The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut on Friday in a series of massive explosions that targeted the leader of the militant group and leveled multiple high-rise apartment buildings. At least six people were killed and 91 were wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said. It was the biggest blast to hit the Lebanese capital in the past year and appeared likely to push the escalating conflict closer to full-fledged war. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was t

South Korea on Friday pledged to continue its cooperation with Japan's incoming government in order to maintain "positive momentum," following the ruling party's election of former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba as leader, setting him up to become the country's new prime minister. "We will continue to work closely with the new Japanese cabinet to ensure the positive flow of South Korea-Japan relations," said a senior presidential official, who spoke on the c

US President Joe Biden announced more than $8 billion in military assistance for Ukraine on Thursday to help Kyiv "win this war" against Russian invaders, using a visit by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to make a major commitment. The aid includes the first shipment of a precision-guided glide bomb called the Joint Standoff Weapon, with a range of up to 81 miles. The medium-range missile gives Ukraine a major upgrade to the weapons it is using to strike Russian forces, allowing the Ukra

DPA -- Same-sex marriage will be legal in Thailand from January after Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn signed the law on Tuesday, making the country the first in South-East Asia to legalize it. The upper and lower houses of the Thai parliament had already passed the legislation months ago, both with large majorities. Now that the king has signed the law, it will enter into force in 120 days. While Thailand is the first country in South-East Asia to allow for same-sex marriage, it is the third in al

A recent study reveals that the world generates 52 million metric tons of plastic pollution each year, with a significant portion coming from countries in the Global South. This staggering amount could fill New York City’s Central Park to the height of the Empire State Building. The study, led by the University of Leeds, examined waste production across more than 50,000 cities and towns globally. More than two-thirds of this pollution comes from countries with poor waste collection servi

MOSCOW (AP) — A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and one American from the International Space Station landed Monday in Kazakhstan, ending a record-breaking stay for the Russian pair. The capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe about 3 1/2 hours after undocking from the ISS in an apparently trouble-free descent. In the last stage of the landing, it descended under a red-and-white parachute at about 7.2 meters per second (16 mph), with small rockets fired in the final seconds to cushion the

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said it struck hundreds of targets Monday in Lebanon in one of the most intense barrages in nearly a year of fighting against the Hezbollah militant group, and military officials said they planned to widen the offensive. The Lebanese Health Ministry said 100 people were killed and more than 400 wounded in what would be the deadliest day in Lebanon since the conflict started in October. Before the escalation beginning with the wave of pager explosions l

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka was voting for its next president Saturday in an effective referendum on an unpopular International Monetary Fund austerity plan enacted after the island nation's unprecedented financial crisis. President Ranil Wickremesinghe is fighting an uphill battle for a fresh mandate to continue belt-tightening measures that stabilized the economy and ended months of food, fuel, and medicine shortages. His two years in office restored calm to the streets after civil unrest

California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Friday. California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform’s algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children’s access to social media, but the

Israel launched a rare airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday. It was the deadliest such strike on Lebanon’s capital in decades, with Lebanese authorities reporting at least 14 people killed and dozens more wounded in the attack. The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the strike on Beirut's southern Dahiya district killed Ibrahim Akil, a commander of Hezbollah&rsquo

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The European Union pledged on Friday to lend Ukraine up to 35 billion euros ($39 billion) as part of a loan package organized by the Group of Seven major industrial nations, as it seeks to help the country rebuild its economy and its war-shattered power grid. G7 leaders agreed in June to engineer a $50 billion loan to help Ukraine in its fight for survival. Interest earned on profits from Russia’s frozen central bank assets would be used as collateral, but progre

Ukrainian drones struck a large military depot in a town deep inside Russia overnight, causing a huge blaze and prompting the evacuation of some local residents, a Ukrainian official and Russian news reports said Wednesday. Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recently announced -- but still confidential -- plan for winning the war “can work” and help end the conflict that is now in its third year. Ukraine claimed the strike destro

The death toll from massive flooding in Myanmar in the wake of Typhoon Yagi has doubled to 226, state media reported, as the UN warned as many as 630,000 people could need help. Yagi swept across northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar more than a week ago with powerful winds and an enormous amount of rain, triggering floods and landslides that have killed more than 500 people, according to official figures. State TV in junta-ruled Myanmar confirmed 226 fatalities late on Monday, with 77 pe

Meta late Monday said it is banning Russian state media outlets from its apps around the world due to "foreign interference activity." The ban comes after the United States accused RT and employees of the state-run agency of funneling $10 million through shell entities to covertly fund influence campaigns on social media channels including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to an unsealed indictment. "After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement again

Malaysia's health ministry reported on Tuesday one new case of the mpox virus infection of the clade 2 variety, a less severe variant of the disease, and said the patient had been isolated and was in a stable condition. The case was detected on Monday in a man who began showing symptoms of fever, sore throat, and cough on Sept. 11, with a rash appearing the following day, the health ministry said in a statement. Malaysia has detected 10 cases of mpox since July last year, all of which are

Indian police have detained around 100 striking workers and union leaders protesting low wages at a Samsung Electronics plant in southern India, as they were planning a march on Monday without permission, police officials said. The detention marks an escalation of a strike by workers at a Samsung home appliance plant near Chennai city in the state of Tamil Nadu. Workers want higher wages and have boycotted work for seven days, disrupting production that contributes roughly a third of Samsung

A gunman attempted to assassinate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sunday at Trump's golf course in Palm Beach, Florida, authorities said. CNN, Fox News and The New York Times identified the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii, citing unidentified law enforcement officials. The FBI declined to comment and Reuters could not independently verify his identity. Here is what we know so far about the suspected gunman: The Secret Service said its agents were accompanying T

The number of people in Japan aged 65 or older hit a record high of 36.25 million this year, government data shows, as the country contends with one of the world's fastest-ageing societies. The elderly now account for 29.3 percent of Japan's total population, also a new high, according to data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on Sunday. The ministry said the proportion of elderly residents put Japan at the top of the list of 200 countries and regions with

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was safe after a shooting occurred near his golf course in Florida on Sunday, in what investigators see as an apparent assassination attempt against the former president. The shooting took place shortly before 2 p.m. near Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, where Trump was golfing. In a fundraising email, Trump said that he was "safe and well," according to CNN. His campaign and the US Secret Service also confirmed that he wa

OpenAI's new financing round is expected to come in the form of convertible notes, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter, who said its $150 billion valuation will be contingent on whether the ChatGPT-maker can upend its corporate structure and remove a profit cap for investors. The details of the conditions of the $6.5 billion funding, which have not been previously reported, show how far OpenAI, the most valuable AI startup in the world, has come from a research-based no