Egypt frees 7, including journalist, researcher after pardon

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian authorities have released seven people, including a journalist and a researcher who were serving prison sentences on terror-related charges. The freeing of journalist Hisham Fouad and anthropology researcher Ahmed Samir on Saturday comes a day after President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi pardoned them, along with five others. It was the latest in a string of steps taken by el-Sissi’s government in recent months to reach out to the opposition amid a grinding economic crisis sparked by Russia’s war on Ukraine and ahead of the next U.N. climate change summit that Egypt is hosting in November.