gallery

American soldiers marched 3 miles from the drop zone at Grafenwoehr Training Area to Tower Barracks on Thursday carrying assault packs filled with toys to be delivered to local children in need.

europe quick trips

The Schnullerbaum is a rite of passage for kids who are ready to stop sucking a pacifier. Kids in Germany can hang their pacifiers on a tree and come back years later to reminisce about their childhood.

An American found sleeping in a car in a field had his license confiscated after he followed the walking directions on a GPS and drove through a narrow pedestrian tunnel, authorities said.

Turkey could kick the U.S. out of Incirlik Air Base if Washington moves forward with sanctions linked to Ankara’s incursion into Syria and the purchase of Russian weaponry, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said.

One of Germany's richest families, which owns Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Pret A Manger and other international brands, is giving millions to support Holocaust survivors as it seeks to atone for its use of forced laborers during the Nazi era and its enthusiastic support of Adolf Hitler, The Associated Press has learned.

The blasts of howitzers rang across the snow-covered landscape of Vilseck as soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment’s Bulldog Battery learned how to fire and move during a qualification exercise Thursday.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged Friday to heal Britain's divisions over Brexit after his gamble on early elections rewarded him with a commanding majority in Parliament and a new mandate to take his country out of the European Union at the end of January.

Russia's only aircraft carrier suffered a massive fire Thursday that killed one crew member, injured another 11 people and significantly damaged the ill-fated ship that has been haunted by incidents throughout its service.

An Aegis Ashore system located at a military base in northern Poland was supposed to be operational by last December, but it's running at least two years behind schedule.

Turkey said it will block the plan unless allies develop a security arrangement for the alliance’s southern flank that would brand Kurdish YPG forces who fought alongside Americans as terrorists.

Germany's government decided Wednesday to reintroduce military rabbis, backing a proposal by the Central Council of Jews to restore religious counseling for Jews serving in the armed forces after more than a century without such assistance.

Together with former Secretary of State John Kerry and former Vice President Al Gore, presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg constituted a sort of shadow delegation at a time when Trump is moving to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

EU leaders will meet the bloc’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, on Friday morning about next steps ahead in Britain's impending departure from the 28-nation bloc.

An exit poll in Britain's election projected Thursday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party likely will win a majority of seats in Parliament, an outcome that would allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take the U.K. out of the European Union next month.

Combat medics learned how to apply their lifesaving skills to four-legged troops at a seminar with the help of vets, two dog dummies and a greyhound named Nacho.

A box of 250 bullets ordered through Amazon turned up in the military mail last week at Ramstein Air Base, but the U.S. service member who received them says he ordered chocolate sauce, not ammunition.

Three U.S. soldiers in Germany are accused of marking the Thanksgiving holiday not with a typical turkey trot, but with an attempt to do a runner to avoid paying a hefty cab fare.

The United States has a new ambassador to Russia after the Senate voted Thursday to confirm the No. 2 official at the State Department to the post. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan was confirmed by a 70-22 vote.

Opinion polls suggest Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservatives have a lead over the main opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn ahead of Thursday's election. But all the parties are nervous about the verdict of a volatile electorate fed up after years of Brexit wrangling.

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi denied Wednesday that Myanmar's armed forces committed genocide, telling the United Nation's top court that the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she leads was the unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.

President Donald Trump met Tuesday with the Russian foreign minister at the White House just hours after articles of impeachment were unveiled against him and a day after a Justice Department watchdog report declared the FBI was justified in opening an investigation into ties between Moscow and Trump's 2016 campaign.

Russia's challenge to NATO and democratic nations, as well as Iran's influence on the wider Middle East, remain two of the top threats to world peace, two former White House advisers to presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump said Tuesday.

Europol said the material was purported to be uranium-235, an isotope that can be used as a fuel for nuclear power plants, or also in nuclear weapons.

The prospect of Russian interference in Britain’s election flared anew Saturday after the social media platform Reddit concluded that people from Russia leaked confidential British government documents on Brexit trade talks just days before the general U.K. vote.

Several thousand people rallied Sunday in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv to demand that the president defend the country’s interests in this week’s summit with Russia, Germany and France on ending the war in eastern Ukraine.

In Europe and beyond, Russia’s ability to launch cyberattacks and jam GPS signals has been a concern.

Two of the four men who tried to force their way into the home of an American family in Landstuhl, Germany, in February were sentenced to prison Wednesday for attempted burglary.

Analysis

In the nearly 75 years since World War II, there have been other pivotal polling days — in 1964, 1979, 1997 and 2010 — and now the "Brexit election" serves up another inflection point that will shape the country's future.

The Danish Atlantic Council says it has canceled a U.S. government-sponsored seminar on NATO and transatlantic relations after the U.S. Embassy in Denmark allegedly banned an American academic known for being critical of President Donald Trump from speaking there.

Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in major events only if they are not implicated in positive doping tests or if their data was not manipulated, according to the ruling.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met for the first time Monday at a summit in Paris to try to end five years of war between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatists.

Several hundred protesters braved the repressive climate in Belarus to hold a demonstration against deepening the country’s ties with Russia.

Travel tangles continued Sunday as the strikes entered their fourth day, with most French trains at a standstill. Fourteen of Paris' subway lines were closed, with only two lines — using automated trains with no drivers — functioning.

Only about a sixth of French trains were running Monday, and only two of Paris' 16 subway lines were functioning normally.

More than 60 such foreign fighters have been deported, including ISIS suspects from the United States, Denmark, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced a feeling of "deep shame” during her first-ever visit on Friday to the hallowed grounds of the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Adolf Hitler's regime murdered more than a million people.

A gas explosion in an apartment building in eastern Slovakia killed at least five people and injured more than 40 Friday. Firefighters rescued people trapped in the building, which officials said is still in danger of collapse.

Days before his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy promised his war-battered nation of 43 million that he would not betray them to the enemy.

europe quick trips

There are more endearing German cities to see than Worms, but few are older.

The World Anti-Doping Agency's executive committee will vote Monday at its meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on a recommendation to bar Russia from any formal involvement with the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Piero Terracina, one of the last survivors of Italy's tiny Jewish community who were deported to Nazi death camps during World War II, has died. He was 91.

Analysis

Perhaps no other country has poured as many resources into studying Germany's unification as South Korea. Its bureaucrats, academics and politicians have parsed the German example from every possible angle.

Strikes disrupted weekend travel around France on Saturday as truckers blocked highways and most trains remained at a standstill because of worker anger at President Emmanuel Macron's policies.

Germany expelled two Russian diplomats on Wednesday over the brazen killing of a Georgian man on the streets of Berlin in August.

"Making Marvels" exhibition brings together opulent displays of wealth and innovation in the old courts of the continent.

Poland's prime minister said Friday his government wants to buy from Austria the site of the former Nazi German death camp Mauthausen-Gusen where tens of thousands of Poles were killed during World War II.

Japan and South Korea can and should pay more to host U.S. forces, President Donald Trump told reporters alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday in London.

The deployment is the first since the Nimitz-class carrier underwent months of repairs to its electrical system, forcing its strike group to deploy without it.

The Air Force announced Monday at a preliminary hearing that it has charged Airman 1st Class Roman Bahena with involuntary manslaughter, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Paris police fired tear gas at demonstrators Thursday as the Eiffel Tower shut down, France's high-speed trains came to a standstill and hundreds of thousands marched nationwide in a strike over the government's plan to overhaul the retirement system.

Greece ordered the expulsion of the Libyan ambassador Friday in the latest escalation of a dispute over a controversial deal signed between Libya's U.N.-supported government and Turkey on maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean.

West African leaders need to make it clear they want and need France's military presence, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday, just days after a helicopter collision killed 13 French soldiers fighting Islamic extremists in Mali last week.

Social media companies are failing to stop manipulated activity, according to a report Friday by NATO-affiliated researchers who said they were easily able to buy tens of thousands of likes, comments and views on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

Norway’s first F-35 jets are now operational, an achievement that U.S. officials say will bolster defense in a region where Russia is increasing its footprint.

President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani met Thursday in Ukraine with one of the key figures working to build a corruption case against Hunter Biden, the Ukraine official said in a Facebook post.

London fifth graders sang “All I Want for Christmas is You” after Melania Trump added to their merriment Wednesday by joining them to make wreaths and ornaments at a Salvation Army center.

World powers pressured Iran on Friday to reverse recent atomic activities that violate the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, but stopped short of deciding on whether to proceed with a move that could see the case brought before the UN Security Council and a "snapback" of sanctions that had been lifted under the accord.

President Donald Trump called out his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, saying France needs American military protection more than others and that Macron’s recent critical comments about the NATO alliance were “disrespectful and dangerous.”

President Donald Trump and fellow NATO leaders approved a defense plan for the Baltics and Poland on Wednesday, overcoming resistance from Turkey, which had threatened to block it unless other alliance members designated Kurdish fighters in Syria as terrorists.

U.S. and United Kingdom law enforcement officials announced charges Thursday against two Russian nationals they believe responsible for separate global hacking schemes that deployed some of the largest pieces of malware ever seen to swipe tens of millions of dollars from the bank accounts of unsuspecting victims.

Hundreds of soldiers and family members bundled up and braved the cold for the holiday tree lighting ceremony at an Army base in Germany on Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Thursday to immediately extend the only remaining nuclear arms reduction pact with the United States, but a senior U.S. official said Washington wants a broader deal involving China.

The International Criminal Court opened a three-day hearing Wednesday at which prosecutors and victims aim to overturn a decision scrapping a proposed investigation into alleged crimes in Afghanistan’s brutal conflict.

The queen on Saturday led tributes to individual acts of bravery on London Bridge, which included a Polish immigrant helping subdue the British-born terrorist with a five-foot narwhal tusk grabbed from a wall.

The royal scandal, closely linked to the Jeffrey Epstein affair, was deepening as President Trump and other dignitaries gathered in Buckingham Palace to have drinks with the queen ahead of a NATO summit Wednesday.

President Donald Trump said at a news conference on Tuesday that he “doesn’t know” Britain’s Prince Andrew, despite photos of the two taking a walk side by side in June, smiling at Westminster Abbey during the president’s three-day state visit to Britain and at least one social gathering several years ago.

France is bristling at a U.S. threat to slap 100% tariffs on French cheeses, Champagne and other products, with the French leader telling President Donald Trump on Tuesday that the move would amount to an attack on all of Europe.

Federal prosecutors have interviewed the head of Ukraine's state-owned gas company as part of an investigation into the business dealings of President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and two of Giuliani's business associates.

Man-made markings on a wild polar bear thought to be roaming northern or eastern Russia have stumped scientists, have alarmed conservationists and have spurred speculation in the local press.

U.S. European Command has lifted travel restrictions for military personnel to the Old City of Jerusalem, but maintained a ban on visits to other parts of the West Bank, including Bethlehem and Jericho, it said Monday.

German authorities said Wednesday they suspect that Russian agents were behind an execution-style killing in Berlin in the summer and expelled two Russian diplomats in connection with the case.

U.S. President Donald Trump branded the leader of America's northern neighbor "two-faced" after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to gossip about Trump in comments caught on camera and microphone.

Three military helicopters, two naval vessels, a coast guard rescue craft and five merchant ships helped in the rescue operation.

The move comes after the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum on Sunday appealed to Amazon to remove the merchandise, which also included an Auschwitz bottle opener and a Birkenau "massacre" mouse pad.

President Donald Trump criticized Democrats at the opening of a NATO leaders' meeting Tuesday, calling the impeachment push by his rivals "unpatriotic" and "a bad thing for our country."

The woman who says she was a trafficking victim made to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 is asking the British public to support her quest for justice.

NATO wants to eventually replace its Cold War-era early warning aircraft, but will in the meantime upgrade the jets at a cost of $1 billion.

Convicted murderer James Ford, 42, was on day release from prison Friday when he saw the attack unfolding and rushed to help during the chaos. According to British media reports, Ford had attended the same prisoner rehabilitation event as attacker Usman Khan, 28, who killed two people before being shot dead by police.

On her first trip overseas as the new Air Force secretary, Barbara Barrett went to Ramstein Air Base with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein to visit with airmen and learn about their missions.

An ace of spades embellished with a Russian-made SA-17 could tip a game of Texas Hold ‘em in a soldier’s favor, while also helping him identify a surface-to-air missile system on the ground.

The United Nations' atomic watchdog agency is still waiting for information from Iran on the discovery of uranium particles at a site near Tehran, the agency's new director general told The Associated Press on Tuesday in an interview.

Researchers have big outstanding questions about the puppy they have named Dogor. They're still trying to figure out if the tiny animal is a dog or wolf.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday decried the Iranian government's crackdown on protesters, saying Tehran is killing its citizens for speaking out at demonstrations.

President Donald Trump said he had no deadline to reach a trade deal with China and suggested a deal could wait until after the 2020 election, adding another twist to an already-charged NATO summit in London.

The U.S. will reduce its contribution to the so-called common fund from 22% to 16% while Germany increases its expenditure, NATO announced. That means the U.S. and Germany will each pay about 16%, with other allies paying the rest.

Negotiations between the U.S. Army and the union representing Germans employed on bases in Europe have broken down without an agreement on a new contract, raising the prospect of local workers going on strike.

Cyprus, Egypt and Greece have all condemned the Libyan-Turkish accord as contrary to international law.

Staff Sgt. Tyler Mayfield, 33, died 12 days after being injured in a car accident in Missouri.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview Monday that he didn’t speak with President Donald Trump “from the position of a quid pro quo” last summer. Zelenskiy said, “That’s not my thing. … I don’t want us to look like beggars.”