TOKYO / AP The US robotics expert tapped to head Toyota’s Silicon Valley research company says the $1 billion investment by the giant Japanese automaker will start showing results within five years. Gill Pratt told reporters that the Toyota Research Institute is also looking ahead into the distant future when there will be cars that anyone, including children and ...

  WASHINGTON / AP Democrats get their long-sought votes on gun control a week after the massacre in Orlando, Florida, but election-year politics and the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) dim any prospects for changes in the nation’s laws. The Senate was to vote on Monday night on four measures — two sponsored by Republicans, two by Democrats. All are ...

  Vienna / AFP Austria’s highest court began a public hearing on Monday on a legal challenge to May’s presidential election brought by the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), whose candidate only narrowly lost. The Constitutional Court’s open session was due to last four days and hear 90 witnesses. It aims to rule before the scheduled swearing-in of the election winner, Alexander ...

  BRUSSELS / AP Brussels remains on high alert with increased security after a weekend sweep which left three in jail facing terrorism charges. The MIVB metro system says a half dozen subway stations have reduced entry on request from authorities but all subway lines were running during the morning rush hour on Monday. On Saturday, authorities charged three men with ...

  London / AFP British lawmakers prepared to pay tribute to a slain MP in a rare show of unity on Monday as the EU referendum campaign entered its final stretch with rival camps vying to seize the momentum. Politicians will return to parliament, which had been in recess, for a special sitting to pay tribute to Jo Cox, a ...

  Luxembourg / AFP EU foreign ministers on Monday agreed to boost the bloc’s anti-people smuggling operation in the Mediterranean to include training of the Libyan coastguard and enforcing a UN arms embargo. Ministers also agreed to extend Operation Sophia’s mandate by one year, a statement said, as the European Union tries to stem a flood of migrants from North ...

  Oaxaca / AFP Unknown gunmen opened fire as police and teachers clashed in southern Mexico during a protest that left six people dead and more than 100 injured, authorities said. The violence erupted as police threw tear gas at the protesters to end a week-long barricade that was blocking a road in Asuncion Nochixtlan, a town in Oaxaca state, ...

  Nairobi / AFP A quiet protest movement is spreading in Burundi’s schools where hundreds of students have been suspended in recent weeks for defacing pictures of President Pierre Nkurunziza in textbooks. Scribbling on the presidential portraits contained in government-issue study guides is seen as an act of silent resistance against a regime that clings to power despite more than ...

  BLOOMBERG Global equities rallied and the pound strengthened the most since 2008 on signs the campaign for the U.K. to stay in the European Union was gaining momentum. The yen declined with U.S. Treasuries and gold as haven demand eased. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index headed for its biggest gain since August and emerging-market shares advanced for a second ...

  Bloomberg The turbulence sweeping global markets has reignited investors’ passion for gold. Global central bankers have sounded the alarm that a British exit from the European Union could be disruptive to the global economy. Anxiety about the June 23 vote contributed to more than $1 trillion of value being wiped from global equities last week as bullion futures reached ...