PALU, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s elite counterterrorism police arrested eight suspected militants in recent days believed to be part of a new cell linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked group, authorities said Saturday. Police conducted raids in Central Sulawesi province between Tuesday and Thursday, said Agus Nugroho, the provincial police chief, adding that five suspects were arrested in the city of Palu, two in Sigi, and one in Poso which is a known extremist hotbed. Two laptops, several cellular phones and documents, including jihadist books were seized and suspects were being in ..read more

OTTAWA — Dennis Mathu and Stephanie Gordon first started posting financial-advice videos on YouTube three years ago — a side hustle that helped to scratch a creative itch.  They never imagined it would lead them down some of the most powerful political corridors in Canada.  Mathu and Gordon — Steph & Den, as they’re known online — were among several content creators invited to Tuesday’s federal budget lockup, where they got early access to Ottawa’s new spending blueprint.  It’s an invitation typically reserved for experts, stakeholders and mainstream media. But the federal L ..read more

LONDON (AP) — London’s police force has been forced to issue two apologies after officers threatened to arrest an “openly Jewish” man if he refused to leave the area around a pro-Palestinian march because his presence risked provoking the demonstrators. Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, was wearing a traditional Jewish skullcap when he was stopped by police while trying to cross a street in central London as demonstrators filed past on April 13. One officer told Falter he was worried that the man’s “quite openly Jewish” appearance could provoke a reaction fro ..read more

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza’s southernmost city killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said Saturday, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory. Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group Hamas has led to a dramatic escalation of tensions in an already volatile Middle East. The strike late Friday hit a residential building in the western Tel Sultan neighborhood of the city of Rafah, according to Gaza’s civil defense. The bodies of the six children, two women and a man were ..read more

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine launched a barrage of drones across Russia overnight, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said Saturday, in attacks that appeared to target the country’s energy infrastructure. Fifty drones were shot down by air defences over eight Russian regions, including 26 over the country’s western Belgorod region close to the Ukrainian border. Two people — a woman with a broken leg and the man caring for her — died during the barrage, after explosions sparked a blaze that set their home alight, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on social media. Drones were also reportedly de ..read more

BANGKOK (AP) — About 1,300 people have fled from eastern Myanmar into Thailand, officials said Saturday, as fresh fighting erupted at a border town that has recently been captured by ethnic guerillas. Fighters from the Karen ethnic minority last week captured the last of the Myanmar army’s outposts in and around Myawaddy, which is connected to Thailand by two bridges across the Moei River. The latest clashes were triggered in the morning when the Karen guerillas launched an attack against Myanmar troops who were hiding near the 2nd Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, a major crossing point for tra ..read more

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico City police said late Friday they are investigating a murder suspect as a possible serial killer after bones, a saw, blood and the ID cards of missing women were found at rooms he rented. Mexico City prosecutors did not identify the suspect by name, but said that he was being held over for trial on charges of murder and attempted murder of two women. Those charges stemmed from a brazen attack Tuesday in which the suspect apparently waited for a woman to briefly leave her apartment. He then rushed in and sexually abused and strangled her 17-year-old daughter. The mothe ..read more

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — A 79-year-old woman makes the sign of the cross and, gripping her cane, leaves her home in a quaint village in northeast Ukraine. Torn screens, shattered glass and scorched trees litter the yard of Olha Faichuk’s apartment building in Lukiantsi, north of the city of Kharkiv. Abandoned on a nearby bench is a shrapnel-pierced cellphone that belonged to one of two people killed when a Russian bomb struck, leaving a blackened crater in its wake. “God, forgive me for leaving my home, bless me on my way,” Faichuk said, taking one last look around before slowly shuffling to an ..read more

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Outsider, queer and Indigenous artists are getting an overdue platform at the 60th Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibition that opens Saturday, curated for the first time by a Latin American. Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa’s main show, which accompanies 88 national pavilions for the seven-month run, is strong on figurative painting, with fewer installations than recent editions. A preponderance of artists are from the Global South, long overlooked by the mainstream art world circuits. Many are dead — Frida Kahlo, for example, is making her first appearance at the Ve ..read more

ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — When Washington state opened some of the nation’s first legal marijuana stores in 2014, Sam Ward Jr. was on electronic home detention in Spokane, where he had been indicted on federal drug charges. He would soon be off to prison to serve the lion’s share of a four-year sentence. A decade later, Ward, who is Black, recently posed in a blue-and-gold throne used for photo ops at his new cannabis store, Cloud 9 Cannabis. He greeted customers walking in for early 4/20 deals. And he reflected on being one of the first beneficiaries of a Washington program to make the overwhel ..read more