PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A transitional council tasked with choosing new leaders for Haiti is changing the way it operates in a move that surprised many as gang violence consumes the country. Instead of having a single council president, four longtime politicians will take turns leading the council every five months, according to two members who were not authorized to publicly share the changes because they had not yet been announced.

BANGKOK (AP) — Six months into an offensive against Myanmar ’s military government, opposition forces have made massive gains, but civilian casualties are rising sharply as regime troops increasingly turn toward scorched-earth tactics in the Southeast Asian country's bitter civil war.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A shipment of humanitarian aid left a port in Cyprus on Thursday morning and was on its way to the U.S-built pier in Gaza, the first delivery to the newly built ramp, Cyprus’ foreign minister said.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Thursday wrapped itself in patriotic pageantry for Victory Day, as President Vladimir Putin celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II by hailing his forces fighting in Ukraine and blasting the West for fueling conflicts around the world.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) — The mayor of a major city in southern Brazil on Tuesday pleaded with residents to comply with his water rationing decree, given that some four-fifths of the population is without running water, a week after major flooding that has left at least 90 people dead and more than 130 others missing.

LAOAG, Philippines (AP) — U.S. and Philippine forces, backed by an Australian air force surveillance aircraft, unleashed a barrage of high-precision rockets, artillery fire and airstrikes Wednesday and sank a mock enemy ship as part of largescale war drills in and near the disputed South China Sea that have antagonized Beijing.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces unleashed a nighttime barrage of more than 50 cruise missiles and explosive drones at Ukraine’s power grid Wednesday, targeting a wide area in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a “massive” attack on the day the country celebrates the defeat of Nazism in World War II.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — German police on Tuesday broke up a protest by several hundred pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied a courtyard at Berlin’s Free University earlier in the day, the latest such action by authorities as protests that have roiled campuses in the United States spread across Europe.

President Vladimir Putin began his fifth term at a glittering Kremlin inauguration Tuesday, embarking on another six years as leader of Russia after destroying his political opponents, launching a devastating war in Ukraine and concentrating all power in his hands.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said Monday an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, which was accepted by Hamas, did not meet its “core demands” and that it was pushing ahead with an assault on the southern Gaza town of Rafah. Still, Israel said it would continue negotiations.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An American soldier has been arrested in Russia and accused of stealing, according to two U.S. officials. U.S. officials said the soldier, Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, was stationed in South Korea and was in the process of returning home to Fort Cavazos in Texas. Instead, officials said he traveled to Russia.

Russia said Monday it plans to hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid rising tensions following comments by senior Western officials about the possibility of deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Relatives have positively identified three bodies found in a well as those of two Australian surfers and one American who went missing last weekend, Mexican authorities said Sunday. Baja California state prosecutors said the relatives had viewed the corpses recovered from a remote well about 50 feet deep and recognized them as their loved ones.

PANAMA CITY (AP) — José Raúl Mulino, the stand-in for former President Ricardo Martinelli in Panama's presidential election, was set to become the new leader of the Central American nation as authorities unofficially called the race Sunday night after his three nearest rivals conceded.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Ukraine marked its third Easter at war, Russia on Sunday launched a barrage of drones concentrated in Ukraine’s east, wounding more than a dozen people, and claimed its troops took control of a village they had been targeting.

Just a few months short of a quarter-century as Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin on Tuesday will put his hand on a copy of the constitution and begin another six-year term as president wielding extraordinary power.

PARIS (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off a three-country trip to Europe on Sunday with the continent divided over how to deal with Beijing's growing power and the U.S.-China rivalry.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Massive floods in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state have killed at least 75 people over the last seven days, and another 103 were reported missing, local authorities said Sunday.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said Sunday.

KIBBUTZ MEFALSIM, Israel (AP) — When Hamas fighters invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip perpetrated the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Three bodies recovered in an area of Mexico's Baja California state are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Heavy rains in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul killed 39 people, with another 68 still missing, the state civil defense agency said Friday, as record-breaking floods devastated cities and forced thousands to leave their homes.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country’s mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.

LYPIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also provided physical refuge from the horrors outside.