Tropical Storm Bonnie has swept into Nicaragua bringing the threat of flooding from heavy rain, while heading for a predicted fast crossing on the way to the Pacific and a possible strengthening into …

Fresh rain and falling boulders are hampering rescuers who have pulled out 26 bodies from the debris of a mudslide that wiped out a railroad construction site in India’s northeast. Officials say …

The latest in a litany of horrors in Ukraine came this week as Russian firepower rained down on civilians in a busy shopping mall far from the front lines of a war in its fifth month. The timing of …

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Tropical Storm Bonnie has formed over the Caribbean as it heads for a quick march across Central America and potential development into a hurricane after reemerging in the Pacific. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Bonnie is on a track for the general Nicaragua-Costa Rica border region.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea is suggesting its COVID-19 outbreak began in people who had contact with balloons flown from South Korea. The highly questionable claim appeared to be an attempt to hold its rival responsible amid increasing tensions. Activists for years have flown balloons across the border to distribute propaganda leaflets, and North Korea has expressed fury at the activists and at South Korea's leadership for not stopping them.

HONG KONG (AP) — China’s leader Xi Jinping has marked the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return with a speech that emphasized Beijing’s control over the former British colony under its vision of “one country, two systems." He countered criticism that the political and civic freedoms promised for the next quarter-century have been largely erased under Chinese rule.

POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities say Russian missile attacks on residential buildings in a coastal town near the port city of Odesa have killed at least 19 people, including two children. Video of the pre-dawn Friday attack showed the charred remains of buildings in the small town of Serhiivka, located about 30 miles southwest of Odesa.

BEIJING (AP) — Shanghai is reopening its Disney Resort theme park and getting ready to allow in-person dining. Domestically transmitted cases of COVID-19 in China's largest city have settled at zero following a more than two-month lockdown. Chinese officials hail their hard-line “zero-COVID" policy for stemming the growth of cases and deaths from the virus.

Los Angeles and Mumbai, India, are the world’s only megacities of 10 million-plus people where large felines breed, hunt and maintain territory within urban boundaries. Long-term studies in both cities have examined how the big cats prowl through their urban jungles and how people can best live alongside them.

YAHIDNE, Ukraine (AP) — As the war grinds on in Ukraine, communities that were badly damaged early in the invasion are starting to rebuild. Villages such as Yahidne in the northern Chernihiv region are gradually returning to life a few months after Russian troops retreated. Now people are repairing homes, and the sound of construction tools fills the air.

HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping has arrived in Hong Kong ahead of the 25th anniversary of the British handover and after a two-year transformation bringing the city more tightly under Communist Party control. It is Xi’s first trip outside of mainland China in nearly 2 ½ years.

MADRID (AP) — NATO is facing rebukes from Moscow and Beijing after it declared Russia a “direct threat” and said China posed “serious challenges” to global stability. The Western military alliance is wrapping up a summit in Madrid, where it invited Sweden and Finland to join the 30-member organization. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would respond in kind if the Nordic nations allowed NATO troops and military infrastructure onto their territory.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s parliament has voted to dissolve itself, sending the country to the polls for the fifth time in less than four years. The Knesset voted on Thursday in favor of disbanding, just over a year after the government was formed. Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister and architect of the outgoing coalition government, will become the country’s caretaker prime minister at midnight.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has praised his father’s legacy and glossed over its violent past as he was sworn in as Philippine president. His rise to power comes 36 years after an army-backed “People Power” revolt booted his namesake dictator father from office. In his inaugural speech, Marcos Jr. said his father accomplished many things and built better roads that had not been done since the country’s independence.

KREMENCHUK, Ukraine (AP) — Search teams and relatives are racing to find people missing after a Russian airstrike on a shopping mall killed at least 18 people in the center of Ukraine. Several families stood by what was left of the Amstor shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk on Wednesday as crews looked through the rubble.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s economy, which a few years ago enjoyed strong growth that provided jobs and financial security, is now in a state of collapse, dependent on aid from India and other countries as its leaders desperately try to negotiate a bailout with the International Monetary Fund.

MADRID (AP) — NATO has declared Russia the “most significant and direct threat” to its members’ peace and security. That came as the military alliance met Wednesday to confront what NATO’s chief called the biggest security crisis since World War II. It also promised to “step up political and practical support” to Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion.

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt will receive $500 million loan from the World Bank to help the Arab world's most populous country finance its purchases of wheat. The World Bank says the funds will help Egypt’s government finance procurement of imported wheat. Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer and the country’s supply is subject to price changes on the international market.

LONDON (AP) — Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has told lawmakers in Edinburgh that she plans to hold a fresh referendum on Scottish independence on Oct. 19, 2023. That's despite U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying it wasn’t the right time for such a vote. Scottish voters rejected independence in the 2014 referendum.

MADRID (AP) — Turkey has agreed to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, a breakthrough in an impasse clouding a leaders’ summit in Madrid amid Europe’s worst security crisis in decades triggered by the war in Ukraine. After urgent top-level talks, alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said “we now have an agreement that paves the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO.”

KREMENCHUK, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian officials say scores of civilians are feared killed or injured after a Russian missile strike hit a crowded shopping mall in the central city of Kremenchuk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the number of victims “unimaginable” and labeled it a “terrorist attack.”

ELMAU, Germany (AP) — Leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies have struck a united stance to support Ukraine for “as long as necessary” as Russia’s invasion grinds on, and said Tuesday they would explore far-reaching steps to cap Kremlin income from oil sales that are financing the war.

BERLIN (AP) — A 101-year-old man has been convicted in Germany of more than 3,500 counts of accessory to murder for serving at the Nazis' Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II. The Neuruppin Regional Court sentenced him to five years in prison on Tuesday. The man, who was identified by local media as Josef S., had denied being an SS guard at the camp.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Authorities say a fire at a prison in southwestern Colombia has killed at least 51 people and injured a dozen more. National prisons director Tito Castellanos tells Radio Caracol that it’s not clear if all of the dead were prisoners. He says the fire broke out during what appeared to be an attempted riot early Tuesday at the medium security prison in the city of Tulua.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African authorities are seeking answers after 21 underage teenagers partying after the end of exams died in a mysterious weekend incident at a nightclub. The bodies of many of the victims were discovered by police lying on tables, slumped over chairs and couches, and sprawled on the dance floor of the club in the early hours of Sunday morning.