NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Niger’s junta told a top U.S. diplomat that they would kill deposed President Mohamed Bazoum if neighboring countries attempted any military intervention to restore his rule, two Western officials told The Associated Press. Representatives of the junta told U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland of the threat to Bazoum during her visit to the country this week, a Western military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) — Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday, including a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean. The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — The gang-driven violence afflicting Ecuador over the last two years reached an unprecedented level when a presidential candidate known for speaking up against drug cartels and corruption was shot and killed at a political rally in the South American country’s capital. The assassination of Fernando Villavicencio in Quito happened Wednesday, less than two weeks before a special presidential election.

BUSAN, South Korea (AP) — Tropical Storm Khanun was pouring intense rain on South Korea on Thursday, turning roads into chocolate-colored rivers and leaving at least one person dead as it advanced north toward major urban centers near the capital. More than a foot of rain fell in eastern and southern areas after the storm made landfall on the mainland in the morning.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian air defense systems on Thursday shot down two drones heading toward Moscow for a second straight day, officials said. The reported attack disrupted flights at two international airports as Ukraine appeared to step up its assault on Russian soil.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — An Ecuadorian presidential candidate known for speaking up against corruption was shot and killed Wednesday at a political rally in the capital amid a wave of startling violence in the South American country. President Guillermo Lasso confirmed the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio and suggested organized crime was behind his slaying.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — American nurse Alix Dorsainvil and her daughter were freed Wednesday, nearly two weeks after they were kidnapped in Haiti’s capital, according to aid organization El Roi Haiti. The Christian group founded by Dorsainvil’s husband asked that neither she nor her family be contacted: “There is still much to process and to heal from in this situation," the group said in a statement.

PARIS (AP) — A devastating fire that raged through a vacation home for adults with disabilities in eastern France on Wednesday left 11 people dead, an official said. Nathalie Kielwasser, deputy prosecutor for Colmar, said 11 people who were sleeping on the upper floor and in a mezzanine area of the private accommodation in the town of Wintzenheim were trapped by the fire, while five managed to escape.

BUSAN, South Korea (AP) — Rains and winds were growing in southern South Korea Wednesday as a tropical storm drew closer to the Korean Peninsula, where it was forecast to slam into major urban areas. Dozens of flights and ferry services were grounded and tens of thousands of fishing vessels evacuated to ports as government officials raised concerns about potentially huge damages from flooding, landslides and tidal waves triggered by the typhoon-strength winds.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — An explosion Wednesday at a factory north of Moscow that makes optical equipment for Russia's security forces injured 45 people, six of them severely, officials said. The blast occurred at a warehouse storing fireworks, though it was on the grounds of the Zagorsk optics manufacturing plant, according to Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital.

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Niger's deposed president is running out of food and experiencing other increasingly dire conditions two weeks after he was ousted in a military coup and put under house arrest, an advisor told The Associated Press on Wednesday. President Mohamed Bazoum, the West African nation's democratically elected leader, has been held at the presidential palace in Niamey with his wife and son since mutinous soldiers moved against him on July 26.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Days of heavy rain triggered landslides and flooding in mountainous southern Norway, where authorities said Wednesday they were considering blowing up part of a dam at risk of bursting to prevent downstream communities from getting deluged.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Gently holding a baby hummingbird between her hands, Catia Lattouf says, “Hello, cute little guy. Are you very hungry?” It’s the newest patient at her apartment in a toney section of Mexico City where she has nursed hundreds of the tiny birds back to health over the past decade.

NEW YORK (AP) — For years, the man known as Otoniel was seen as one of the world's most dangerous drug lords, the elusive boss of a cartel and paramilitary group with a blood-drenched grip on much of northern Colombia. On Tuesday, Dairo Antonio Úsuga faces sentencing to at least 20 years in a U.S. prison. He pleaded guilty in January to high-level drug trafficking charges, admitting he oversaw the smuggling of tons of U.S.-bound cocaine and acknowledging “there was a lot of violence with the guerillas and the criminal gangs."

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Nearly two weeks have passed since the coup in Niger, and the two men making competing claims to power have gone quiet in recent days. One is the ousted president, who said last week he’s being held hostage and has been publicly silent since then. The other is the military junta leader who asserts he acted out of concern for the country's security and has encouraged Nigeriens to defend it from any foreign intervention.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian officials on Tuesday accused the Kremlin’s forces of targeting rescue workers as the death toll from two Russian missile strikes that slammed into residential buildings in the downtown area of a Ukrainian city climbed to seven. The dead in the Monday evening strikes in the city of Pokrovsk were five civilians, one rescuer and one soldier, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

GUAJARA-MIRIM, BRAZIL (AP) — On the banks of the Komi Memem River, the activity never ceases: women go down the embankment from Laje Velho village carrying basins to wash clothing, while men embark in small canoes on hunting and fishing expeditions. At day’s end, it’s the children’s turn to dive into its tea-colored waters.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea will evacuate tens of thousands of scouts by bus from a coastal jamboree site as Tropical Storm Khanun looms, officials said Monday. More than 1,000 vehicles will be used starting Tuesday morning to move 36,000 scouts — mostly teenagers — from the World Scout Jamboree in the southwestern county of Buan, according to Kim Sung-ho, a vice minister at South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Niger’s mutinous soldiers closed the country’s airspace and accused foreign powers of preparing an attack, as the junta defied a deadline to reinstate the ousted president. State television announced the move Sunday night, hours before the deadline set by West African regional bloc ECOWAS, which has warned of using military force if the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum isn't returned to power.

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Ten cars of a passenger train derailed in southern Pakistan on Sunday, killing 30 people and injuring more than 90 others, officials said. Some of the derailed cars on the Hazara Express train overturned in the crash near the town of Nawabshah, senior railway officer Mahmoodur Rehman Lakho said. The train was going from Karachi to Rawalpindi when the 10 cars went off the tracks near the Sarhari railway station.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed a missile and drone barrage Sunday across parts of Ukraine that killed six people, Kyiv officials said, as Moscow followed through on its promise to retaliate for an attack on a Russian tanker. Separately, Moscow’s second-largest airport briefly suspended flights early Sunday following a foiled drone attack near the Russian capital.

Six months ago today, a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the Kahramanmaras and 10 other provinces in southern Turkey on the morning of February 6th. Over 50,000 people died, and hundreds of …

MELEKHOVO, Russia (AP) — A Russian court convicted imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny on charges of extremism and sentenced him to 19 years in prison Friday, his spokesperson and Russian news agencies reported. Navalny is already serving a nine-year term on a variety of charges that he says were politically motivated.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian sea drones attacked a major Russian port on the Black Sea on Friday, damaging a naval ship, according to a Ukrainian official, the latest in a series of strikes inside Russia as Kyiv vowed to bring the fight home to them. Moscow claimed it repelled the attack.

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Niger’s military junta says it is severing military agreements with France, its former colonial ruler, firing some of the previous government’s key ambassadors and warning citizens of the West African nation to watch for foreign armies and spies. A regional delegation's efforts at negotiation quickly deadlocked.