ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Firefighters struggled Thursday against strong winds and hot, dry conditions to tame multiple wildfires that for days have burned forests and homes in northeastern Greece and on the fringes of the country's capital. The wildfires have left 20 people dead over the last week. Eighteen of those, including two boys aged between 10 and 15, are believed to be migrants who crossed the nearby border with Turkey.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a brief armed rebellion against the Russian military earlier this year, was presumed dead Wednesday after a plane crash north of Moscow that killed all 10 people on board. Prigozhin was on the plane, according to Russia’s civil aviation agency, which cited the airline. The crash immediately raised suspicions since the fate of the founder of the Wagner private military company has been the subject of intense speculation ever since he mounted the mutiny.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has approved a $500 million arms sale to Taiwan as it ramps up military assistance to the island despite fervent objections from China. The State Department said Wednesday it had signed off on the sale of infrared search tracking systems along with related equipment for advanced F-16 fighter jets. The sale includes the infrared systems as well as test support and equipment, computer software and spare parts, it said.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Schoolchildren who were rescued from a broken cable car dangling high above a valley in Pakistan said Wednesday that they repeatedly feared death was imminent during the 16-hour ordeal even as their parents tried to console them over the phone. Six children and two adults were pulled from the cable car in a daring rescue Tuesday.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Bernardo Arévalo's experience in peacebuilding and diplomacy eminently qualify him to lead Guatemala as the conflict-riven country's next president, those who know him say. But first he will have to overcome forces that could keep him from taking power. Guatemalans voted for Arévalo in a landslide Sunday, but his opponent, former first lady Sandra Torres, has not conceded, or said anything for that matter. The election results have not been certified, a legal step necessary for Arévalo to become president.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India on Wednesday landed a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, an uncharted territory that scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water and precious elements, as the country cements its growing prowess in space and technology. A lander with a rover inside touched down on the lunar surface at 6:04 local time, sparking cheers and applause among the space scientists watching in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Tropical Storm Franklin unleashed heavy floods and landslides in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday after making landfall in the country's southern region, killing at least one person and leaving two others missing. The storm began to slowly spin away late Wednesday afternoon from the island of Hispaniola that the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti after dumping heavy rain for several hours.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine traded drone attacks early Wednesday, officials said, with Kyiv apparently targeting Moscow again and the Kremlin's forces launching another bombardment of Ukrainian grain storage depots in what have recently become signature tactics in the almost 18-month war.

An ambitious but failed attempt by Russia to return to the moon after nearly half a century has exposed the massive challenges faced by Moscow's once-proud space program. The destruction of the robotic Luna-25 probe, which crashed onto the surface of the moon over the weekend, reflects the endemic problems that have dogged the Russian space industry since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

BANGKOK (AP) — A divisive former prime minister of Thailand made a dramatic return home Tuesday to face an eight-year prison term, just as a party linked to him won a vote in Parliament to lead the government — the latest turn in the country's tumultuous politics.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Army commandos using helicopters and a makeshift chairlift rescued eight people from a broken cable car dangling hundreds of feet above a canyon Tuesday in a remote part of Pakistan, authorities said. The six children and two adults became trapped earlier in the day when one of the cables snapped while the passengers were crossing a river canyon in Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The children had been on their way to school.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian saboteurs coordinated by Kyiv’s military intelligence services carried out a pair of recent drone attacks that hit parked bomber aircraft at air bases deep inside Russia, Ukraine media claimed Tuesday. The attacks on Russian airfields on Saturday and Monday destroyed two Russian bombers and damaged two other aircraft, according to Ukrainska Pravda, as the war approaches its 18-month milestone.

TOKYO (AP) — The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will start releasing treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean as early as Thursday — a controversial step that the government says is essential for the decades of work needed to clean up the facility that had reactor meltdowns 12 years ago.

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani authorities on Monday handed out thousands of dollars to nearly 100 Christian families whose homes were destroyed or damaged by a Muslim mob angered over an alleged desecration of the Quran last week. The government of caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said each household was getting 2 million rupees ($6,800) in compensation on Monday.

LONDON (AP) — A former neonatal nurse who killed seven babies in her care and tried to kill six others at a hospital in northern England was sentenced Monday to life in prison with no chance of release by a judge who highlighted “the cruelty and calculation" of her actions. Lucy Letby, who refused to appear in court to face grieving parents who spoke of their anger and anguish, was given the most severe sentence possible under British law, which does not allow the death penalty.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Border guards in Saudi Arabia have fired machine guns and launched mortars at Ethiopians trying to cross into the kingdom from Yemen, likely killing hundreds of the unarmed migrants in recent years, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday. The rights group cited eyewitness reports of attacks by troops and images that showed dead bodies and burial sites on migrant routes, saying the death toll could even be “possibly thousands.”

Francis Ndege isn’t sure if his customers in Africa’s largest slum can afford to keep buying rice from him. Prices for rice grown in Kenya soared a while ago because of higher fertilizer prices and a yearslong drought in the Horn of Africa that has reduced production. Cheap rice imported from India had filled the gap, feeding many of the hundreds of thousands of residents in Nairobi's Kibera slum who survive on less than $2 a day.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Danish lawmakers on Monday for helping his country resist Russia’s invasion, a day after Denmark and the Netherlands announced they will provide Kyiv with F-16 warplanes that could be delivered around the end of the year. Zelenskyy told the lawmakers during a visit to Copenhagen that if Russia’s invasion is successful, other parts of Europe would be at risk from the Kremlin’s military aggression.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Outsider Bernardo Arévalo appeared to be the “virtual winner” of Sunday's election to be Guatemala’s next president after voters became angry at widespread corruption and leaders’ failure to tackle it.

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Early results in Sunday’s special presidential election in Ecuador pointed to a leftist backed by the country’s fugitive ex-president likely facing a runoff with the son of a banana tycoon.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An American-owned oil tanker long suspected of carrying sanctioned Iranian crude oil offloaded its cargo near Texas on Sunday, tracking data showed, even as …

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands (AP) — The Netherlands and Denmark announced Sunday they will give F-16 warplanes to Ukraine, a long-awaited announcement that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an important motivation for his country’s forces, embroiled in a difficult counteroffensive against Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in the Netherlands after a visit to Sweden. The Netherlands on Friday said the United States had given its approval to deliver Dutch F-16 fighter …

CHERNIHIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile attack in the center of a northern Ukrainian city on Saturday killed seven people and wounded over a hundred others, including children, Ukrainian …

JIFTLIK, West Bank (AP) — Across the dusty villages of the occupied West Bank, where Israeli water pipes don’t reach, date palms have been left to die. Greenhouses are empty and deserted. Palestinians say they can barely get enough water to bathe their children and wash their clothes — let alone sustain livestock and grow fruit trees.