Europe

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LONDON — Within hours of a stabbing attack in northwest England that killed three young girls and wounded several more children, a false name of a supposed suspect was circulating on social media. Hours after that, violent protesters were clashing with police outside a nearby mosque. Police say the name was fake, as were rumors that the 17-year-old suspect was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived …

Pristina, Kosovo/Washington — Journalists and media advocates are concerned that a new law in Kosovo could give the government greater control. The new law seeks to license online media, give the Independent Media Commission, or IMC, power to monitor news websites, and increase the number of politically appointed members of the body, which is responsible for the regulation, management and oversight of the broadcasting frequency spectrum …

Washington — The movement inside Russia of several high-profile political prisoners in recent days is fueling speculation that a prisoner swap with Western countries may be close. Lawyers and relatives of at least eight individuals say they seem to have been moved from detention facilities across Russia. Those detained had been jailed for criticizing the Kremlin or spreading what Moscow views as false information about the …

No evidence has surfaced linking the West to attacks against Wagner, although Ukraine has indicated it provided support to Mali separatists battling Russian troops. …

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London — Huw Edwards, the BBC’s former top news presenter, pleaded guilty Wednesday to three counts of making indecent images of children.  The offenses he pleaded guilty to at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in central London during a 26-minute hearing involved images shared on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021 by a man who had initially contacted Edwards via social media.  Edwards, who was the lead …

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Prague/Washington  — Portraits of Alsu Kurmasheva are scattered throughout the Prague apartment she shares with her husband and two daughters. But the journalist has not set foot here in more than a year. Perhaps the most striking of the paintings, all of which were done by her husband, Pavel Butorin, is the one that remains unfinished, perched on an easel in the living room. Butorin started …

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Only days into the Paris Olympics, France has already weathered attacks on its rail and internet service. But it’s also mounted a massive security umbrella that includes tens of thousands of police, gendarmes — and soldiers. Many troops now patrolling the streets of the French capital have done duty in foreign countries, as Lisa Bryant reports from Paris. …

Paris — A Russian sports event widely regarded as an attempt to rival the Paris Olympics is set to be postponed to next year, organizers said Tuesday. The World Friendship Games had been due to take place in Russia in September but will now move back to unspecified dates in 2025, the International Friendship Association, a body set up to organize the games, said in a …

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ISLAMABAD — The Taliban on Tuesday disavowed many Afghan diplomatic missions overseas, saying it will not honor passports, visas and other documents issued by diplomats associated with Afghanistan’s former Western-backed administration. It’s the Taliban’s latest attempt to seize control of diplomatic missions since returning to power in 2021. Many Taliban leaders are under sanctions, and no country recognizes them as Afghanistan’s legitimate rulers. The country’s seat …

ANKARA, Turkey — Special envoys from Turkey and Armenia convened at the countries’ shared border on Tuesday to resume discussions aimed at normalizing ties between the historic foes. Turkey and Armenia have no formal relations, and their border has been closed since the 1990s. They agreed in late 2021 to improve relations and appointed special envoys to discuss ways toward reconciliation and the opening of the …

London police in April said they had charged two British men with aiding Russian intelligence following a suspected arson attack on a business with ties to Ukraine. This and other incidents have shaken Ukrainians who feel targeted in places where they have sought refuge. Henry Wilkins reports. …

To project influence, Moscow habitually goes beyond diplomacy, using malicious hybrid strategies and, in some instances, wars of aggression. …

London — British emergency services said a man had been arrested after at least eight people were stabbed in Southport, northwest England, on Monday, with a local children’s hospital declaring a major incident and the prime minister calling it “deeply shocking.”  North West Ambulance Service said it had treated eight patients with stab injuries who had been taken to three different hospitals, including Alder Hey Children’s …

Beijing — Chinese President Xi Jinping called for further cooperation with Italy on Monday at a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, saying the two countries were the ends of the historical Silk Road trade route. Meloni pulled Italy out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative — whose name refers to the ancient overland trade route — in December, but signed an agreement Sunday that …

Midyat, Turkey — Through a basement door in southeastern Turkey lies a sprawling underground city — perhaps the country’s largest — which one historian believes dates back to the ninth century before Jesus Christ. Archaeologists stumbled upon the city-under-a-city “almost by chance” after an excavation of house cellars in Midyat, near the Syrian border, led to the discovery of a vast labyrinth of caves in 2020. …

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainians urged their government to do more to get Russia to release prisoners of war, voicing their anger on Sunday at a ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50. Several thousand soldiers and civilians gathered at Kyiv’s Independence Square Sunday to commemorate the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50 Ukrainians that Russia held …

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Ankara — President Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that Turkey might enter Israel as it had done in the past in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, though he did not spell out what sort of intervention he was suggesting. Erdogan, who has been a fierce critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas, started discussing that war during a speech praising his country’s defense industry. “We must be very …