition.

Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco has reported third-quarter profits of $27.5 billion, down about 15% from last year as low oil prices ate into its revenues. Aramco, formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., had revenues of $111.1 billion over the quarter. That's according to a company filing Tuesday on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange. It made $113 billion the same quarter last year. Profit for the first nine months of 2024 was $83.9 billion, down from $94.5 billion the year before. Oil prices have been depressed in recent days as tensions in the Middle East appear to have receded slightly and as China’s economy has slowed. Benchmark Brent crude traded Tuesday at around $75 a barrel.

Thousands of opposition supporters rallied outside Georgia’s parliament for the second straight Monday to denounce the Oct. 26 election as illegitimate after the ruling party was declared the winner amid allegations of vote-rigging helped by Russia. The protesters demanded a new parliamentary election under international supervision and an investigation of the alleged ballot irregularities. Opposition leaders vowed to boycott sessions of parliament and hold regular protests until their demands are met. The opposition sees the ruling Georgian Dream Party as tilted toward Russia and bent on derailing Georgia's aspirations to join the European Union. The protest proceeded under the watch of riot police, reflecting the simmering political tensions in the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million.

The presidential campaign comes down to a final push across a handful of states on the eve of Election Day. Kamala Harris spent all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome. Donald Trump held four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina, stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh, then ending in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Donald Trump’s attention to crowd size carried through to the end of the 2024 presidential campaign. He's been grappling with an opponent who stages her own mass rallies while his enthusiastic crowds sometimes failed to fill large venues and often thinned out as he spoke. The former president’s crowds have numbered in the thousands. But the scenes offer a notable contrast to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ biggest events this fall. And they are often smaller than Trump’s crowds eight years ago when he sought and won the presidency for the first time. The dynamics clearly have bothered Trump has he makes inaccurate claims about Harris and her run of large events.

The final day of voting in the 2024 presidential election arrives with tens of millions of Americans having already cast their ballots. Those include record numbers in battleground states like Georgia and North Carolina. As of Monday, Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed over 80 million ballots cast. That’s slightly more than half the total number of votes in the last presidential election. Despite long lines in some places and a few hiccups common to all elections, early in-person and mail voting has proceeded without major problems. The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped former President Donald Trump from making claims of fraud or election interference, a likely prelude to challenges after Election Day.

Puerto Rico is holding elections that will be historic regardless of which of the top two gubernatorial candidates wins. If Jenniffer González of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party wins, it will mark the first time in the island’s history that the party secures three consecutive terms. If Juan Dalmau, who is running for Puerto Rico’s Independence Party and Citizen Victory Movement, wins, it will be the first time a candidate not representing either of the two main parties that have dominated the island’s politics for decades does so.

Voters are getting a say on abortion policy in Tuesday's election with ballot measures and elections to offices from president to local prosecutors. The issue has been in the political spotlight since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending a nationwide right to abortion and opening the door to bans that most GOP-controlled states are now enforcing. Florida, Arizona and seven other states are asking voters whether they want to enshrine a right to abortion in their state constitutions. In some states, passage would mean rolling back bans that are in place now.

Control of Congress is stake this election. Races for the House and Senate will determine which party holds the majority — and the power to boost or block a new president’s agenda. Key contests are playing out alongside the White House race but also in unexpected corners of the country. In New York and California, Democrats are trying to win back Republican-held seats and House control. Vote counting in some races could extend well past Tuesday. Senate attention is focused on Montana and the “blue wall” turf of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, as Republicans try to wrest the majority from Democrats. A few seats could determine the outcome.

Australia’s foreign minister says she raised allegations with her Indian counterpart that India has targeted Sikh activists in Canada. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she discussed the Canadian allegations with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar while he was in Australia on Tuesday. India has denied Canada’s allegation that India's home minister ordered the targeting of Sikh activists inside Canada. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last year there were credible allegations the Indian government had links to the assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada. India has vehemently rejected the accusation. New Delhi has increasingly accused the Canadian government of giving free rein to Sikh separatists from a once-strong movement to create an independent homeland in India.

On the night before Election Day, at campaign events across the country, celebrities turned out in force for Kamala Harris' presidential campaign. The battleground state of Pennsylvania was particularly starry: In Pittsburgh, the vice president was joined by Cedric the Entertainer, Katy Perry and Andra Day. In Philadelphia, performers and presenters included Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Fat Joe and Ricky Martin. Republican Donald Trump was not impressed. He said he doesn't need stars to pack in a crowd. And he spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Harris rally in Houston last month, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.

The voting has closed for unionized factory workers at Boeing who were deciding whether to accept a contract offer or to extend their strike. The walkout has lasted more than seven weeks, shut down production of most Boeing passenger planes and cut off a key source of cash for the company. A Seattle-based district of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is recommending that its members approve the Boeing offer on Monday. It would raise pay rates by 38% over four years. Workers also would receive ratification and productivity bonuses. However, Boeing didn't meet their demand to restore a pension plan that was frozen nearly a decade ago.

To mark 30 years of his career, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli has released a new compilation album, “Duets,” featuring previously released and new collaborations across some of his best-known work. There are also a few surprising contemporary covers. He will also celebrate with Friday's theatrical release of a new concert film, “Andrea Bocelli 30: The Celebration." Bocelli tells The Associated Press that his first day on stage feels like yesterday, and that he is grateful to have earned the affection of a global, cross-generational audience. He also says he'd love to sing jazz and in Chinese, but it is too difficult for him.

Kamala Harris devoted much of her final full day on the campaign trail to reaching Latino voters in Pennsylvania, a swing state that Democrats consider part of their “blue wall” in the Electoral College. She made multiple stops in one of the country's fastest growing Hispanic areas, north and west of Philadelphia. The Trump campaign had quickly distanced itself from a comic’s slam on Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” made at his rally in Madison Square Garden. But Harris' campaign and Democrats spent the last hours of the 2024 campaign in the nation’s largest battleground state linking Trump to the joke.

Conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly delivered a fiery speech supporting Donald Trump before he gave what was billed as his “closing message." The speech Monday night was a full-circle moment after the former president and the onetime Fox News star feuded bitterly during Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump invited to Kelly to the stage during a rally in Pittsburgh. She defended him against recent controversies, including his repeated pledge to “protect women,” and pressed his case against Kamala Harris as weak on the border. Trump stood to the side, grinning and beaming, as he listened to the commentator he once called “nasty.”

The Department of Justice says federal agents have arrested a Tennessee man who they say was trying to destroy a Nashville electrical substation. Skyler Philippi is accused of attempting to use a drone loaded with what he thought were explosives to destroy the Nashville energy facility. According to court documents released Monday, the 24-year-old is accused of planning to attach several pounds of C-4 explosives to an aerial drone for the attack. Philippi is accused of working with undercover FBI employees on the plan. He was arrested on Saturday and had a federal public defender appointed to represent him on Monday. An email requesting comment was sent to the attorney.

South Korea's military says North Korea has fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern sea as the country continues its weapons demonstrations ahead of the U.S. presidential election. Japan says at least seven North Korean missiles flew as far as 250 miles and landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The launches come days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a flight test of the country’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile designed to reach the U.S. mainland. North Korea claimed that the Hwasong-19 it tested on Oct. 31 was “the world’s strongest ICBM,” but experts say the solid-fuel missile was too big to be useful in war.

New York State Police have suspended a trooper without pay after launching an investigation into his account of being shot and wounded while trying to help a motorist on a Long Island highway. The decision was announced Monday after officers executed a search warrant at Trooper Thomas Mascia’s residence as they probed the circumstances of the shooting he reported Oct. 30. State police also canceled an alert issued for a car purportedly linked to the shooting.  A prosecutor says authorities are investigating inconsistencies in the officer's account of the shooting. Police have said there is no video footage of the incident.

Forecasters say Tropical Storm Rafael has formed in the Caribbean and will bring heavy rain to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands before strengthening to a hurricane and likely hitting Cuba. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Jamaica and a hurricane watch was in effect for the Cayman Islands and for parts of Cuba. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says that later in the week it also is expected to bring heavy rainfall to Florida and portions of the U.S. Southeast. The storm was expected to move near Jamaica by late Monday. The forecast shows the storm could become a hurricane on Tuesday en route to Cuba.

The nation’s federal law enforcement and election security agencies are debunking two new examples of Russian election disinformation on the eve of Election Day. In a joint statement late Monday, they pointed to a recent article posted by Russian actors falsely claiming that U.S. officials across presidential swing states were orchestrating a plan to commit fraud, as well as a video that falsely depicted an interview with an individual claiming election fraud in Arizona. The effort described by federal officials is part of a wide-ranging influence operation by Russia designed to undermine confidence in the electoral process. The officials also drew fresh attention to Iran’s attempts to interfere in the election.

Some Republican-led states say they they will block Justice Department’s election monitors from going inside polling places on Election Day, pushing back on federal authorities’ decades-long practice of watching for violations of federal voting laws. Officials in Florida and Texas have said they won’t allow Justice Department election monitors into polling sites. And on Monday, Missouri filed a federal lawsuit seeking a court order to block Justice Department officials from observing inside polling places. Texas followed with a similar lawsuit seeking to permanently bar federal monitoring of elections in the state.

Continuing storms in eastern Spain that led to massive flooding last week and killed over 200 people, mostly near Valencia, are dumping rain on Barcelona. Monday's downpour prompted authorities to suspend commuter rail service. Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said on Monday that he's suspending all commuter trains in northeast Catalonia, a region with 8 million people, at the of civil protection officials. Mobile phones in Barcelona screeched with an alert for “extreme and continued rainfall” on the southern outskirts of the city. In Valencia, the search goes on for bodies in houses and the thousands of wrecked cars strewn in the streets, on highways and in the canals that channeled last week’s deluge into populated areas.

Spain’s royals, prime minister and other politicians were greeted by crowds hurling mud and debris on Sunday when they tried to visit Paiporta, where over 60 people perished. It was their first visit to the area devastated by floods last week. Felipe VI repeatedly insisted that his bodyguards let him get close to talk to the angry residents. He was praised by many for his composure. But political experts also say the monarch may have given the impression that he actually has a say in the management of a crisis that doesn't look like it will be resolved anytime soon.

Cheers and sobs of relief broke out in a federal courtroom in Kansas as dozens of people whose life savings had been embezzled by a bank CEO learned federal law enforcement had recovered their money. Seventy-year-old Bart Camilli said he couldn't describe the weight lifted from his shoulders when he learned he'd be getting back nearly $450,000 in lifelong savings. In August, former Kansas bank CEO Shan Hanes was sentenced to 24 years for embezzling $47 million from customer accounts — money prosecutors say was sent to scammers. The victims learned they would get their money back at a restitution hearing Monday.

Israel says it's terminated the agreement facilitating the work of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the main aid provider in Gaza. It appears to be a first step to implement legislation passed last month that would sever ties with the agency and prevent it from operating in Israel. Israel says the agency, known as UNRWA, has been infiltrated by Hamas, while UNRWA denies the allegations. Despite growing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, intensified Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group are expanding beyond Lebanon’s border areas. Israel is also fighting a seemingly endless war against Hamas in northern Gaza.

The Biden administration is stepping up criticism of Israel for not doing enough to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza as a 30-day deadline looms for Israeli officials to meet certain requirements or risk potential restrictions on military assistance. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Monday gave Israel a “fail” grade on meeting the conditions for an improvement in aid deliveries to Gaza laid out in a letter last month to senior Israeli officials by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. He said there were still roughly nine days until the deadline expires, but that limited progress thus far has been insufficient.

Jurors have seen video of Daniel Penny gripping a man around the neck on a New York City subway train as another passenger beseeched the Marine veteran to let go. Two videos were shown in court Monday at the manslaughter trial surrounding Jordan Neely’s 2023 death. The videos were shot by bystanders, one a high school student, the other a freelance journalist. One video shows Neely reaching out and tapping a bystander on the leg while in the chokehold. The images offered the anonymous jury its first direct view of the chokehold at the heart of the manslaughter trial surrounding Jordan Neely’s 2023 death. Penny has pleaded not guilty. He claims self-defense.

For decades, the cremated remains on more than two dozen American Civil War veterans languished in storage facilities Washington. But thanks to the sleuthing of an organization that finds, identifies and inters veterans, the ashes were recovered and most were given a burial service with military honors at a cemetery in Washington state. The remains of several others were sent to be reburied near family in Maine, Rhode Island and elsewhere. The Missing In American Project had found the remains of the Union soldiers stored at a funeral home and a cemetery in Seattle. One of those was returned to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and was buried in his family's plot.

Belarus’ election commission has allowed seven politicians loyal to President Alexander Lukashenko to start collecting signatures to run in January’s election in an apparent bid to create a semblance of competition to the longtime authoritarian ruler. Lukashenko, who has ruled the country for more than 30 years, is seeking a seventh term following his relentless crackdown on opposition and free media. The election, scheduled for Jan. 26, would come 4 1/2 years after the 2020 presidential vote that was rejected by the opposition and the West as rigged with fraud and triggered massive nationwide protests. Belarusian authorities responded to the demonstrations with a sweeping crackdown in which about 65,000 people were arrested.