BEIJING (AP) — Chinese embassies suspended issuing new visas for South Koreans and Japanese on Tuesday in apparent retaliation for COVID-19 testing requirements recently imposed by those countries on travelers from China. The embassies in Tokyo and Seoul announced the suspensions in brief online notices. The Seoul notice, posted on the embassy's WeChat social media account, said the ban would continue until South Korea lifts its “discriminatory entry measures” against China. The announcement covered tourist, business and some other visas.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials said, bringing new levels of death and devastation in the grinding, monthslong battle for control of eastern Ukraine that is part of Moscow's wider war. “Everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no life left,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday of the scene around Bakhmut and the nearby Donetsk province city of Soledar.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Officials at a vocational school in an eastern Ukraine city dismissed claims by Russia that hundreds of Ukrainian troops were killed in a missile strike there, saying Monday that a rocket merely blew out windows and damaged classrooms. Russia specifically named the vocational school in Kramatorsk as the target of an attack in the almost 11-month war. The Russian Defense Ministry said its missiles hit two temporary bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian troops in the city, killing 600 of them, late Saturday.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The Chinese military held large-scale joint combat strike drills starting Sunday, sending warplanes and navy vessels toward Taiwan, both the Chinese and Taiwanese defense ministries said. The exercises coincided with the visit of a group of German lawmakers who landed in Taiwan on Monday morning. Leading the delegation is Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who leads the German Parliament’s Defense Committee. The German lawmakers will meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, as well as Taiwan’s National Security Council head and the Mainland Affairs Council, which handles issues related to China.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his election defeat stormed Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace in the capital on Sunday, a week after the inauguration of his leftist rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Thousands of demonstrators bypassed security barricades, climbed on roofs, smashed windows and invaded all three buildings, which were believed to be largely vacant and sit on Brasilia's vast Three Powers Square.

BERLIN (AP) — Two Iranian men have been detained in Germany following a tip from U.S. security officials that at least one of them could be planning an attack with deadly chemicals, officials said Sunday. Police and prosecutors said the brothers, aged 32 and 25, were detained overnight in the town of Castrop-Rauxel, northwest of Dortmund. The authorities said in a joint statement the men are suspected to have planned a serious attack motivated by Islamic extremism, for which they had allegedly sought to obtain the potent toxins cyanide and ricin.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — At least 40 people were killed and dozens injured in a bus crash in central Senegal, the country's president said Sunday. President Macky Sall tweeted that the collision happened in Gnivy village, in the Kaffrine region, at about 3:30 a.m. “I am deeply saddened by the tragic road accident today in Gniby causing 40 deaths and many serious injuries. I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” said Sall.

BEIJING (AP) — A traffic accident in southern China killed 19 people and injured 20 others early Sunday as the annual Lunar New Year holiday travel rush got underway, authorities said. The accident occurred outside the city of Nanchang in Jiangxi province, according to the local traffic management brigade. The cause was under investigation, the brigade said. Heavy fog was also reported at the time of the accident, just after midnight, according to reports.

BEIJING (AP) — After years of separation from his wife in mainland China, Hong Kong resident Cheung Seng-bun made sure to be among the first in line following the reopening Sunday of border crossing points. The ability of residents of the semi-autonomous southern Chinese city to cross over is one of the most visible signs of China’s easing of border restrictions imposed almost three years ago, with travelers arriving from abroad no longer required to undergo expensive and time-consuming quarantines.

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Thousands of young men are plunging into rivers and lakes across Bulgaria to retrieve crucifixes, in an old ritual marking the feast of Epiphany. By tradition, a crucifix is cast into the waters of a lake or river, and it is believed that the person who retrieves it will be freed from evil spirits and will be healthy throughout the year. After the cross is fished out, the priest sprinkles believers with water using a bunch of basil.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An uneasy calm in Kyiv on Friday was broken by air raid sirens that also blared out across the rest of Ukraine despite a Russian cease-fire declaration for the Orthodox Church Christmas that Ukrainian officials scorned. No explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital, but any fighting elsewhere in the country could take hours to become public.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The sun wasn’t yet up in Culiacan when David Téllez and his family began making their way to the city’s airport for a return flight to Mexico City after their vacation. But not long after they set out they encountered the first crude roadblock, an abandoned vehicle obstructing their way. Téllez turned to social media to find out what was going on and saw that Sinaloa’s state capital, a stronghold of the cartel by the same name, was filled with roadblocks and gunfire.

BEIJING (AP) — Patients, mostly older people, laid on stretchers in hallways or took oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as a COVID-19 outbreak stretched public health facilities' resources in China’s capital Beijing, even after its reported peak. The Chuiyangliu hospital in the city’s east was packed Thursday with newly arrived patients. Beds ran out by midmorning, even as ambulances continued to bring more people in. Hard-pressed nurses and doctors rushed to take information and triage the most urgent cases.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the Russian Orthodox Church called Thursday for a 36-hour Christmas cease-fire in Ukraine at the end of this week, but his appeal looked unlikely to bring any breakthrough in halting the war that began nearly 11 months ago with Moscow's invasion. Patriarch Kirill suggested a truce from noon Friday through midnight Saturday, local time. The Russian Orthodox Church, which uses the ancient Julian calendar, celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7 — later than the Gregorian calendar — although some Christians in Ukraine also mark the holiday on that date.

HAVANA (AP) — The United States Embassy in Cuba is reopening visa and consular services Wednesday, the first time it has done so since a spate of unexplained health incidents among diplomatic staff in 2017 slashed the American presence in Havana. The Embassy confirmed this week it will begin processing immigrant visas, with a priority placed on permits to reunite Cubans with family in the U.S., and others like the diversity visa lottery.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Unauthorized use of cell phones by Russian soldiers led to a deadly Ukrainian rocket attack on the facility where they were stationed, according to the Russian military, as it raised the death toll from the weekend attack to 89. Gen. Lt. Sergei Sevryukov said in a statement late Tuesday that phone signals allowed Kyiv's forces to “determine the coordinates of the location of military personnel” and launch a strike. The Russian military is taking unspecified measures to “prevent similar tragic incidents in the future,” Sevryukov said, and promised to punish officials responsible for the blunder.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea confirmed Tuesday that Seoul and Washington are discussing its involvement in U.S. nuclear weapons management in the face of intensifying North Korean nuclear threats, after President Joe Biden denied that the allies were discussing joint nuclear exercises. The purported difference came after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un entered the new year with a vow to mass-produce battlefield nuclear weapons targeting South Korea and introduce a more powerful intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the mainland U.S.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency crews on Tuesday sifted through the rubble of a building struck by Ukrainian rockets, killing at least 63 Russian soldiers in the latest blow to the Kremlin’s war strategy as Ukraine says Moscow’s tactics could be shifting.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Volunteer militia groups supporting Burkina Faso's army have killed dozens of civilians of the ethnic Fulani group, including children, in the troubled country's west, a local rights group charged on Tuesday.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Thousands of people in the Philippines remained in emergency shelters in the wake of devastating Christmas flooding, as the death toll climbed to 51 with 19 missing, authorities said Monday. Images showed residents in southern Misamis Occidental province sweeping away thick mud from the floors of their homes. In the seaside village of Cabol-anonan, coconut trees were uprooted and huts made of light material were nearly flattened.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Two helicopters collided in an Australian tourist hotspot Monday afternoon, killing four passengers and critically injuring three others in a crash that drew emergency aid from beachgoers enjoying the water during the southern summer. One helicopter appeared to have been taking off and the other landing when they collided near the Sea World theme park in Main Beach, a northern beach on the Gold Coast, Gary Worrell, Queensland state police acting inspector, said at a news conference.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia deployed multiple exploding drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine, officials said Monday, as the Kremlin signaled no letup in its strategy of using bombardments to target civilian infrastructure and wear down Ukrainian resistance to its invasion. The barrage was the latest in a series of relentless year-end attacks, including one that killed three civilians on New Year's Eve.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, including a man claimed by an armed group as a member, during a confrontation that erupted early Monday when troops entered a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said. The two men were killed in the village of Kafr Dan near the northern city of Jenin. The Israeli military said it entered Kafr Dan late Sunday to demolish the houses of two Palestinian gunmen who killed an Israeli soldier during a firefight in September. The military said troops came under heavy fire and fired back at the shooters.

CAIRO (AP) — An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago, Egyptian officials said Monday. The repatriation is part of Egyptian government efforts to stop the trafficking of its stolen antiquities. In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artifacts returned to Egypt from across the world.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Ten guards and four inmates were killed early Sunday when gunmen in armored vehicles attacked a state prison in Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas, according to state officials. The Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that around 7 a.m. various armored vehicles arrived at the prison and gunmen opened fire on guards. In addition to those killed, 13 people were wounded and at least 24 inmates escaped.