KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile strike on Odesa in southern Ukraine on Friday killed at least 14 people and injured 46 others, local officials said. A first missile struck houses and when emergency crews arrived at the scene a second missile landed, authorities said. Among those killed were a paramedic and an emergency service worker.

WADI GAZA, Gaza Strip (AP) — A ship carrying 200 tons of aid approached the coast of Gaza on Friday in a mission to inaugurate a sea route from Cyprus to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the enclave five months into the war between Israel and Hamas.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed his longtime economic adviser to be the next prime minister in the face of U.S. pressure to reform the Palestinian Authority as part of Washington's postwar vision for Gaza. Mohammad Mustafa, a U.S.-educated economist and political independent, will head a technocratic government in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that could potentially administer Gaza ahead of eventual statehood.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Yemen's Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia's state media reported Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their ongoing attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unnamed official but provided no evidence for the claim.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A proposal to install new leadership in Haiti appeared to be crumbling Wednesday as some political parties rejected the plan to create a presidential council that would manage the transition. The panel would be responsible for selecting an interim prime minister and a council of ministers that would attempt to chart a new path for the Caribbean country that has been overrun by gangs. The violence has closed schools and businesses and disrupted daily life across Haiti.

Haiti’s future is being planned on two tracks — one involving traditional political power, the other focused on the power of gangs. After an intense session of international diplomacy in Jamaica, a group of Caribbean nations and the United States announced Tuesday that Haiti’s best hope for calming violence rests with a council of influential figures who would elect an interim leader and could steer the country toward fresh presidential elections.

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty or independence is threatened, issuing another blunt warning to the West just days ahead of an election in which he’s all but certain to secure another six-year term.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An aid ship loaded with some 200 tons of food set sail for Gaza on Tuesday in a pilot program for the opening of a sea corridor to the territory. The food was gathered by World Central Kitchen, the charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, and is being transported by the Spanish aid group Open Arms. The ship departed from the eastern Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus and is expected to arrive in Gaza in two to three days.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced early Tuesday that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created, bowing to international pressure to save the country overwhelmed by violent gangs that some experts say have unleashed a low-scale civil war.

Ukraine launched a wave of long-range drones against targets deep inside Russia on Tuesday, Russian officials said, hitting at least two oil facilities in the attack on eight regions of Russia in the latest display of Kyiv’s expanding drone capacity. Also Tuesday, soldiers who Kyiv officials say are Russian volunteers fighting for Ukraine reported to have crossed the border into Russia, as they have several times during the war. Russia said it had beaten back attempted incursions, but it wasn’t possible to verify either side’s claims and the reports of border fighting were murky.

LONDON (AP) — Kate, Princess of Wales, apologized Monday for “confusion” caused by her altering of a family photo released by the palace — an image of Kate and her children that was intended to calm concern and speculation about the British royal's health, but had the opposite effect.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday announced an additional $100 million to finance the deployment of a multinational force to Haiti following a meeting with Caribbean leaders in Jamaica to halt the country’s violent crisis. Blinken also announced another $33 million in humanitarian aid and the creation of a joint proposal agreed on by Caribbean leaders and “all of the Haitian stakeholders to expedite a political transition” and create a “presidential college.”

BEIJING (AP) — China’s national congress is wrapping up its annual session Monday with the usual show of near-unanimous support for plans designed to carry out ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's vision for the nation.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The U.S. military said Sunday that it had flown in forces to beef up security at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and allow nonessential personnel to leave. The aircraft flew to the embassy compound, the U.S. Southern Command said, meaning that the effort involved helicopters.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A U.S. Army vessel carrying equipment to build a temporary pier in Gaza was heading to the Mediterranean on Sunday, after U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to increase aid deliveries by sea to the besieged enclave where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are going hungry.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Officials saw the crescent moon Sunday night in Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest sites in Islam, marking the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan for many of the world's 1.8 billion Muslims.

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s political future is hanging in the balance after a general election Sunday, with two moderate mainstream parties closely contesting the race and set to wait weeks for a decision on the winner after an unprecedented surge in support for a populist party.

Torrential rains have triggered flash floods and a landslide on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 19 people and leaving seven others missing, officials said Sunday.

Former U.N. diplomat Giandomenico Picco, whose negotiating skills helped resolve some of the thorniest crises of the 1980s and 1990s, including the Iran-Iraq war and the kidnappings of Westerners by Hezbollah in Lebanon, has died.

KURIGA, Nigeria (AP) — Rashidat Hamza is in despair. All but one of her six children are among the nearly 300 students abducted from their school in Nigeria’s northwest, riddled with Islamic extremists and armed gangs.

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — The past two years have been the hardest and most tumultuous for European Union candidate Moldova in more than three decades as it faces threats from Russia in multiple spheres of public life, the country's foreign minister says.

Armed men broke into a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria early Saturday and seized 15 children as they slept, police told The Associated Press, about 48 hours after nearly 300 students were taken hostage in the conflict-hit region.

A lonely man jailed for criticizing the government on his ham radio. A poet assaulted by police after he recited a poem objecting to Russia’s war in Ukraine. A low-profile woman committed to a psychiatric facility for condemning the invasion on social media.

On the eve of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Jerusalem’s Old City bears few of its usual hallmarks of festivity.

Rotting fruit, withered vegetables, empty water jugs and spent gas canisters now stock the stores and stands that serve Haiti's poor — a consequence of the unrelenting gang attacks that have paralyzed the country for more than a week and left it with dwindling supplies of basic goods.