FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The head of the European Central Bank said Monday that interest rates will stay high enough to restrict business activity for “as long as necessary” to beat back inflation because upward pressure on prices “remains strong” in the 20 countries that use the euro currency.

Christine Lagarde said “strong spending on holidays and travel” and increasing wages were slowing the decline in price levels even as the economy stays sluggish. Annual inflation in the eurozone eased only slightly from 5.2% in July to 5.3% in August.

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is due to try to advance steep spending cuts this week that stand no chance of becoming law and could force a partial shutdown of the U.S. government by next Sunday.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sought to avoid that scenario when he hammered out a spending agreement with Democratic President Joe Biden this spring. But some members of his own party have threatened to depose him if he does not support steeper cuts that are sure to be rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

NEW YORK (AP) — The second Republican presidential debate will be broadcast Wednesday on Fox Business Network and Univision, but the exclusive online livestream will take place on Rumble, an alternative video-sharing platform that has been criticized for allowing— and at times promoting — far-right extremism, bigotry, election disinformation and conspiracy theories.

New York(AP) —Kathleen Maxwell has lived in Phoenix for more than 20 years, but this summer was the first time she felt fear, as daily high temperatures soared to 110 degrees or hotter and kept it up for a record-shattering 31 consecutive days.

“It’s always been really hot here, but nothing like this past summer,” said Maxwell, 50, who last week opened her windows for the first time since March and walked her dog outdoors for the first time since May. “I was seriously scared. Like, what if this doesn’t end and this is how it’s going to be?”

25 September 2023; MEMO: The United States is doing everything it can to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

GENEVA, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Russian occupiers tortured Ukrainians so brutally that some of their victims died, and forced families to listen as they raped women next door, members of a U.N.-mandated investigative body said on Monday, in their latest findings from the field.

Erik Møse, Chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva his team had "collected further evidence indicating that the use of torture by Russian armed forces in areas under their control has been widespread and systematic".

CAIRO (AP) — Libya’s chief prosecutor said Monday he ordered the detention of eight current and former officials pending his investigation into the collapse of two dams earlier this month, a disaster that sent a wall of water several meters high through the center of a coastal city and left thousands of people dead.

TEHRAN, Sept 25 (NNN-IRNA) – The Iranian intelligence foiled a terrorist plot targetting multiple crowded places, here in the Iranian capital, and arrested 28 suspects, the Intelligence Ministry said.

In a statement published on its website, the ministry said, 30 simultaneous explosions had been planned, with the aim of disrupting national security, create fear among the people, and provoke unrest on the anniversary of last fall’s riots.

WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The speaker of Canada's House of Commons on Sunday apologized for praising an individual at a parliamentary meeting who served in a Nazi unit during World War Two.

Two days earlier, Speaker Anthony Rota had recognized 98-year old Yaroslav Hunka as a "Ukrainian hero" before the Canadian Parliament. Hunka served in World War II as a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, according to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group that demanded an apology.

KABUL, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The Taliban are creating a large-scale camera surveillance network for Afghan cities that could involve repurposing a plan crafted by the Americans before their 2021 pullout, an interior ministry spokesman told Reuters, as authorities seek to supplement thousands of cameras already across the capital, Kabul.

LUHANSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Flying above enemy lines, a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone sends a clear image back to soldiers hiding in a basement a few kilometers away: A Russian armored vehicle is idling along a key logistics route, looking like easy prey in the artillery-scarred green landscape.

Then, in a flash, the image disappears, and the drone operator’s screen is replaced by a jumble of black and white pixels.

NIAMEY, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Niger's junta announced on Sunday that it welcomes the withdrawal of French troops from the West African country by the end of the year.

"This is a historic moment that reflects the determination and will of the Nigerien people," said the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), a governing body established by the military after a coup in July.