China's factory activity in September recorded its first expansion in six months, an official survey said Saturday, providing another sign that the world's second-largest economy is gradually improving after its post-pandemic malaise.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday insisted that the residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed a year ago “made their choice — to be with their Fatherland.”

LONDON (AP) — British police on Friday made their second arrest over the cutting down of a 300-year-old tree near the Roman landmark of Hadrian’s Wall in the northeast of England. Hours after a 16-year-old was freed on bail, Northumbria Police said a man in his 60s was arrested and is being questioned in custody.

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of people celebrating the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 54 people and wounding nearly 70 others, authorities said, in one of the country's deadliest attacks targeting civilians in months.

BEIRUT (AP) — The swift fall of the Armenian-majority enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani troops and the exodus of much of its population has stunned the large Armenian diaspora around the world. Traumatized by a widely acknowledged genocide a century ago, they fear the erasure of what they consider a central and beloved part of their historic homeland.

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — More than 70% of Nagorno-Karabakh's original population has fled to Armenia as the region's separatist government said it will dissolve itself and the unrecognized republic inside Azerbaijan will cease to exist by year’s end after a three-decade bid for independence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered one of the top commanders of the Wagner military contractor to take charge of “volunteer units” fighting in Ukraine, signaling the Kremlin’s effort to keep using the mercenaries after the death of their chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) — A powerful explosion in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, killed a teenage boy Thursday and injured at least 162 people following a fire caused by a lightning strike, Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Health said.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel reopened a main crossing with the Gaza Strip on Thursday, allowing thousands of Palestinian laborers to enter the country for the first time since it was sealed last week.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Maybe it never made sense for North Korea to hold on to Pvt. Travis King. Just over two months after he sprinted into North Korea across the heavily fortified inter-Korean border, King was put on a plane back to America after the North released him into U.S. custody.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — As they watched the bride and groom start their slow dance, Faten Youssef imagined the future wedding of her son, seated next to her at a reception table. Within moments, however, disaster struck when an inferno erupted that would leave nearly 100 dead in the northern Iraqi wedding hall.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Pvt. Travis King, the American soldier who crossed into North Korea two months ago, is in U.S. custody, two U.S. officials said Wednesday. One official said King was transferred to American custody in China. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss King’s status ahead of the announcement.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran claimed on Wednesday that it successfully launched an imaging satellite into space, a move that could further ratchet up tensions with Western nations that fear its space technology could be used to develop nuclear weapons.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — A fire that raced through a hall hosting a Christian wedding in northern Iraq killed at least 100 people and injured 150 others, authorities said Wednesday, warning the death toll could rise higher. The fire happened in Iraq's Nineveh province in its Hamdaniya area, authorities said.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Researchers say they have verified 1,329 deaths from hunger in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region since a cease-fire ended a two-year conflict there in November. A study by local health authorities and Mekele University in the regional capital found that hunger is now the main cause of death in Tigray, accounting for more than 68% of deaths investigated by the researchers.

CAIRO (AP) — Outbreaks of cholera and dengue fever have been reported in eastern Sudan, where thousands of people are sheltering in crowded camps amid deadly fighting between the country's military and a rival paramilitary force, the U.N. health agency said on Tuesday. According to the World Health Organization, 162 people suspected of having cholera were admitted to hospitals in Qadarif province and other areas along Sudan's border with Ethiopia.

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — At least 20 people were killed and nearly 300 others were injured in an explosion at a crowded gas station in Nagorno-Karabakh as thousands of people rushed to flee into Armenia, the separatist region's authorities said Tuesday.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two powerful explosions ripped through dwellings in central Sweden overnight, injuring at least three people and damaging buildings, with bricks and window sections left spread outside. Late on Monday, an explosion occurred in Hasselby, a suburb of the capital, Stockholm. In the early hours of Tuesday, a blast in Linkoping, some 110 miles to the southwest, ripped the facade off a three-story building, leaving debris strewn across a parking area.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The missile strike that blasted the Crimean headquarters of Russia's navy last week killed 34 officers, including the fleet commander, Ukraine said Monday, though it provided no evidence to support its claim. Ukraine's Special Operation Forces said on the Telegram messaging app that its strike on the main building of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in the port city of Sevastopol had wounded 105 people. The claims could not independently be verified and are vastly different from what Russia has reported.

LYON, France (AP) — It wasn’t the deadliest attack in Europe linked to the Islamic State group, but it was among the most disturbing: One evening in 2016, an assailant killed two police officers in their family home, in front of their 3-year-old son. On Monday, a trial opens in a French counterterrorism court over the attack in the Paris suburb of Magnanville.

CAIRO (AP) — Libya’s chief prosecutor said Monday he ordered the detention of eight current and former officials pending his investigation into the collapse of two dams earlier this month, a disaster that sent a wall of water several meters high through the center of a coastal city and left thousands of people dead.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan authorities fined a golf ball manufacturer 2.4 million New Taiwan dollars ($75,000) on Monday and warned of criminal charges for storing 30 times the legal limit of hazardous material and other violations after a major factory fire killed nine people and left one other missing.

LUHANSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Flying above enemy lines, a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone sends a clear image back to soldiers hiding in a basement a few kilometers away: A Russian armored vehicle is idling along a key logistics route, looking like easy prey in the artillery-scarred green landscape. Then, in a flash, the image disappears, and the drone operator’s screen is replaced by a jumble of black and white pixels.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone and missile strike near Odesa damaged infrastructure, a grain silo and an abandoned hotel and injured one person in the Black Sea port city as attacks elsewhere in Ukraine killed five civilians and wounded 13 in the past day, Ukrainian officials said Monday.

NOUR SHAMS REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) — Israeli airstrikes struck militant sites in Gaza on Sunday for the third straight day, the Israeli military said, after Palestinian militants near the border fence launched incendiary balloons into Israel and threw an explosive at soldiers.