Europe

BAMBER BRIDGE, England (AP) — The village of Bamber Bridge in northwestern England is proud of the blow it struck against racism in the U.S. military during World War II.

When an all-Black truck regiment was stationed in the village, residents refused to accept the segregation ingrained in the U.S. Army. Ignoring pressure from British and American authorities, pubs welcomed the GIs, local women chatted and danced with them, and English soldiers drank alongside men they saw as allies in the war against fascism.

(AP) --- A rebellious mercenary commander said Saturday he ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to field camps in Ukraine, appearing to defuse a dramatically escalating crisis that represented the most significant challenge to President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.

(AP) --- Moscow’s mayor warned Saturday that traffic could be restricted in parts of Russia’s capital as part of heightened security prompted by the rebellion of mercenaries with private military company Wagner.

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin asked the city’s residents to refrain from using their cars amid the counter-terrorism operation in Moscow and the surrounding region that authorities introduced earlier Saturday. He also declared Monday a non-working day for most people, with the exception of public servants and employees of some industrial enterprises.

BRUSSELS, June 23. /TASS/: After four months of deliberations, the European Union agreed on the 11th package of sanctions against the Russian Federation, which for the first time in the EU's history includes the principle of extraterritorial restrictions. This means that the EU has given itself the right to impose sanctions against third countries and their businesses that ignore sanctions against Russia.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin is aware of the situation that is unfolding around Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private military company Wagner, and the necessary measures are being taken, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

"President Putin has been briefed on all events around Prigozhin. The necessary measures are being taken," he said.

PARIS, June 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Zambia and its government creditors, including China, have reached a deal to restructure $6.3 billion in loans, the French government announced Thursday on the sidelines of a global finance summit in Paris.

The agreement covers loans from countries including France, the UK, South Africa, Israel and India as well as China — Zambia’s biggest creditor at $4.1 billion of the total.

June 23 (Reuters) - Russia urged the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday to ensure Ukraine does not shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, saying it was otherwise operating safely.

Alexei Likhachev, chief executive of the Russian state nuclear energy firm Rosatom, made the comments at a meeting with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in the Russian city of Kaliningrad, Rosatom said in a statement, after Grossi visited the plant last week.

KYIV, June 23 (Reuters) - Ukraine's armed forces have halted a Russian offensive towards the cities of Kupiansk and Lyman in the east of the country, and are advancing in the south, a senior Ukrainian defence official said on Friday.

"We had very fierce battles in the Kupiansk and Lyman directions, but our soldiers stopped the enemy there," Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia on Friday reiterated a threat to intervene militarily in its former province of Kosovo if NATO-led peacekeepers there fail to protect minority Serbs from what Belgrade called the terrorist threat of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian authorities.

LONDON (AP) — A man was convicted of murder on Friday for shooting a British police officer with an antique handgun while the suspect was handcuffed in a cell nearly three years ago.

A jury deliberated for just over five hours before finding 25-year-old Louis De Zoysa guilty of killing Sgt. Matiu Ratana in September 2020.