Amersham, England — Family and friends of One Direction star Liam Payne, who died last month after falling from a Buenos Aires hotel room, gathered for his funeral in Britain on Wednesday. Payne's former bandmates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson were among mourners at the private service at St Mary's Church in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, just outside London.
Zhytomyr, Ukraine — Exactly 1,000 days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Russia's defense ministry accused Ukrainian forces on Tuesday of firing six U.S.-made and -supplied ATACMS missiles at the Russian region of Bryansk. If confirmed, it could be the first time Ukrainian troops had taken advantage of President Biden easing restrictions over the weekend on Ukraine's use of the U.S.-made missiles to strike targets deeper inside Russian territory.
President Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to fire U.S.-made and supplied missiles deeper into Russia — a major policy shift announced over the weekend after months of intense lobbying by Kyiv — has drawn a furious response from Moscow. While there was no immediate reaction directly from the man who launched the nearly three-year war on his neighboring nation, lawmakers aligned with President Vladimir Putin in Russia said Monday that the move was unacceptable and warned it could lead to a third world war.
Tel Aviv — After more than a year of bombing and homelessness, Gazans are looking to a new administration in Washington for help. President-elect Donald Trump's election victory has raised hopes and fears among the five million residents of the Palestinian territories — the warn-torn Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Johannesburg — It's often called the forgotten conflict, but the civil war that has torn Sudan apart for 19 months is fueling the world's biggest humanitarian crisis. In just over a year and a half, 13 million people have been displaced from their homes. At least one overcrowded camp for displaced civilians is already dealing with famine, while other parts of the country are suffering though famine-like conditions.
Tropical Storm Sara formed in the Caribbean on Thursday, becoming the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season. The system, previously called Tropical Depression 19, developed in the western Caribbean earlier this week and intensified while traveling westward on a path toward Central America.
Paris — Security forces were on high alert Thursday in Paris ahead of a soccer match between France's national soccer team and the visiting Israeli side. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators held protests in the city Wednesday night, and there has been fear of a possible repeat of last week's violence and antisemitic attacks against Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam.
Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine orchestrated an attack on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula that killed a high-ranking Russian naval officer, sources in Ukraine's security services told the AFP and Reuters news agencies Wednesday. The killing, which was confirmed by Moscow, is the latest in a string of targeted attacks on Russian military officers and pro-Kremlin public figures in occupied Ukrainian territory and within Russia.
Eight international aid groups have jointly rebuked Israel for not only failing "to meet any of the specific criteria" set out by the Biden administration in an Oct. 13 letter demanding that the U.S. ally drastically increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip within 30 days, but accusing Israel of taking "actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza."
Bangkok — A driver killed 35 people and severely injured another 43 when he deliberately rammed his car into people exercising at a sports center in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai, police said Tuesday. Police had detained a 62-year-old man at the sports center in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai following the ramming late Monday, on the eve of the country's premier aviation exhibition by the People's Liberation Army that's hosted annually in the city.
Tel Aviv — Early this fall in Gaza, aid workers doled out one food portion per mealtime, per family to starving civilians displaced by Israel's raging war with Hamas. But as Israel choked off aid deliveries to the Palestinian territory, the meals dwindled. Last week, the United Nations again warned that some Gazans are facing famine conditions.
Barcelona — A Spanish research vessel that investigates marine ecosystems has been abruptly diverted from its usual task to take on a new job: Helping in the increasingly desperate search for the missing from Spain's deadly floods. As the dire work continued in the eastern province of Valencia to find the victims of the disaster and clean up the mess left behind, more torrential rain unleashed flash floods farther north along the coast, near Girona.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Thursday what he called a "world-leading" plan to implement a social media ban for all children under the age of 16. While much of the detail of the proposed legislation has yet to be made clear, the Australian leader said at a news conference that the bill involves an age verification process where "the onus will be on social media platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access" to their platforms.
Spanish police said Wednesday that they had seized 13 tons of cocaine -- the country's largest-ever haul of the drug -- and made one arrest.