AP World News

By SALLY ABOU ALJOUD Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s foreign minister arrived in Lebanon’s capital on Friday as the two neighbors attempt to reset relations which have been tense for decades. Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani held talks with his Lebanese counterpart, President Joseph Aoun, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. It was the first high-profile

By ABDEL KAREEM HANA, WAFAA SHURAFA and MELANIE LIDMAN Associated Press WADI GAZA, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of Palestinians headed back to the heavily destroyed northern Gaza Strip on Friday as a U.S.-brokered ceasefire came into effect in a deal that raised hopes for ending the Israel-Hamas war. All the remaining hostages

By MIKE PESOLI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday despite jockeying from his fellow Republicans, various world leaders and — most vocally — himself. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was honoring her

By MELINA WALLING Associated Press Arctic seals are being pushed closer to extinction by climate change and more than half of bird species around the world are declining under pressure from deforestation and agricultural expansion, according to an annual assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature. One bright spot is green sea turtles,

By SAM METZ Associated Press RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Morocco’s elusive King Mohammed VI inaugurates parliament Friday in a speech with far higher stakes than his annual addresses as anti-government protests have swept the nation’s cities and questioned the government’s spending priorities. He’s the country’s highest authority, but Mohammed VI rarely addresses the public and

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean investigators on Friday indicted the 82-year-old leader of the Unification Church, Hak Ja Han, over allegations that she instructed church officials to bribe the wife of jailed former President Yoon Suk Yeol and a conservative lawmaker close to him. Han, widow of the

By FRANKLIN BRICEÑO Associated Press LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Congress voted early Friday to remove deeply unpopular President Dina Boluarte from office as a crime wave grips the South American nation. Lawmakers had set up a debate and impeachment trial late Thursday in the 130-member unicameral Congress after voting to accept four requests for

By FLORENT BAJRAMI and LLAZAR SEMINI Associated Press PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — A U.S. peace plan has propelled former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the forefront of efforts to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. While his legacy in the Middle East is controversial, especially given his role in taking the U.K. to war

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV encouraged international news agencies on Thursday to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation, as he strongly backed a free, independent and objective press. History’s first American pope called for imprisoned journalists to be released and said

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drone and missile strikes wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv, damaged residential buildings and caused blackouts across swaths of Ukraine early Friday, authorities said. A child also was killed in separate attacks in the southeast of the country. In the heart of the Ukrainian capital, rescue crews pulled more

By KEN MORITSUGU and SIMINA MISTREANU Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan will accelerate the building of a “Taiwan Shield” or “T-Dome” air defense system in the face of the military threat from China, its leader said Friday. President Lai Ching-te also pledged to raise defense spending to more than 3% of GDP and

By KOSTYA MANENKOV, REGINA GARCIA CANO and GEIR MOULSON Associated Press OSLO, Norway (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, winning recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a

By AIJAZ HUSSAIN Associated Press SRINAGAR, India (AP) — India is upgrading its technical mission in Kabul to a full embassy, India’s foreign minister announced Friday after meeting his Afghanistan counterpart in New Delhi. The announcement was made during the first high-level diplomatic engagement since the Taliban seized power in 2021 after two decades of

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV urged labor union leaders from Chicago on Thursday to advocate for immigrants and welcome minorities into their ranks, weighing in as the Trump administration crackdown on immigrants intensifies in the pontiff’s hometown. “While recognizing that appropriate policies are necessary to keep communities safe, I

By ASTRID SUÁREZ Associated Press BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro proposed Thursday that Qatar could serve as “mediator” so that the United States would end its military deployment in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, where it has attacked small boats it says were carrying drugs. Petro’s comments while on a

By FATIMA HUSSEIN and ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States directly purchased Argentine pesos on Thursday and finalized a $20 billion currency swap line with Argentina’s central bank, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post, a rare move aimed at stabilizing turbulent financial markets in the cash-strapped Latin

By EDITH M. LEDERER and FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations said Thursday that 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid is ready to enter Gaza and that it is seeking a green light from Israel to massively increase help for more than 2 million Palestinians following

By LORNE COOK Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian police on Thursday detained three people over a suspected plot to attack the country’s politicians including Prime Minister Bart De Wever with a drone carrying explosives. The three were taken into custody after an anti-terrorism judge ordered searches of their homes in the port city of

By NICOLAS VAUX-MONTAGNY Associated Press LYON, France (AP) — A French appeals court handed a stiffer 10-year sentence Thursday to the only man who challenged his conviction for raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was drugged and unconscious. Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old construction worker, had been sentenced to nine years in prison in the first drugging-and-rape

By WAFAA SHURAFA and MARIAM FAM Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Eager for the bloodshed, displacement and destruction to stop, many Palestinians in Gaza were relieved to hear news that Israel and Hamas agreed to a pause in their devastating two-year war. But it was mixed with pain from staggering losses and

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government on Thursday acknowledged attacking a religious festival held on the grounds of a school in central Myanmar, which witnesses said killed about two dozen people, including children, when improvised bombs were dropped by motorized paragliders. A statement issued by the military’s information office blamed

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia’s air defense were to blame for downing an Azerbaijani jetliner in December that killed 38 people, his first public admission of responsibility for the crash in an effort to ease tensions between the neighbors. Putin said the missiles fired by