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KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Rwanda-backed rebels have killed at least 80 people in eastern Congo in recent weeks, Congolese authorities said, despite the ongoing Qatar-led peace process aiming to end the conflict.A decades-long conflict ravaging eastern Democratic Republic of Congo escalated earlier this year when the M23 rebel group seized two key cities with the help of neighboring Rwandan forces. Congo has long been wracked by deadly conflict in its mineral-rich east, with more than 100 armed groups active.The continuing violence could threaten the efforts to get Congo and the rebels to sign a permanent peace deal by Aug. 18…

PARIS (AP) — About 1,400 firefighters were deployed Saturday in France’s southern Aude region to prevent the country’s largest wildfire in decades from reigniting, as all residents were allowed to return to their homes.Aude prefect Christian Pouget said the fire has been contained since Thursday after burning this week more than 160 square kilometers (62 square miles) in the wooded region, known for its wineries. All roads have been reopened but authorities issued a strict ban on accessing the forest, Pouget said at a news conference on Saturday. “The fight is continuing, firefighters are still working on (fire) reignition,” he…

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The leaders of New Zealand and Australia on Saturday discussed closer cooperation between they their expanding militaries against the backdrop of a recent extraordinary Chinese live-fire exercise near their shores.New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon hosted his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese at the tourist city of Queenstown for their second annual bilateral leaders’ meeting.Luxon said his country wanted closer military cooperation with Australia, a country he describes as New Zealand’s “only ally.”“A big focus for us has been interoperability with Australia. We want to be a force multiplier,” Luxon told reporters.“We want to be one, sort…

A mysterious tailless stealth jet spotted in China has intensified the US-China race for sixth-generation air dominance, where competing ambitions face significant technological and operational uncertainties on both sides of the Pacific. This month, multiple media sources reported that images circulating on Chinese social media appear to show a previously unknown tailless stealth aircraft, igniting debate over whether it is China’s third distinct sixth-generation crewed fighter or a high-performance autonomous “loyal wingman” drone. Photographed from multiple angles, the jet features a pointed nose, mid-set highly swept wings with cropped tips, no vertical stabilizers and possibly twin engines—design traits suggesting either…

Chinese women dressed in traditional style clothing, or Hanfu, and other shoppers walk in a popular shopping area on November 8, 2024 in Beijing, China.Kevin Frayer | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesChina’s producer prices fell more than expected in July, while consumer prices were unchanged, underscoring the impact of sluggish domestic demand and persistent trade uncertainty on consumer and business sentiment.Factory-gate prices have been declining for more than two years, and Saturday’s data suggest early-stage efforts to tackle price competition have yet to yield significant results.Deflationary pressures have prompted Chinese authorities to address overcapacity in key industries. However, the…

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — The World’s Ugliest Dog Contest is held at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Aug. 8, 2025.—This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors. Truffles, a 6-year-old micro bully, prepares to compete in in the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Truffles, a 6-year-old micro bully, prepares to compete in in the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)Read More Nezumi,…

Lucy Rout, founder of Haystack Dating.Lucy RoutLucy Rout is not your typical entrepreneur.The 30-year-old Londoner — known for going viral for skiing off an icy slope in a bikini and for consulting her Instagram followers on whether she should fly 10,000 miles for a fourth date with a man — has used her eclectic experiences to develop a new dating model that’s all about making meaningful connections.Rout told CNBC her confidence had never been lower when using traditional dating apps.After years of being ghosted, and what she describes as a “strange dopamine cycle of downloading, trying some dates, experiencing bad…

Kate Green | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images”Treatonomics” — a consumer trend that covers spending on ‘everyday luxuries’ to larger, life-affirming experiences — is booming as people look for a mood boost in ongoing unsettling economic times.Spending on small-item ‘pick-me-ups’ is a well-established recession-resistant trend, with consumers often turning to purchases of modest personal items such as make-up, perfume and candles — or even collectible rubber ducks or Labubu dolls — for a morale boost when times are hard or uncertain.It’s no wonder then, that the consumer trend has long been seen as a bellwether for how consumers feel…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Around 2 a.m., noisy revelers emerging from clubs and bars packed the sidewalks of U Street in Washington, many of them seeking a late-night slice or falafel. A robust but not unusual contingent of city police cruisers lingered around the edges of the crowds. At other late-night hot spots, nearly identical scenes unfolded. What wasn’t apparent in Friday’s earliest hours: any sort of security lockdown by a multiagency flood of uniformed federal law enforcement officers. That’s what President Donald Trump had promised Thursday, starting at midnight, in the administration’s latest move to impose its will on the…

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Amid rising electric bills, states are under pressure to insulate regular household and business ratepayers from the costs of feeding Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers.It’s not clear that any state has a solution and the actual effect of data centers on electricity bills is difficult to pin down. Some critics question whether states have the spine to take a hard line against tech behemoths like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta.But more than a dozen states have begun taking steps as data centers drive a rapid build-out of power plants and transmission lines.That has meant pressuring the…