National News

RZESZOW, Poland (AP) — President Joe Biden is following a day of diplomacy with a visit to Poland to discuss aid for refugees and to meet with U.S. troops stationed near the border with Ukraine. His first stop was mingling with the troops — and helping himself to a slice of their pizza. The White…

RADAUTI, Romania (AP) — A lion and a wolf have been evacuated from a zoo in war-torn Ukraine and brought to safety in Romania in what an animal rights group involved in the operation says was a four-day mission “full of dangers” further hampered by border entry bureaucracy. The adult male lion named Simba and…

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have decided against reopening schools to girls above the sixth grade, reneging on a promise and opting to appease their hard-line base, at the expense of further alienating the international community. The surprise decision is bound to disrupt Taliban efforts to win recognition from potential donors abroad at…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Judiciary Committee has kicked off Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated for the nation’s highest court. At Monday's hearing, Democrats sought to preemptively rebut Republican criticism of her record on criminal matters as a judge and before that, as a federal public…

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping spoke Friday for nearly two hours via a video call as the White House looks to deter Beijing from providing military or economic assistance for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China’s Foreign Ministry was the first to issue a readout of the conversation, deploring “conflict and…