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PARIS -- Nicolas Toulliou had just proposed marriage to his girlfriend. Nelson Marinho Jr. was heading off on a new oil exploration job. Eric Lamy was about to celebrate his 38th birthday. They were among 228 people killed in 2009 when their storm-tossed Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris slammed into the Atlantic. After more than a decade of legal battles, their families have a chance at justice in a courtroom. Aviation industry heavyweights Airbus and Air France are charged with manslaughter in a trial that opens Monday over the crash of Flight 447 on June 1, 2009. The worst plane crash in Air France history killed people of 33 nationalities and had lasting impact, leading to changes in air safety regulations, how pilots are trained and the use of airspeed sensors. But it ...

VIENNA -- Austria’s liberal president was on course to win a second six-year term outright Sunday, avoiding a runoff vote after a campaign in which he portrayed himself as the stable option in uncertain times. Preliminary results gave President Alexander Van der Bellen 54.6% of the vote and his closest rival, far-right Freedom Party candidate Walter Rosenkranz, 19.1%. Those figures didn’t include postal ballots, which will be counted on Monday. Projections for ORF public television and the Austria Press Agency for the final result showed Van der Bellen winning around 56% of the vote, with a little under 18% for Rosenkranz. Campaign posters for the 78-year-old Van der Bellen, who hails from the environmentalist Green party but ran as an independent, featured the slogan “The Safe Choice i...

BERLIN -- An external power line to Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — the biggest in Europe — was repaired on Sunday after shelling disconnected the facility from the grid and forced it to resort to emergency diesel generators, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. The International Atomic Energy Agency said the 750-kilovolt line was reconnected to the plant on Sunday evening following repair work by Ukrainian engineers. That enabled the plant to start switching off the generators that had kicked in to provide it with power after the line — its last connection to the grid — was cut early Saturday. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi tweeted that the reconnection was “a temporary relief in a still-untenable situation.” The plant has been held by Russian forces for months, but operat...

MEXICO CITY -- Hurricane Julia hit Nicaragua's central Caribbean coast on Sunday and dumped torrential rains across Central America before an expected reemergence over the Pacific. Julia hit as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph), though its winds had dipped to tropical storm force of 50 mph (85 kph), by late afternoon as it pushed across Nicaragua. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Julia was centered about 45 miles (75 kilometers) west-northwest of Managua, the capital, and was moving west at 16 mph (26 kph). It said life-threatening flash floods and mudslides were possible across Central America and southern Mexico through Tuesday, with the storm expected to bring as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain in isolated areas. Colombia's nat...

Mr Biden also urged governors to do likewise on state offences and called for a review on whether cannabis should be listed as a less serious drug. Federal law currently classifies cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance, meaning it has "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse". As one White House official noted, that's "the same schedule as for heroin and LSD, and it's even higher than the classification for fentanyl and methamphetamine - the drugs that are driving [America's] overdose epidemic". "It makes no sense," Mr Biden said on Thursday, as he directed his attorney general and health secretary to oversee a review. "Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It's time tha...

In an interview with the BBC, President Zelensky denied having urged strikes on Russia, claiming that an earlier remark had been mistranslated. "You must use preventive kicks," he said, referring to sanctions, "not attacks". In recent weeks, the Ukrainian army has recaptured large swathes of territory in a successful counter-offensive that has forced Russian troops to abandon long-held positions. In what Kyiv describes as Moscow's response to its defeats, President Vladimir Putin has incorporated four partially occupied regions of Ukraine. The annexations, widely dismissed as illegal, have raised fears of a possible escalation in the seven-month war. President Putin and other senior Russian officials have suggested that nuclear weapons - possibly smalle...