ABOARD THE OCEAN WARRIOR in the eastern Pacific Ocean (AP) — It’s 3 a.m., and after five days plying through the high seas, the Ocean Warrior is surrounded by an atoll of blazing lights that overtakes the nighttime sky. “Welcome to the party!” says third officer Filippo Marini as the spectacle floods the ship’s bridge and interrupts his overnight watch. It’s the conservationists’ first glimpse of the world’s largest fishing fleet: an armada of nearly 300 Chinese vessels that have sailed halfway across the globe to lure the elusive Humboldt squid from the Pacific Ocean’s inky depths. As Italian hip hop blares across the bridge, Marini furiously scribbles the electronic IDs of 37 fishing vessels that pop up as green triangles on the Ocean Warrior’s radar onto a sheet of paper, before they disappear.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The right-wing populist government in Hungary is attracting conservative thinkers from the United States who admire its approaches to migration, LGBT issues and national sovereignty — all matters that have put the country at odds with its European partners, who see not a conservative haven but a worrying erosion of democratic institutions on multiple fronts. Hungary’s top diplomat has a few things to say about that. In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of world leaders, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would not cede ground on policies that have caused the European Union to impose financial penalties and start legal proceedings against it over violations of the bloc’s values.
The U.S. launched a campaign to offer boosters of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to millions of Americans on Friday even as federal health officials stressed the real problem remains getting first shots to the unvaccinated. “We will not boost our way out of this pandemic,” warned Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — even though she took the rare step of overruling the advice of her own expert panel to make more people eligible for the booster. The vast majority of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, Walensky noted. And all three COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S.
DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — No migrants remained Friday at the Texas border encampment where almost 15,000 people — most of them Haitians — had converged just days earlier seeking asylum, local and federal officials said. It’s a dramatic change from last Saturday, when the number peaked as migrants driven by confusion over the Biden administration’s policies and misinformation on social media converged at the border crossing connecting Del Rio, Texas, and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. At a news conference, Del Rio Mayor Buno Lozano called it “phenomenal news.” Many face expulsion because they are not covered by protections recently extended by the Biden administration to the more than 100,000 Haitian migrants already in the U.S., citing security concerns and social unrest in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Friday that talks over his $3.5 trillion rebuilding plan have hit a “stalemate” in Congress as he made the case for his expansive effort to recast the nation’s tax and spending programs and make what he sees as sweeping, overdue investments. Biden spoke at the White House as Democrats in the House and Senate are laboring to finish drafts and overcome differences between the party’s centrist and moderate factions. Despite efforts by the president and congressional leaders to show progress, Biden cast the road ahead as long and potentially cumbersome, even with upcoming deadlines.
NEW YORK (AP) — A top executive of Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies resolved criminal charges against her as part of a deal Friday with the U.S. Justice Department that paves the way for her to return to China and concludes a case that roiled relations between Washington and Beijing. The deal with Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, calls for the Justice Department to dismiss fraud charges late next year in exchange for Meng’s accepting responsibility for misrepresenting her company’s business dealings in Iran. The arrangement, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, resolves a yearslong legal and geopolitical tussle that involved not only the U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mystery solved. President Joe Biden sat down with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday for important talks about the Indo-Pacific region. But first, the leaders caught up on the president’s own family ties to the subcontinent. Biden recalled that soon after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate, he got a letter from a man in Mumbai who said his last name was also Biden. The president said he never had the chance to follow up. Later, as vice president, Biden was in India and recalled being asked by local press if he had any Indian relatives.
NEWBERG, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon school board has banned educators from displaying Black Lives Matter and gay pride symbols, prompting a torrent of recriminations and threats to boycott the town and its businesses. Newberg, a town of 25,000 residents situated 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Portland in gorgeous wine country, has become an unlikely focal point of a battle between the left and right across the nation over schooling. The City Council has condemned the action by the Newberg School Board. So did members of color of the Oregon Legislature and House and Senate Democrats. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon is threatening to sue.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Restaurant and hotel owners struggling to fill jobs. Supply-chain delays forcing up prices for small businesses. Unemployed Americans unable to find work even with job openings at a record high. Those and other disruptions to the U.S. economy — consequences of the viral pandemic that erupted 18 months ago — appear likely to endure, a group of business owners and nonprofit executives told Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday. The business challenges, described during a “Fed Listens” virtual roundtable, underscore the ways that the COVID-19 outbreak and its delta variant are continuing to transform the U.S. economy.
NEW YORK (AP) — Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, offered lots of hugs to kids at a Harlem public school Friday where she read her children’s book to about two dozen students who sat cross-legged with her husband in the play yard. The hourlong visit to PS 123, which serves shelters for families without permanent homes, was one of several stops so far in a whirlwind New York week for the two. A couple of the children shed tears when they met the pair under a white tent set up near the school’s play structure. Nearly a dozen second-graders had prime spots on round, green cushions after older students showed off a three-dimensional flower mural they had created.