Japanese automakers Nissan Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. have confirmed that they are discussing closer collaboration but denied reports they have decided on a merger.

A Japanese space startup said its second attempt to launch a rocket carrying satellites into orbit had been aborted minutes after liftoff Wednesday, nine months after the company’s first launch attempt ended in an explosion.

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake that struck off Vanuatu killed at least 14 people, injured hundreds more and caused widespread damage across the South Pacific island nation, officials said Wednesday.

United Methodist News Service reports that a religious schism has turned deadly in Nigeria, with a church member fatally shot and two young children killed as homes were set ablaze.

Dozens of children with disability gathered on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach on Tuesday to receive presents — and joy — from the white-bearded man, a joint effort by the city’s firefighters and nonprofit associations.

More world leaders are confirming they have been invited to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

A senior U.S. military official says a couple hundred North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces against Ukraine have been killed or wounded in battle in the Kursk border region.

A former leader of the Church of England has resigned as a priest following allegations that he failed to properly handle the case of a priest accused of sexual misconduct.

Pakistan's police say a roadside bomb has exploded near a vehicle carrying police officers assigned to protect polio workers in northwest Pakistan.

An Iranian official says authorities have paused the process of implementing a new, stricter law on women’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

The U.S. is still separating some migrant children from parents while holding them after they cross the border despite broad improvements at detention centers in Texas.

A prominent Russian opposition politician freed as part of the largest East-West civilian prisoner swap since the Cold War says that fears of his mother’s poisoning in Berlin have proven false.

Pop star and fashion designer Pharrell Williams has been named UNESCO’s goodwill ambassador for artistic education and entrepreneurship on Tuesday in Paris.

Rafael Nadal says in an essay posted online that he thought about taking a mental health break from tennis a few years ago.

A lawsuit by a group of Palestinians in Gaza and American relatives accuses the State Department of giving Israel a pass when it comes to a U.S. law meant to limit military aid over human rights abuses.

Ukraine’s Security Service has claimed responsibility for killing Lt. General Igor Kirillov, head of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, in a bombing in Moscow.

Indonesia's mining industry is rapidly expanding on demand for the minerals needed to help power the global energy transition, like nickel, cobalt and bauxite.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli forces will stay in a buffer zone on the Syrian border, and specifically on the summit of Mount Hermon, until another arrangement is found "that ensures Israel’s security.”.

Indonesian authorities have returned a Filipina woman to the Philippines who had been on death row and nearly executed by firing squad in Indonesia in 2015, after a longstanding request from her home country.

Panto is as much a part of Christmas in Britain as turkey, tinsel and mince pies.

“Bluey” is heading to the big screen.

Organizers of a breakaway European Super League have revealed new plans to create a rival to the Champions League.

The father and stepmother of a severely abused 10-year-old girl found dead in her home in England have been sentenced to life in prison for murder.

The world’s most famous fictional Top Gun is now a decorated naval hero.

European Union regulators are investigating whether TikTok breached the bloc’s digital rulebook by failing to deal with risks to Romania’s presidential election.

An overnight curfew goes into force Tuesday evening as Mayotte struggles to recover from Cyclone Chido, the strongest storm to hit the French Indian Ocean archipelago in 90 years.

Japanese tycoon Masayoshi Son has joined President-elect Donald Trump in announcing plans by technology and telecoms giant SoftBank Group to invest $100 billion in projects in the United States.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli troops will occupy a buffer zone inside Syria for the foreseeable future.

A senior Russian general was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow.

South Korea’s acting leader has vowed to convey to the world that things are back to normal following parliament’s impeachment of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Advertisements pasted along the sidewalk in Kyiv ask for donations to help fill financial gaps across Ukraine's military.

U.S. stock indexes trimmed some of their stellar gains for the year.

An Australian state government has proposed new restrictions on protesters in response to rising antisemitism, including a ban on demonstrations outside places of worship.

At least 14 people are dead and hundreds more are injured after a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck off Vanuatu, causing widespread damage across the South Pacific island nation.

Notorious drug lord Osiel Cárdenas has been returned to Mexico after serving a U.S. sentence and was quickly re-arrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges.

President-elect Donald Trump says he might reverse President Joe Biden’s decision to permit Ukrainian forces to use American long-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.

Two men, including a dual Iranian American citizen, have been arrested on charges that they exported sensitive technology to Iran that was used in a drone attack in Jordan that killed three American troops early this year and injured dozens of other servicemembers.

Prosecutors in Bolivia are seeking the arrest of former President Evo Morales in connection to a sexual abuse investigation involving his alleged fathering of a child with a 15-year-old girl.

After months of deadlock, Israel and Hamas appear to be moving closer toward a ceasefire to end their 14-month war.

Interpol says a crackdown on suspected illegal deforestation in South America has netted 26 arrests.

TikTok is asking the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to block the federal law that would ban the popular platform in the United States unless its China-based parent company agrees to sell it.

Palestinian security forces have launched a rare crackdown against local militant groups in the northern West Bank.

The top U.N. official in Libya has announced a new initiative to overcome a three-year deadlock and move the divided oil-rich North Africa nation toward a national election.

An alleged Chinese spy who cultivated close ties with Prince Andrew said Monday he has done “nothing wrong or unlawful” as Britain’s government faces questions about what it is doing to thwart security threats from China.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is challenging President-elect Donald Trump to reject the isolationist voices within their party and build his foreign policy around military strength.

Russia’s scorched-earth intervention on behalf of former Syrian President Bashar Assad once turned the tide of the Syrian civil war.

A man detained in Venezuela during the civil unrest that followed the country’s disputed July presidential election has died while in custody.

A lawyer for convicted British killer nurse Lucy Letby says he plans to ask an appeals court to re-examine her convictions after the prosecution’s leading expert changed his opinion on how three infants died.

How do you solve a problem like Prince Andrew.

Ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad says he had no plans to leave the country after the fall of Damascus a week ago but the Russian military evacuated him after their base in western Syria came under attack.

In the past few months United Nations-sponsored negotiations to tackle climate change, plastic pollution, loss of global species and a growing number of deserts have either outright failed or come out with limited outcomes that didn’t address the scale of the problems.

The European Union has imposed fresh sanctions on dozens of officials linked to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon say some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region.

European Union nations have set out conditions for lifting sanctions on Syria.

Health officials in the Gaza Strip say more than 45,000 Palestinians have now been killed in the war between Israel and Hamas militants.

France is rushing rescue workers and supplies to its Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte after the island group off Africa was battered by its worst cyclone in nearly a century.

Ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad says he had no plans to leave the country after the fall of Damascus a week ago but the Russian military evacuated him after their base in western Syria came under attack.

A U.S. Navy warship has arrived in Cambodia, the first such visit in eight years to a nation that is China’s close ally in Southeast Asia.

Officials say Pakistan has begun its last nationwide vaccination campaign for the year to protect 45 million children from polio after a surge in new cases hampered efforts to stop the disease.

U.S. stock indexes drifted through mixed trading ahead of a meeting by the Federal Reserve later this week that could set Wall Street’s direction into next year.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lost a confidence vote in the German parliament, putting the European Union’s most populous member and biggest economy on course to hold an early election in February.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office in January with a promise of carrying out mass deportations, leaving Honduras and other Central American countries bracing for a potential influx of vulnerable migrants — a situation they are ill-prepared to handle.

Zakir Hussain, one of India’s most accomplished classical musicians who defied genres and introduced tabla to a global audience, has died.

A Filipina who was on death row in Indonesia and was nearly executed by firing squad in 2015 will return home this week under an arrangement between the countries.

South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol is dodging requests by investigative agencies to appear for questioning over his short-lived martial law decree.

Israel says it will close its embassy in Ireland as relations deteriorate over the war in Gaza, where Palestinian medical officials say new Israeli airstrikes have killed over 46 people including children.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been discharged from the hospital after undergoing surgery to stop a brain bleed.

West Africa’s regional bloc ECOWAS has approved an exit timeline for three coup-hit nations.

At least one person has died after two Russian oil tankers took heavy storm damage in the Kerch Strait, spilling oil and sparking an emergency rescue operation, Russian officials told state news outlets.

In churches across long-stifled Syria, Christians have marked the first Sunday services since Bashar Assad’s ouster in an air of transformation.

The death toll in the French territory of Mayotte from Cyclone Chido is “several hundred” and may run into the thousands.

Pope Francis on the first papal visit ever to the French island of Corsica on Sunday called for a dynamic form of laicism, promoting the kind of popular piety that distinguishes the Mediterranean island from secular France as a bridge between religious and civic society.

Bolivia is the only country in the world that holds elections for top judicial posts.

Finnish advocacy group Oikeutta Elaimille, or Justice for Animals, and Humane Society International have released images taken from an “undercover investigation” at three fur farms in western Finland in late October to highlight the behind-the-scenes realities of the trade.

South Korea’s opposition leader has offered to work with the government to ease the political tumult, a day after the opposition-controlled parliament voted to impeach conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol over a short-lived attempt to impose martial law.

President-elect Donald Trump has picked longtime foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell to serve as an envoy for special missions.

Isak Andic, the founder of Spanish fashion brand Mango, has died after suffering an accident, the company said in a statement.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had hip replacement surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Germany after falling while at an event in Luxembourg with other members of Congress.

Hundreds of people have gathered in the southern French town of Avignon ahead of the verdict in a mass-rape trial in which dozens of men stand accused.

Filipino death row inmate Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso knelt to pray when officers came to take her to an execution site in May 2015, just feet from her isolation cell on an Indonesian prison island, where a 13-member firing squad was waiting.

The Dutch city of Deventer has been transformed into a 19th-century English city where 950 people in costumes brought characters from Charles Dickens’ books to life.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says American officials have been in direct contact with the Syrian rebel group that led the overthrow of Bashar Assad’s government but is designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and others.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped up perhaps his last Middle East mission as America’s top diplomat.

Ukrainian drone strikes on southern Russia have killed a 9-year-old boy and set fire to a major oil terminal.

Top diplomats from the United States, the Arab League and Turkey have met in Jordan to discuss Syria’s transition after the fall of Bashar Assad's government last weekend.

The reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral was a solemn celebration of cultural and spiritual renewal.

Despite two weeks of U.N.-sponsored talks in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh, the participating 197 nations failed to agree on a plan to deal with global droughts, made longer and more severe by a warming climate.

Former soccer player Mikheil Kavelashvili has become president of Georgia as the ruling party tightens its grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for Russia.

Like millions of Syrians around the world, the thousands who have settled in the Detroit area are excited about the prospect of visiting now that rebels have overthrown the government of ousted President Bashar Assad.

A severely hobbled Hezbollah was in no position to help defend former Syrian President Bashar Assad, a longtime ally, from the lightning-fast insurgency that toppled him.

South Korea’s parliament has impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his martial law decree, a move that ended days of political paralysis but set up an intense debate over Yoon’s fate.

“My Driver and I” was supposed to be made in 2016, but was scuttled amid Saudi Arabia’s decades-long cinema ban.

A Dallas man who tried to fly overseas to join the Russian military and fight against Ukraine has been sentenced on to six months in prison for violating the terms of his probation for storming the U.S. Capitol four years ago.

The U.S. military has brought an American who was imprisoned in Syria for seven months out of the country.

Two weeks of historic and closely-watched hearings on the threat of climate change have wrapped up at the UN's top court.

Sophia, a world-renowned robot, has been the center of attention at an Artificial Intelligence and Innovation fair in Zimbabwe this week.

After insurgents toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad this month, many senior officials and members of his dreaded intelligence and security services appear to have melted away.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been hospitalized after she “sustained an injury” during an official engagement in Luxembourg, according to a spokesman.

Lindsey Vonn will return to World Cup ski racing next weekend for a pair of super-G events in St. Moritz, Switzerland, as she continues her comeback at age 40.

Saudi Arabia says that to host the 2034 World Cup in men’s soccer, it will build or renovate 15 stadiums, create a futuristic city and expand airports and public transport in a massive buildout to accommodate millions of athletes, coaches and spectators.