COLU @ CONCEPTS

PFORZHEIM, Germany (AP) — A nationalist party that wants Germany to close its borders to migrants, leave Europe’s common currency and end sanctions against Russia is predicted to enter Parliament for the first time this month, propelled by voters’ anger at Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to let over a million refugees into the country since 2015. Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is forecast to take between 8 and 11 percent of the vote on Sept. 24, giving it dozens of lawmakers in the national Parliament. Some polls even project that it could even come third behind Merkel’s party and the center-left Social Democrats. If the predictions are correct, it would be the first time in 60 years that a party to the right of Merkel’s conservative Union bloc has attracted enough votes to enter the Bundestag. “It’s quite an achievement for a right-wing party to clear the 5-percent minimum threshold,” said Gideon Botsch, a political scientist at the University of Potsdam near Berlin. ...

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Some denounce it as a violation of Islamic law, others embrace it as revolutionary: An initiative by Tunisia’s president to make inheritance and marriage rules fairer to women is reverberating around the Muslim world, and risks dividing his country. The 90-year-old president, Beji Caid Essebsi, argues that Tunisia needs to fight discrimination and modernize. He’s gambling that he could shepherd through such changes because his secular party is in a coalition with an Islamist one, and because his overwhelmingly Muslim country has a history of relatively progressive views toward women. In a speech last month, Essebsi proposed allowing women the same inheritance rights as men, instead of the current system based on Islamic Shariah law that generally grants daughters only half the inheritance given to sons. The president also suggested allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslims; currently Muslim men are allowed to marry non-Muslims but not the other way a...

LOWER MATECUMBE KEY, Fla. (AP) — The Latest on Hurricane Irma (all times local): 5:20 a.m. French President Emmanuel Macron is visiting hurricane-hammered St. Barts after reportedly staying overnight on the nearby island of St. Martin on a camp cot. Macron is on a visit aimed at offering support and solidarity with struggling islanders after his government had been criticized for not doing enough to prepare and help France’s Caribbean territories devastated by Hurricane Irma last week. Macron’s office said he stayed overnight on St. Martin on Tuesday and is going to St. Barts on Wednesday with the French health minister, who has warned about diseases spreading on the islands after water supplies, electricity and communication were knocked out for days. French media reports said Macron was sleeping on a camp cot in the police station. After spending hours meeting with residents of the French side of the shared French-Dutch island of St. Martin on Tuesday, Macron promised ...

MIAMI (AP) — The Latest on Irma (all times local): 8:45 p.m. Three people are dead from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning at a Florida home following Hurricane Irma, and four others have been hospitalized. Orange County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jeff Williams says a deputy responded to the Orlando home Tuesday evening following a 911 call from what sounded like a juvenile. The deputy was overcome by fumes while approaching the home and called for fire rescue. Firefighters pulled seven people from the home, three of whom died at the scene. Four others were taken to a nearby hospital in various conditions. Rescue workers found a portable gasoline generator running inside the home. Williamson described the victims as a multi-generational family. ___ 8:20 p.m. Authorities say a Mississippi man died in a crash at a Florida intersection where the traffic signals weren’t working after Hurricane Irma. The Ocala Star-Banner reports that the 59-year-old Coffeeville, ...

BOSTON (AP) — Self-driving cars may not hit the road  in earnest  for many years - but autonomous boats could be just around the pier. Spurred in part by the car industry’s race to build driverless vehicles, marine innovators are building automated ferry boats for Amsterdam canals, cargo ships that can steer themselves through Norwegian fjords and remote-controlled ships to carry containers across the Atlantic and Pacific. The first such autonomous ships could be in operation within three years. One experimental workboat spent this summer dodging tall ships and tankers in Boston Harbor, outfitted with sensors and self-navigating software and emblazoned with the words “UNMANNED VESSEL” across its aluminum hull. “We’re in full autonomy now,” said Jeff Gawrys, a marine technician for Boston startup Sea Machines Robotics, sitting at the helm as the boat floated through a harbor channel. “Roger that,” said computer scientist Mohamed Saad Ibn Seddik, as he helped to g...

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A judge awarded Rebel Wilson record damages of 4.56 million Australian dollars ($3.66 million) on Wednesday over magazine articles the actress said cost her roles in Hollywood films. A Supreme Court jury in Australia’s Victoria state had decided in June the articles claiming she lied about her age, origins of her first name and her upbringing in Sydney were defamatory. Justice John Dixon said a substantial award amount was required to “vindicate” Wilson after her reputation as an “actress of integrity was wrongly damaged.” Bauer Media, publisher of the Australian magazines Woman’s Day, Australian Women’s Weekly, NW and OK, said it was considering the judgment. The 37-year-old Wilson, best known for the comedies “Pitch Perfect” and “Bridesmaids,” was in London on Wednesday and her lawyers were unable to immediately talk to her about the decision. Wilson said on Twitter that the case “wasn’t about the money.” “I’m looking forward to helping ...

BRISTOL, Conn. (AP) — ESPN distanced itself from anchor Jemele Hill’s tweets one day after she called President Donald Trump “a white supremacist” and “a bigot.” “The comments on Twitter from Jemele Hill regarding the president do not represent the position of ESPN,” the network tweeted Tuesday from its public relations department’s account. “We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate.” On Monday night, in a series of exchanges with other Twitter users, Hill said, “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” Hill, a co-host of the 6 p.m. broadcast of “SportsCenter,” also added that “Trump is the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime. His rise is a direct result of white supremacy. Period.” In another tweet, she said, “Donald Trump is a bigot,” and went on to criticize his supporters, adding “The height of white privilege is being able to ignore his white suprema...

NEW YORK (AP) — A puzzling study of U.S. pregnancies found that women who had miscarriages between 2010 and 2012 were more likely to have had back-to-back annual flu shots that included protection against swine flu. Vaccine experts think the results may reflect the older age and other miscarriage risks for the women, and not the flu shots. Health officials say there is no reason to change the government recommendation that all pregnant women be vaccinated against the flu. They say the flu itself is a much greater danger to women and their fetuses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reached out to a doctor’s group, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, to warn them the study is coming out and help them prepare for a potential wave of worry from expectant moms, CDC officials said. “I want the CDC and researchers to continue to investigate this,” said Dr. Laura Riley, a Boston-based obstetrician who leads a committee on maternal immunizatio...

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is in a healthier economic state than it’s been for more than a decade and is ready to move on from Brexit, the bloc’s top official said Wednesday. Addressing lawmakers at the European Parliament, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU is “bouncing back” after a tough decade that’s seen much of the 28-country mired in an economic crisis and Britain vote to leave. “The wind is back in Europe’s sail,” he said in an upbeat hour-long annual “State of the European Union” address in Strasbourg, France. Juncker, whose Commission proposes EU legislation and polices the bloc’s laws, said the EU is into its fifth year of economic recovery, with unemployment at a nine-year low. “Let us make the most of the momentum, catch the wind in our sails,” he said. “Europe can deliver for its citizens where and when it matters.” Since the global financial crisis first bared its teeth a decade ago, the EU project has been dealt a series of blo...