Wickremesinghe becomes interim Sri Lankan president

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s interim president Friday until Parliament elects a successor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who resigned after mass protests over the country’s economic collapse forced him from office.

The speaker of Sri Lanka’s Parliament said Rajapaksa resigned as president effective Thursday and lawmakers will convene Saturday to choose a new leader. Their choice would serve out the remainder of Rajapaksa's term ending in 2024, said Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana. He expects the process to be done in seven days.

That person could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament. With Rajapaksa done, pressure on Wickremesinghe was rising.

Wickremesinghe in a televised statement said that in his short term, he will initiate steps to change the constitution to clip presidential powers and strengthen Parliament. He also said he will restore law and order and take legal action against “insurgents.”

Referring to clashes near Parliament on Wednesday night when many soldiers were reportedly injured, Wickremesinghe said true protesters will not get involved in such actions.

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As Biden visits, a look at those targeted in Saudi Arabia

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reputation as a brazen leader who has ruthlessly silenced critics and dissent will cast a shadow over his meeting on Friday with U.S. President Joe Biden.

The royal has sidelined top princes who could pose a threat and overseen Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. The 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul still looms large — though the prince is credited with pushing through once-unthinkable changes, allowing women to drive and travel freely, permitting concerts, opening movie theaters and de-fanging the once-feared religious police.

Biden initially adopted a tough line with Saudi Arabia, describing it as a “pariah” on the campaign trail. After becoming president, he refused to speak directly with the crown prince and ordered the release of a U.S. intelligence report that implicated Prince Mohammed in Khashoggi’s slaying.

He's changed his tone since, with the administration now focused on isolating Russia, hedging against China and grappling with high oil prices.

“I always bring up human rights,” Biden told reporters on the eve of his Saudi visit but stressed the purpose of his trip is “broader” and designed to “reassert” U.S. influence in the Middle East.

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The Latest: Biden arrives in Bethlehem for Abbas meeting

The Latest on U.S. President Joe Biden's trip to the Mideast:

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- President Joe Biden has arrived in the biblical town of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Biden was given a bouquet of flowers by a pair of Palestinian children as he arrived. He held his hand over his heart as a Palestinian band played the U.S. national anthem before he entered Abbas’ office.

The brief meeting with the Palestinian leader comes after two days of nonstop talks with Israeli leaders. Biden is then to continue to Saudi Arabia for talks with Arab leaders.

In the West Bank, Biden is expected to announce some $200 million in additional assistance to the Palestinians, after pledging $100 million to hospitals that serve Palestinians in east Jerusalem earlier Friday.

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Biden heads to West Bank, with little to offer Palestinians

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Without a clear path for jumpstarting peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, President Joe Biden offered American money as a balm while visiting a local hospital on Friday.

“Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity,” he said at the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, which serves Palestinians. "And access to healthcare, when you need it, is essential to living a life of dignity for all of us.”

Although $100 million in proposed healthcare funding requires U.S. congressional approval, Biden is also announcing $201 million for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, plus smaller amounts for other assorted programs.

Israel has also committed to upgrading wireless networks in the West Bank and Gaza, part of a broader effort to improve economic conditions.

After leaving the hospital, Biden traveled to Bethlehem to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and visit the Church of the Nativity. He was welcomed by a pair of Palestinian children, who gave him a bouquet of flowers, and a band that played the U.S. national anthem.

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Ukrainian rescue teams hunt for survivors in Vinnytsia

VINNYTSIA, Ukraine (AP) — Rescue teams with sniffer dogs combed through debris in a central Ukrainian city on Friday looking for people still missing after a Russian missile strike a day earlier that killed at least 23 people.

Russian forces, meanwhile, pounded other sites in a painstaking push to wrest territory from Ukraine and try to soften unbending morale of its leaders, civilians and troops as the war nears the five-month mark.

The cruise missile strikes on Vinnytsia launched by a Russian submarine on Thursday were the latest incidents to take civilian lives and fan international outrage since President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24. The campaign now has been focusing on Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, but Russian forces regularly fire upon targets in many parts of the country too.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry claimed Friday that Russian forces had conducted more than 17,000 strikes on civilian targets during the war, driving millions from their homes, killing thousands of fighters and civilians and rippling through the world economy by hiking prices and crimping exports of key Ukrainian and Russian products like foodstuffs, fuel and fertilizer.

More than 73 people — including four children — remained hospitalized and 18 people were missing after Thursday's missile strike, said Oleksandr Kutovyi, spokesman for the emergency service in the Vinnytsia region. Search teams were poring over two sites on Friday — an office building with a medical center inside, and a concert hall near an outdoor recreation area and park, where mothers with children often stroll.

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Fetterman absence raises stakes for Dems in key Senate race

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democrat John Fetterman posted a massive $11 million fundraising haul during the second quarter. He's on an advertising spree that's made him a near-constant presence on television in Pennsylvania. And he grabs attention with snarky, irreverent social media posts.

The only thing missing from one of the most competitive U.S. Senate races this year is the candidate himself.

Fetterman, 52, has yet to return to the campaign trail in a significant way since a May 13 stroke required surgery to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator and prompted a revelation that he had a serious heart condition.

The advertisements currently on the air were recorded before the stroke. He hasn't fielded questions from the press. And when the hoodie- and shorts-wearing Fetterman did make a campaign appearance, it was under tightly controlled circumstances and without advance notice to reporters.

Democratic hopes to maintain — or even expand — their fragile Senate majority hinge on the party's ability to capture the seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. And with barely two months until voters can begin casting mail-in ballots, Fetterman is absent from traditional retail campaigning.

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German climate activists aim to stir friction with blockades

BERLIN (AP) — “It’s absolutely crazy to stick yourself to the road with superglue,” admits Lina Schinkoethe.

And yet, the 19-year-old recently landed in jail for doing just that, in protest at what she believes is the German government's failure to act against climate change.

Schinkoethe is part of a group called Uprising of the Last Generation that claims the world has only a few years left to turn the wheel around and avoid catastrophic levels of global warming.

Like-minded activists elsewhere in Europe have interrupted major sporting events such as the Tour de France and the Formula One Grand Prix in Silverstone in recent weeks, while others glued themselves to the frame of a painting at London’s Royal Academy of Arts Tuesday. But Schinkoethe's group has mainly targeted ordinary commuters in cities such as Berlin who, on any given day this summer, might find themselves in an hours-long tailback caused by a handful of activists gluing themselves to the asphalt.

Their actions have prompted outrage and threats from inconvenienced motorists. Tabloid media and some politicians have accused them of sowing chaos and harming ordinary folk just trying to go about their business. Some have branded them dangerous radicals.

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House making 1st attempt to protect abortion in post-Roe era

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Friday is expected to vote on two bills that would restore and guarantee abortion access nationwide as Democrats make their first attempt at responding legislatively to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

The legislation stands almost no chance of becoming law, with the necessary support lacking in the 50-50 Senate. Yet voting marks the beginning of a new era in the abortion debate as lawmakers, governors and legislatures grapple with the impact of the court's decision. By overturning Roe, the court has allowed states to enact strict abortion limits, including many that had previously been deemed unconstitutional. The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.

Already, a number of GOP-controlled states have moved quickly to curtail or outlaw abortion, while states controlled by Democrats have sought to champion access. Voters now rank abortion as among the most pressing issues facing the country, a shift in priorities that Democrats hope will reshape the political landscape in their favor for the midterm elections.

Ahead of House voting, Democrats highlighted the case of a 10-year-old girl who had to cross state lines into Indiana to get an abortion after being raped, calling it an example of how the court's decision is already having severe consequences.

“We don’t have to imagine why this might matter. We don’t need to conjure up hypotheticals. We already know what’s happened,” Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday on the Senate floor.

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Dem says Manchin blocking energy, tax provisions in big bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Joe Manchin has said he’ll oppose an economic measure he’s been negotiating with Democratic leaders if it includes climate or energy provisions or higher taxes on the rich and corporations, a Democrat briefed on the conversations said late Thursday, delivering a stunning blow to one of the party’s top election-year priorities.

The official said Manchin told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Thursday that he will only support a new measure if it is limited to curbing pharmaceutical prices and extending federal subsidies for buying health care coverage. Manchin abruptly derailed his party’s bigger and wider-ranging social and environment package last December after months of negotiations and after the measure had already passed the House.

Manchin's demands leave the future of the latest measure unclear, seemingly upending the hopes of President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders' for a more sweeping package they could push through Congress by August. That would have let them show Democratic voters that they were addressing a range of party priorities like curbing climate change and taxing the rich and draw a contrast with Republicans, who are expected to oppose the legislation unanimously.

However, containing the costs of prescription drugs and extending subsidies for people buying health insurance under former President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law are also top Democratic priorities. Manchin’s stance puts his party in the position of having to decide whether it should reluctantly declare victory by solely addressing some of its health care goals, as opposed to demanding more but potentially ending up with nothing.

Democrats' $2 trillion package that collapsed last year included similar restrictions on prescription drug prices estimated to cost $297 billion over a decade. It also would have temporarily extended subsidies for buying health coverage — which expire in January — with a price tag of around $74 billion.

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EXPLAINER: The Unification Church's ties to Japan's politics

TOKYO (AP) — The assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has unearthed long-suspected, little-talked-of links between him and a religious group that started in South Korea but has spread its influence around the world.

Police and Japanese media have suggested that the alleged attacker, Tetsuya Yamagami, who was arrested on the spot, was furious about Abe's reported ties to the Unification Church, which has pursued relationships with politically conservative groups and leaders in the United States, Japan and Europe. The suspect reportedly was upset because his mother’s massive donations to the church bankrupted the family.

Many Japanese have been surprised as revelations emerged this week of the ties between the church and Japan's top leaders, which have their roots in shared anti-communism efforts during the Cold War. Analysts say it could lead people to examine more closely how powerfully the ruling party's conservative worldviews have steered the policies of modern Japan.

A look at the church and its deep ties to Japan’s governing party and Abe’s own family:

WHAT'S THE UNIFICATION CHURCH?

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