India begins counting votes in marathon election expected to bring Prime Minister Modi a third term

NEW DELHI (AP) — India on Tuesday began counting more than 640 million votes in the world’s largest democratic exercise, which was widely expected to return Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a third term after a decade in power.

The 6-week-long election was seen as a referendum on Modi. If the 73-year-old wins, it will only be the second time an Indian leader has retained power for a third term after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.

Exit polls on Saturday by major television channels projected a comfortable win for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies over a broad opposition alliance led by the Congress party and its main campaign leader, Rahul Gandhi.

Indian television channels have had a mixed record in the past in predicting election results.

Nearly 970 million people, more than 10% of the world’s population, were eligible to vote. Turnout was around 66% on average across the seven phases, according to official data.

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Jury is chosen in Hunter Biden's federal firearms case and opening statements are set for Tuesday

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — A jury was seated Monday in the federal gun case against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, after prospective panelists were questioned about their thoughts on gun rights and drug addiction while the first lady watched from the front row of the courtroom.

Opening statements were set to begin Tuesday after the jurors — six men and six women plus four women serving as alternates — were instructed by Judge Maryellen Noreika not to talk or read about the case.

Hunter Biden has been charged in Delaware with three felonies stemming from a 2018 firearm purchase when he was, according to his memoir, in the throes of a crack addiction. He has been accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days.

The case is going to trial following the collapse of a plea deal that would have avoided the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and has argued he's being unfairly targeted by the Justice Department, after Republicans decried the now-defunct plea deal as special treatment for the Democratic president's son.

The proceedings are unfolding just days after Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was convicted of 34 felonies in New York City. A jury found the former president guilty of a scheme to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor to fend off damage to his 2016 presidential campaign. The two criminal cases are unrelated, but their proximity underscores how the courts have taken center stage during the 2024 campaign.

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China's spacecraft carrying rocks from the far side of the moon leaves the lunar surface

BEIJING (AP) — China says a spacecraft carrying rock and soil samples from the far side of the moon has lifted off from the lunar surface to start its journey back to Earth.

The ascender of the Chang’e-6 probe lifted off Tuesday morning Beijing time and entered a preset orbit around the moon, the China National Space Administration said.

The Chang’e-6 probe was launched last month and its lander touched down on the far side of the moon Sunday.

Xinhua News Agency cited the space agency as saying the spacecraft stowed the samples it had gathered in a container inside the ascender of the probe as planned.

The container will be transferred to a reentry capsule that is due to return to Earth in the deserts of China’s Inner Mongolia region about June 25.

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Biden prepares an order that would shut down asylum if a daily average of 2,500 migrants arrive

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is telling lawmakers that President Joe Biden is preparing to sign off on an executive order that would shut down asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border once the average number of daily encounters hits 2,500 between ports of entry, with the border reopening only once that number declines to 1,500, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

The impact of the 2,500 figure means that the executive order could go into immediate effect, because daily figures are higher than that now.

The Democratic president is expected to unveil the actions — his most aggressive unilateral move yet to control the numbers at the border — at the White House on Tuesday at an event to which border mayors have been invited.

Five people familiar with the discussions on Monday confirmed the 2,500 figure, while two of the people confirmed the 1,500 number. The figures are daily averages over the course of a week. All the people insisted on anonymity to discuss an executive order that is not yet public.

While other border activity, such as trade, is expected to continue, the 1,500 threshold at which the border would reopen for asylum seekers could be hard to reach. The last time the daily average dipped to 1,500 encounters was in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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French children hail D-Day veterans as heroes as they arrive in Normandy for anniversary events

DEAUVILLE AIRPORT, France (AP) — ‘’To our forever heroes: Thank you'' — those words inscribed by French schoolchildren on a big poster greeted dozens of U.S. World War II veterans, many in their 100s, as they arrived on Monday in Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

France’s first lady Brigitte Macron and top French officials met the 48 veterans from around the U.S. as they arrived at the Deauville-Normandy Airport on board a special flight from Atlanta, on a trip organized by the non-profit Best Defense Foundation.

Children from local schools held up the poster, and sang the French and U.S. national anthems.

“Welcome to France,” Brigitte Macron said, speaking in English, expressing her “deepest respect” and “deepest love” to the veterans. “You fought for our freedom. You have always decided to educate the younger generation so that we never forget. Thank you for your commitment, thank you for the sacrifices you have made.”

Among the veterans was Jake Larson, a 101-year-old American best known on social media under the name “Papa Jake,” He joined the National Guard when he was 15 for the money and landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, where he ran under machine-gun fire and made it to the cliffs without being wounded.

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How Trump's deny-everything strategy could hurt him at sentencing

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has had plenty to say since his hush money trial conviction last week.

He’s claimed the case was rigged, incorrectly linked President Joe Biden to the state prosecution, called the star witness against him a “sleazebag" and said the judge was a “devil" and “highly conflicted.”

What he hasn’t done is utter any variation of the words that might benefit him most come sentencing time next month: “I'm sorry.”

It’s a truism of the criminal justice system that defendants hoping for lenient treatment at their sentencing are expected to take responsibility for their actions, even express remorse. But that flies in the face of Trump's longtime refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing, a tone that he often strikes to portray strength and present himself as a fighter under ceaseless attack. While the strategy may resonate with his most loyal political supporters, it failed during his New York criminal trial and could complicate his legal team's efforts to avoid a tough sentence.

“The fact, I think, that he has no remorse – quite the opposite, he continues to deny his guilt – is going to hurt him at sentencing," said Jeffrey Cohen, an associate professor at Boston College Law School and a former federal prosecutor in Massachusetts. "It’s one of the things that the judge can really point to that everybody is aware of — that he just denies this — and can use that as a strong basis for his sentence.”

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Fauci pushes back partisan attacks in fiery House hearing over COVID origins and controversies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022, was back before Congress on Monday, calling “simply preposterous” Republican allegations that he'd tried to cover up origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A GOP-led subcommittee has spent over a year probing the nation's response to the pandemic and whether U.S.-funded research in China may have played any role in how it started — yet found no evidence linking Fauci to wrongdoing.

He'd already been grilled behind closed doors, for 14 hours over two days in January. But Monday, Fauci testified voluntarily in public and on camera at a hearing that quickly deteriorated into partisan attacks.

Republicans repeated unproven accusations against the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist while Democrats apologized for Congress besmirching his name and bemoaned a missed opportunity to prepare for the next scary outbreak.

“He is not a comic book super villain,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., saying the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic had failed to prove a list of damaging allegations.

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With its top editor abruptly gone, The Washington Post grapples with a hastily announced restructure

NEW YORK (AP) — The struggling Washington Post found itself in some turmoil on Monday following the abrupt departure of the newspaper's executive editor and a hastily announced restructuring plan aimed at stopping an exodus of readers over the past few years.

Post publisher Will Lewis and Matt Murray, a former Wall Street Journal editor named to temporarily replace Sally Buzbee, met with reporters and editors at the Post on Monday to explain changes that had been outlined in a Sunday night email.

The plan includes splitting the newsroom into three separate divisions with managers who report to Lewis — one that encompasses the Post's core news reporting, one with opinion pieces and the third devoted to attracting new consumers through innovative uses of social media, video, artificial intelligence and sales.

Although Murray is temporarily replacing Buzbee through the November presidential election, the eventual plan places no one in the role of an executive editor who oversees the entire newsroom. Buzbee was said to disagree with the plan and chose to leave rather than be put in charge of one of the divisions, the Post reported.

Lewis was not made available for an interview Monday, and Buzbee did not immediately return a message.

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Biden says Hamas is sufficiently depleted. Israel leaders disagree, casting doubts over cease-fire

JERUSALEM (AP) — At the start of its devastating offensive on the Gaza Strip, Israel set an ambitious goal: destroy Hamas. At the time, the Biden administration committed to the objective, giving Israel considerable stocks of weaponry and voicing its support.

Nearly eight months into the war, however, cracks have emerged between the close allies over what defeating Hamas actually looks like. Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden said the militant group was no longer capable of launching an attack on Israel like the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war and that it was time for the fighting to end. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right ministers disagree.

Where the U.S. seeks a quick end to the fighting, Israel’s leadership appears determined to push onward.

Here is how the leaders define the destruction of Hamas.

Biden on Friday said it was time to end the Israel-Hamas war, signaling that the objective of destroying Hamas had already been met because the militant group was “no longer capable” of carrying out a large-scale attack on Israel like the one on Oct. 7.

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Market jitters follow election of first woman as Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hours after declaring victory, Mexico’s newly elected president, the first woman to win the job, faced a market meltdown Monday and a tough path toward reconciling a country deeply divided by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Claudia Sheinbaum has promised to continue the political course set by her populist predecessor despite widespread discontent with persistent cartel violence, the weakening of democratic institutions and fears among investors that an already hostile environment might become much worse.

Hours after the election results were announced, the Mexican peso dropped over 4% in value to close at 17.71 to $1, and the Mexican stock exchange took a dive to close off 6%.

Gabriela Siller, director of analysis at Nuevo Leon-based Banco Base, noted that Sheinbaum's victory, along with an apparent super-majority in Congress for her Morena party, raised fears.

It “opened the possibility of changes in the Constitution, which alters, or better put, deteriorates the risk balance of Mexico, causing capital to leave the country,” Siller said.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024