A French court convicted six teenagers Friday in connection with a teacher’s beheading at the hands of an Islamic extremist.The victim, Samuel Paty, was identified by the students and later targeted by the attacker, a Chechen radical.The attack was apparently motivated by Paty’s display of a cartoon depiction of the…

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Eleven people were killed in a clash Friday between gunmen from a criminal gang and residents of a small farming community in central Mexico, authorities said.Dramatic video of the fight posted on social media showed villagers in cowboy hats with scythes and hunting rifles chasing down…

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry says it spotted a Chinese surveillance balloon in the Taiwan Strait along with a large-scale movement of military aircraft and ships.The ministry said the balloon passed southwest of the northern port city of Keelung on Thursday night, then continued east before disappearing, possibly into the Pacific Ocean.There…

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman voiced hope Friday that a coalition of countries formed to facilitate the return of Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia will be able to come up with a faster mechanism to repatriate them. Over 19,000 children are still believed to be in…

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Prosecutors in Guatemala on Friday asked a court to strip President-elect Bernardo Arévalo of his immunity, saying there could be enough irregularities to annul the election results, a move that the OAS called part of “a coup attempt.”It was the third time they have done so…

Authorities in Dominica are investigating the killings of a wealthy Canadian businessman and his partner who owned an eco-resort in the eastern Caribbean island.Two men have been arrested and charged in the slaying of Daniel Langlois and Dominique Marchand, officials announced at a press conference Thursday.A third person was arrested…

Indonesia’s government is blaming human trafficking for surging numbers of Rohingya Muslim refugee arrivals.Three residents of Aceh, a province in the Southeast Asian country’s north, were arrested Friday under suspicion they smuggled 30 refugees from a local camp for $115.”There are strong suspicions that there is involvement of a criminal…

Slovakia’s president said Friday she would seek to block the new government’s plan to return the prosecution of major crimes from a national office to regional ones, using either a veto or a constitutional challenge. But the governing coalition could likely override any veto.The government of populist Prime Minister Robert…

Thousands of tons of dead sardines have washed up on a beach in northern Japan for unknown reasons, officials said Friday.The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning, creating a sliver blanket along a stretch of beach about a…

The United States Treasury Department announced sanctions on people around the world, including officials in Afghanistan, China and Iran, who have committed or contributed to human rights abuses.In a statement, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it had imposed sanctions on 20 people in…