SUZU, Japan (AP) — His face hidden under a humble straw hat, the man stood silent, watching several helmeted rescue workers carefully lift his wife's body from the rubble, wrapped in blue plastic on a stretcher. He wiped his weary face with a rag. His eyes were red.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The young daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seen as her father’s likely heir apparent, South Korea’s spy agency said Thursday, its first such assessment on the preteen who was unveiled to the outside world a little more than a year ago.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The mother and American uncle of a U.S. service member were safe outside of Gaza after being rescued from the fighting in a secret operation coordinated by the U.S., Israel, Egypt and others, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service vowed Wednesday that the agency would hunt down every Hamas member involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, no matter where they are. His pledge came a day after the deputy head of the Palestinian militant group was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut.

Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release of captives since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian authorities said that 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home in the first exchange in almost five months.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Europe experienced stark weather contrasts on Wednesday, with extreme cold and snowstorms disrupting transportation and closing schools in Scandinavia while strong winds and heavy rain in western Europe caused flooding and at least one death.

TOKYO (AP) — Investigators were focusing on communication between air traffic control and two aircraft at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Wednesday, a day after a large passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on the runway and burst into flames, killing five people.

LONDON (AP) — Thousands of doctors walked off the job in Britain on Wednesday, the start of a six-day strike over pay that was set to be the longest in the history of the state-funded National Health Service.

SUZU, Japan (AP) — Japanese rescue workers and canine units searched urgently through rubble Wednesday ahead of predicted bitter cold and heavy rain in what the prime minister called a race against time after powerful earthquakes killed at least 73 people in western Japan.

Russia said Wednesday it shot down 12 missiles fired at one of its southern regions bordering Ukraine, as Kyiv’s forces seek to embarrass the Kremlin and puncture President Vladimir Putin’s argument that life is going on as normal despite the 22-month war.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two bombs exploded minutes apart Wednesday at a commemoration for a prominent Iranian general slain in a U.S. drone strike in 2020, officials in Iran said, killing at least 103 people and wounding at least 211 as the Middle East remains on edge over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

BEIRUT (AP) — An explosion in Beirut on Tuesday killed Saleh Arouri, a top official with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and three others, officials with Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah said.

WAJIMA, Japan (AP) — A series of powerful earthquakes that hit western Japan have left at least 55 people dead and damaged thousands of buildings, vehicles and boats. Officials warned Tuesday that more quakes could lie ahead. Aftershocks continued to shake Ishikawa prefecture and nearby areas a day after a magnitude 7.6 temblor slammed the area.

TOKYO (AP) — A passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Tuesday and burst into flames, with five people on the smaller plane killed, officials said. All 379 people on Japan Airlines flight JAL-516 got out safely before the plane was engulfed in flames, Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's two largest cities came under attack Tuesday from Russian missiles that killed at least five people and injured almost 100, officials said, as the war approached its two-year mark and the Kremlin stepped up its winter bombardment of urban areas.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was attacked and injured by an unidentified man during a visit Tuesday to the southeastern city of Busan, emergency officials said. Busan’s emergency office said Lee was attacked as he visited the construction site of a new airport in the city.

WAJIMA, Japan (AP) — A series of powerful earthquakes hit western Japan, leaving at least 30 people dead and damaging buildings, vehicles and boats, with officials warning people in some areas on Tuesday to stay away from their homes because of a risk of more strong quakes.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Thousands of Israeli soldiers are being shifted out of the Gaza Strip, the military said Monday, in the first significant drawdown of troops since the war began as forces continued to bear down on the main city in the southern half of the enclave. The troop movement could signal that fighting is being scaled back in some areas of Gaza, particularly in the northern half where the military has said it is close to assuming operational control.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a record 90 Shahed-type drones over Ukraine during the early hours of the new year, the Ukrainian air force said Monday, while Russia also reported Ukrainian attacks. A 15-year-old boy was killed and seven people wounded after falling debris from one of 87 downed drones hit a residential building in the city of Odesa, the head of the region's military administration, Oleh Kiper, said. Debris also sparked a number of small fires, including at the city's port.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his military should “thoroughly annihilate” the United States and South Korea if provoked, state media reported Monday, after he vowed to boost national defense to cope with what he called an unprecedented U.S.-led confrontation. North Korea has increased its warlike rhetoric in recent months in response to an expansion of U.S.-South Korean military drills.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan dropped its highest-level tsunami alert, issued following a series of major earthquakes on Monday, but told residents of coastal areas not to return to their homes as deadly waves could still come. The quakes, the largest of which had a magnitude of 7.6, started a fire and collapsed buildings on the west coast of Japan’s main island, Honshu. It was unclear how many people might have been killed or hurt.

Revelers counted down to midnight on New Year's Eve across the globe Sunday as fireworks and festive lights offered a hopeful start to 2024. In Australia, more than 1 million people watched a pyrotechnic display centered around Sydney’s famous Opera House and harbor bridge — a number of spectators equivalent to one in five of the city’s residents.

Israeli strikes in central Gaza killed at least 35 people Sunday, hospital officials said, as fighting raged across the tiny enclave a day after Israel’s prime minister said the war will continue for “many more months,” resisting international calls for a cease-fire.

The barren desert plain among the mountains of eastern Afghanistan is filled with hundreds of thousands of people.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a fresh drone assault on Ukraine after promising that strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod that killed 24 people Saturday “would not go unpunished.”