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

The World Trade Organization agreed Monday to establish an expert panel to examine US subsidies for electric vehicles after Beijing accused Washington of unfair competition. The United States slammed China's complaint, insisting the country was seeking "to distract from its own non-market policies and practices that undermine a fair, competitive, and mutually beneficial trading system." The world's second-largest economy initially brought the case to the WTO in March, chargin

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

Global stock markets diverged and the dollar was mixed against main rivals Friday following an equities rally triggered by a jumbo US interest rate cut this week. In early afternoon deals, European stocks pared back hefty gains from the previous session, won after the Federal Reserve opted for a bumper 50-basis-point rate reduction and pledged further cuts as inflation cools. There had been fears the move could signal officials were worried about the economy and were behind the curve in easing p

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

Negotiators from Boeing and the machinists union are scheduled to resume talks Tuesday after some 33,000 workers went on strike late last week. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 have been picketing 24 hours a day following the walkout early Friday morning, shuttering Seattle-area factories that assemble the 737 MAX and 777. "Now is the moment to rise -- show Boeing that our voices aren't just loud; they are unstoppable," the