HELSINKI — Finnish talks to form a government overcame a major obstacle after the parties patched up a row over immigration policy that threatened to throw the process in disarray.

Negotiations will continue on Monday after the sides found a “common view,” National Coalition leader Petteri Orpo told reporters in Helsinki on Saturday.

He...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are speaking by phone Saturday evening as their negotiators on a debt-limit deal rush to finalize an agreement to avert a catastrophic default, two people familiar with the matter said.

The two leaders’ hand-picked negotiators have been working around the clock to resolve ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Fourteen countries in U.S.-led Indo-Pacific trade talks agreed on supply chain coordination, the most substantial progress so far in President Joe Biden’s new initiative for the region.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo made the announcement on Saturday alongside U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai at a gathering of ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom announced new appointments for various state jobs Friday, including a Sacramento resident as secretary of the California Department of Veterans Affairs.

Lindsey Sin will be taking over the CalVet position. Sin previously worked in the department in several roles, including deputy secretary of ...Read more

The Texas House of Representatives voted to send articles of impeachment against Attorney General Ken Paxton to the Texas Senate.

The vote came after hours of debate on the articles, that Senate began Saturday with members of the House General Investigating committee laying out their case that Paxton abused his office and broke the law. The ...Read more

A Pennsylvania police department in a public statement said that Bryan Kohberger, a Pennsylvania resident accused of killing four students in Moscow, Idaho, isn’t connected to the disappearance of a 45-year-old woman.

Dana Smithers, of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, went missing in May 2022. Nearly a year later, in April, the Stroud Area Regional...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina judge on Friday set a Sept. 11 date for opposing attorneys to meet to decide when convicted double-murderer Alex Murdaugh should stand trial for a host of alleged financial crimes.

Prosecutor Creighton Waters, with the S.C. Attorney General’s Office, told Judge Clifton Newman Friday that he prefers to have ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A Southwest Airlines pilot was forced to crawl through the cockpit window after a passenger accidentally closed and locked the door to the plane's control center on a flight from San Diego to Sacramento earlier this week.

A passenger on the loading bridge snapped a photo of the pilot squeezing himself through the window of the ...Read more

DETROIT — Michigan native Paul Whelan says Russian prison officials damaged his belongings Friday because he refused interviews with Russian state television, his brother David Whelan said in a statement.

David Whelan said Paul recounted to their parents that the "Deputy Warden and the Head of Internal Security at the prison took my gear bags...Read more

WASHINGTON — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the U.S. “won’t tolerate” the recent decision by Chinese authorities to ban chips by Micron Technology Inc. in some critical sectors, using her sharpest language yet to describe Washington’s reaction.

“We see it as, plain and simple, economic coercion,” she said, using a phrase ...Read more

LONDON — Rishi Sunak’s election strategists can see their nightmare scenario playing out right in front of them.

The U.K. prime minister’s governing Conservatives were wounded in two places in recent local elections: Working-class voters in the north of England returned to the opposition Labour Party, while disillusioned middle classes in...Read more

A black bear is being blamed for devouring 60 cupcakes at a central Connecticut bakery, then wandering away.

Taste by Spellbound owner Miriam Stephens wrote about the encounter on Instagram, where she claimed the interloper entered her bakery’s garage and helped itself to dozens of pastries being loaded into a delivery van. An employee named ...Read more

CHESAPEAKE, Va. — A Walmart employee who escaped a mass shooting at a Chesapeake store in November refiled her lawsuit against the company this week with new details about her experience that night.

A Chesapeake Circuit Court judge in April sustained Walmart’s attempt to have Briana Tyler’s lawsuit seeking $50 million in damages dismissed...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Michael Sasso, a Central Florida attorney, has resigned from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Disney World governing board he joined earlier this year.

Sasso was one of five members of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s Board of Supervisors, the governor-appointed board at the center of DeSantis’ dispute with Disney.

...Read more

ISTANBUL — For the last several years, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has played both sides of the global geopolitical divide: It belongs to the Western NATO alliance but has also nurtured ever-closer ties with Russia.

A NATO stalwart for more than seven decades, Turkey served inside the alliance’s peacekeeping missions in war ...Read more

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said negotiators still must resolve remaining issues in a deal to avert a catastrophic U.S. debt default, but he believes negotiators can meet a June 5 deadline.

McCarthy signaled that he’s had to give in to at least some Democratic demands but said he’s not “fearful” of what is in the ...Read more