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Members of the festival organizing team at the Kali Bari Hindu temple pray via live transmission on the first day of Durga Puja celebrations in New Delhi, India, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. Most of the festival festivities are being scaled down following the health officials warning about the potential for the coronavirus to spread during the religious festival season, which is marked by huge gatherings in temples and shopping districts. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

The Latest: UN chief urges G20 to unite on coronavirus fight

Oct. 22, 2020 10:24 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. chief says it’s “very frustrating” that leaders of the 20 major industrialized nations didn’t come together in March and establish a coordinated response to grapple with the coronavirus in all countries as he proposed. The result, he says, is every...

People drink in a bar terrace before the start of a new coronavirus curfew, in Bayonne, southwestern France, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. Curfews loom for Italy’s three largest cities face new curfews, and similar overnight off-the street rules were decided on Thursday for elsewhere in Europe, including Athens and much of France. (AP Photo/Bob Edme)

French PM says 2nd virus wave is here, vastly extends curfew

Oct. 22, 2020 4:17 PM EDT

PARIS (AP) — French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Thursday a vast extension of the nightly curfew that is intended to curb the spiraling spread of the coronavirus, saying “the second wave is here.” The curfew imposed in eight regions of France last week, including Paris and its...

A man wearing a face mask carries his dog across the medieval Charles Bridge in Prague, Czech Republic, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020. In another desperate attempt to slow the rise of coronavirus infections in the Czech Republic, Health Minister Roman Prymula has announced a ban on free movement of people in the country and a closure of many stores, shopping malls and hotels. At the same time, state offices will limit their opening hours. Prime Minister Andrej Babis says those measures should prevent the collapse of the health system in early November. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Europe faces more curfews, restrictions as virus cases swell

Oct. 22, 2020 4:03 PM EDT

ROME (AP) — Curfews were largely expanded Thursday across France, which registered some 41.600 new confirmed virus cases to approach a total of 1 million, while similar overnight restrictions were slapped on Italy's three biggest cities — Rome, Naples and Milan — as rapidly rising caseloads...

FILE - In this Dec. 4, 2019, file photo, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, front left, speaks with U.S. President Donald Trump, front right, after a group photo at a NATO leaders meeting at The Grove hotel and resort in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. There will be leaders and populations who shudder at the thought of four more years of the Donald Trump administration and those whose consternation is tied to his potential defeat, and a U.S. government led by a President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)

US NATO allies still short on defense spending aims

Oct. 22, 2020 11:42 AM EDT

BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. allies in Europe and Canada have increased defense spending for a sixth consecutive year but most of them will still fail to achieve a NATO spending ambition by the target date of 2024, according to new figures being discussed by defense ministers on Thursday. NATO countries slashed...

French anti-terrorist state prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard holds a press conference Wednesday Oct.21, 2020 in Paris. The French government issued an order to dissolve a domestic militant Islamic group after the beheading last week near Paris of Samuel Paty, a teacher who had shown students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. A terror investigation is under way into the killing by an 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee, who was later shot dead by police. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

Macron says beheaded teacher was victim of stupidity, hate

Oct. 21, 2020 4:51 PM EDT

PARIS (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron promised Wednesday that France will not renounce freedoms taught by a schoolteacher beheaded by a radical Islamist last week after showing caricatures of the prophet of Islam to his class. At a national memorial at the Sorbonne University in central Paris, Macron...

Former Basque separatist chief's Paris trial postponed

Oct. 21, 2020 11:08 AM EDT

PARIS (AP) — A Paris court on Wednesday postponed the trial of the last-known leader of the now-defunct Basque separatist group ETA, citing procedural reasons. Josu Urrutikoetxea went on trial two days ago on terrorism charges, which he deemed “absurd” because of his role in ending a...

FILE - In this Friday, April 4, 2014 file photo, the skulls and bones of some of those who were slaughtered as they sought refuge inside the church are laid out as a memorial to the thousands who were killed in and around the Catholic church during the 1994 genocide in Ntarama, Rwanda. France's highest court on Wednesday Sept.30, 2020 rejected Rwandan genocide suspect Félicien Kabuga's appeal of a decision to extradite him to an international court in The Hague. Kabuga, one of the most-wanted fugitives in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, was arrested outside Paris in May after 25 years on the run. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

UN judge orders Rwandan genocide suspect sent to The Hague

Oct. 21, 2020 9:26 AM EDT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An 87-year-old Rwandan genocide suspect being held in France will be sent temporarily to a United Nations court in the Netherlands for a medical assessment amid concerns about his health and the coronavirus pandemic, a judge ruled Wednesday. Félicien Kabuga, one of the...

French President Emmanuel Macron, center, delivers a speech while Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, left, and Seine-Saint-Denis prefect Georges-Francois Leclerc listen, after a visit on the fight against separatism at the Seine Saint Denis prefecture headquarters in Bobigny, a northeastern suburbs of Paris, Tuesday Oct. 20, 2020. Authorities were looking into about 50 associations suspected of encouraging hate speech and the issue will be discussed at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday after the history teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded on Friday by an 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

French militant group, mosque to close after teacher slaying

Oct. 20, 2020 7:50 PM EDT

PARIS (AP) — France’s president on Tuesday named a domestic militant Islamist group as “directly implicated” in last week’s gruesome street beheading in a Paris suburb of a teacher who had shown his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Emmanuel Macron said the group will...

FILE - In this Sept. 5, 2020, file photo, people gather during a

Leaders in US, Europe divided on response to surging virus

Oct. 20, 2020 6:36 PM EDT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Virus cases are surging across Europe and many U.S. states, but responses by leaders are miles apart, with officials in Ireland, France and elsewhere imposing curfews and restricting gatherings even as some U.S. governors resist mask mandates or more aggressive measures. The stark...

Men are seen through safety netting as they stand atop a less-damaged section of Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, or Our Lady of Angels church, during the early stages of reconstruction work, three years after an earthquake collapsed nearly half of the church's 18th-century dome in Mexico City, Friday, Oct. 16, 2020. The experts working on projects like this across Mexico face some of the same issues confronting restorers everywhere, like France’s re-building of the Notre Dame Cathedral: are the materials and craftsmen's skills of centuries ago still available? (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Mexico halfway through quake restoration of old churches

Oct. 20, 2020 2:33 PM EDT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The earthquake struck in seconds, but three years later restorers still face a monumental task: about half of the 2,340 colonial-era buildings and churches damaged in the 2017 Mexico quake still need to be repaired, restored or partially rebuilt. It is a titanic challenge: crumbling old...

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