At this month’s Milan Cortina Paralympics, some athletes competed in shorts, T-shirts and even tank tops.

As American and Israeli strikes pound the Islamic Republic and Iran attacks Persian Gulf shipping and energy infrastructure with no sign of an end to the war, oil prices have soared back above $100 a barrel.

The Panama Canal's administrator says the war in the Middle East and higher fuel prices make the canal more appealing for shippers.

Asia shares are mostly lower, tracking Wall Street losses, while oil prices hover around $100 per barrel.

Cuba’s government says it will release 51 people from prisons in an unexpected move.

The Trump administration is denouncing CNN for airing a portion of the new Iranian supreme leader's first public statement since he got the job.

An American military refueling plane taking part in the operation against Iran has crashed in Iraq and rescue efforts are underway.

One of the hottest tickets in Rome these days is for a four-lecture series on the Antichrist being given by Silicon Valley tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

An attack on a major synagogue in Michigan has resurrected fears about violence at houses of worship.

Oil and gas prices have spiked with the war in Iran.

Pro-Iranian hackers are targeting sites in the Middle East and starting to stretch into the United States during the war.

A group of four migrants deported from the United States have arrived in the African nation of Eswatini, under a third-country program that rights groups protest.

A new permanent exhibition has opened in Pompeii that shows plaster casts of people killed in the Mount Vesuvius eruption, frozen in their final moments.

President Donald Trump says he doesn't think it'd be “appropriate” for the Iranian soccer team to attend this year's World Cup.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are dropping an investigation into whether U.S. sanctions against Venezuela qualified as crimes against humanity.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom says there's no imminent threat to the state from Iran.

British rock star Morrissey won’t perform a concert in Valencia after festivities in the Spanish city kept him from getting a proper night’s rest.

After about a month of hearing from addiction experts, therapists, platform engineers and executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, a jury has heard closing arguments before heading to the deliberation room to decide whether social media companies should be liable for harms caused to children using their platforms.

The Israeli military said it is dropping charges against five soldiers accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee in an encounter partially caught on camera.

Google Maps will depend more heavily on artificial intelligence to help people figure out where they want to go and the best way to get there as part of a major redesign unveiled Thursday.

Some commercial ships near or in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Persian Gulf have declared themselves as China-linked since the Iran war began, marine traffic data show, as their operators try to reduce risks of being targeted in attacks.

An official says at least 50 people have died and 125 others are missing after landslides hit three districts in southern Ethiopia following a week of heavy rains.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he is awaiting White House approval for a major drone production agreement proposed by Kyiv last year.

René Redzepi has stepped down from his post at the iconic Danish restaurant Noma following allegations of abuse and assault at the Copenhagen landmark.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is removing a rare slave ship timber from its “Slavery and Freedom” exhibit and returning it to South Africa.

A Moscow court has convicted 19 people of involvement in the 2024 shootings that killed 149 and injured more than 600 at a concert hall in Moscow.

Senegal’s parliament has approved a bill that toughens punishment for homosexuality in the largely conservative West African nation.

China is signaling it will stay focused on technology and economic growth, even as U.S. tensions with Iran rise.

South Korean lawmakers have passed a law to implement a pledge of $350 billion in U.S. investments Seoul made last year to avoid the Trump administration’s highest tariffs.

Iran’s secretive new leader has issued his first public statements.

Cuba is grappling with a fast-growing wave of synthetic drug use that is hitting young people hard.

U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran have damaged at least four cultural and historical sites across Iran.

Iran’s new supreme leader vowed to keep attacking the country's Gulf Arab neighbors and using its threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz as leverage.

Worries about the war with Iran sent oil prices back to $100 per barrel and stocks sinking worldwide.

China has adopted a sweeping ethnic unity law that critics say tightens assimilation and weakens minority rights.

The Trump administration is opening a new trade investigation into manufacturing in foreign countries.

Outdated intelligence has likely led to the United States carrying out a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in Iran that killed over 165 people, many of them children, in the opening hours of the conflict, according to a U.S. official and a second person briefed on findings of a preliminary U.

A U_N_-backed panel of independent experts focusing on racial discrimination says racist hate speech by U_S_ President Donald Trump and other American political leaders, along with a crackdown on immigration in the United States, have led to “grave human rights violations.”.

The State Department will permanently close the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, which has been America’s closest diplomatic mission to the Afghan border.

The widow of Haiti’s last elected president described being shot and wounded during the 2021 assassination of her husband Jovenel Moïse.

Ecuador's interior minister says the country is preparing a major crackdown on criminal groups set to begin this weekend with logistical support from the United States.

King penguins are adapting to climate change in a way that seems to help them breed successfully, which is unusual.

The Pentagon has not permitted photographers to cover Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's last two briefings on the war in Iran, and hasn't explained the change in longstanding policy.

South Africa says the new U.S. ambassador has been summoned to explain his criticism of the country’s policies.

Cambodia says it is close to shutting down all online scam centers operating in the Southeast Asian country.

The International Energy Agency has agreed to release the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history, in a bid to counter the effects on energy markets of the war in the Middle East.

Britain is ending the centuries-old tradition of hereditary aristocrats sitting in Parliament’s House of Lords.

South Africa has deployed troops to the streets of the country's biggest city to help police fight gang violence and illegal mining.

Ken Follett’s next historical epic is a story of forbidden romance set during a time of official propriety, the Victorian age.

When it comes to the war with Iran, President Donald Trump has cycled from calls for “unconditional surrender” to sounding amenable to an end state in which Iran trades one hard-line ayatollah for another.

A series of explosions attributed to drones has killed at least one person as the attack rocked downtown Goma in eastern Congo.

Documents released by the British government show officials believed there was a “reputational risk” in appointing Peter Mandelson as the U.S. ambassador because of his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Japan is marking the 15th anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster on its northeastern coast as the government pushes for atomic energy use.

A man who doused himself in a flammable substance and set his body on fire killing himself and five others aboard a bus in Switzerland had previously been reported missing by his family and didn't appear to have any terror-related motive.

Iran targeted the world’s busiest international airport Wednesday and attacked commercial ships as U.S. and Israeli strikes rocked Tehran, while the United Nations’ most powerful body demanded a halt to the Islamic Republic’s strikes on its Gulf neighbors that threaten global oil supplies.

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has become a test of who endures longer.

Far-right leader José Antonio Kast has been sworn in as Chile’s president in the nation’s most pronounced rightward shift since the return of democracy in 1990.

Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon are driving thousands of families to flee again, and some longtime Hezbollah supporters are now openly blaming the group.

The U.S. stock market remained calm, even as the price of oil got back to rising.

Two more members of the Iranian women’s soccer team were granted asylum in Australia before their teammates departed, but one later changed her mind and will return to Iran.

A 16-foot (5-meter) Baby Jesus statue visits Mexico City’s Tepito neighborhood as part of a traveling project that brings the religious image to communities across the capital and nearby cities in central Mexico.

A federal judge is weighing whether the government can force the University of Pennsylvania to hand over detailed employee information in an antisemitism investigation.

Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière built a fake mountain range inside the Louvre and sent models climbing through it.

Prosecutors say greed, arrogance and power were the driving forces behind four men charged in U.S. federal court for the 2021 assassination of Haiti's last elected president, Jovenel Moïse.

The State Department has authorized the use of up to $40 million in emergency funds to pay for evacuation charter flights for Americans to leave the Middle East due to disruptions in transportation caused by the Iran war.

Voting technology firm Smartmatic asked a federal judge to dismiss a criminal money laundering indictment saying the case is political retaliation tied to President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election.

Italy's Culture Ministry says the government has bought a rare portrait by baroque painter Caravaggio for 30 million euros, one of the largest investments ever for a single artwork.

Jihadi extremist groups including Boko Haram have targeted Nigerian military camps in intensifying attacks in the last week.

Americans are divided along party lines on U.S. military action against Iran, according to polls conducted since the war began, with most polls showing opposition is higher than support.

Wilt Chamberlain has some NBA records that might never get touched, like the 100-point game, 4,000 points in a season and a 50-point-per-game scoring average.

Eileen Gu and Alysa Liu have turned the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics into a debate about identity and loyalty for Chinese Americans.

Pope Leo XIV says a Chaldean Catholic bishop has resigned after he was arrested while trying to leave the U.S. following accusations that he embezzled $270,000 from his parish near San Diego.

Russia and Ukraine have made competing claims about who is gaining ground, as Russian strikes keep hitting Ukrainian cities and U.S.-backed talks in Turkey were postponed.

A new study in the journal Nature Cities shows that as temperatures rise aboveground, the number of subway riders reporting uncomfortable heat belowground increases.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan says it will not comply with a government order to shut down its base in Akobo, an opposition stronghold near the Ethiopian border where tens of thousands of refugees have fled.

The Federal Aviation Administration briefly grounded all JetBlue flights due to a request from the airline.

Traditional reindeer racing has drawn an international crowd to the town of Salla in northern Finland.

U.S. stocks held steadier as Wall Street waited for the next signal on when the war with Iran may end.

Human Rights Watch says drones operated by Haitian security forces and private contractors have killed at least 1,243 people and injured 738 others.

Tomoko Kobayashi reopened her inn in northeastern Fukushima to bring a sense of normal life back to her deserted hometown five years after the nuclear disaster.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Tuesday would be the most intense day yet of U.S. strikes inside Iran.

It seems that a country divided on many fronts is finding common ground at the gas pumps.

China has reported its exports rose nearly 22% in the first two months of the year, while trade with the United States contracted.

The U.S. says it took out more than a dozen mine-laying Iranian vessels, and the Islamic Republic vowed to block the region’s oil exports, saying it would not allow “even a single liter” to be shipped to its enemies.

North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and China are watching warily as war spreads across the Middle East.

The parents of a girl critically wounded in a school shooting in Canada is suing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, alleging it knew the shooter was planning a mass attack.

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has criticized the United States and South Korea for proceeding with their annual joint military exercises at a perilous moment for global security.

Venezuela’s lawmakers debate a new mining bill that aims to attract foreign investment and rebuild trust after past expropriations.

President Donald Trump says JD Vance started out less enthusiastic about striking Iran, but he says they still agree.

The war with Iran is doing collateral damage to the world economy.

The State Department has designated Afghanistan as a sponsor of wrongful detention as the U_S_ ambassador to the United Nations separately called out the country for engaging in what he said was “hostage diplomacy.”.

Through its social media feed, the White House has sent out a series of pumped-up videos that mix real Iran war explosions with movie action heroes, video game footage and sports heroes.

As the price of crude oil swings sharply, consumers are feeling the effects of the Iran war and its damage to worldwide energy production.

A widening war in Iran has halted oil tankers, made targets of refineries and spooked investors worried about the cascading impact of spiking energy prices.

The State Department has drawn down personnel at more U.S. diplomatic missions in and around the Middle East as it comes under increasing but historically familiar criticism for not doing enough to prepare.

President Gustavo Petro’s political party has emerged victorious in Colombia’s congressional election, but will have to build coalitions with other parties to advance its agenda.

Vice President JD Vance joined the grieving family of a Kentucky man who was the seventh U.S. service member to die in combat during the Iran war as his remains were brought back to the U.S. The dignified transfer took place at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware Monday evening.

The Trump administration is criticizing lower court judges who have slowed its efforts to strip legal protections from a broad swath of migrants living in the U.S. It's asking the Supreme Court to clear the way for moves that could expose thousands more people to deportation.

An intelligence assessment completed shortly before the U.S. and Israel launched a war in Iran determined that military intervention is unlikely to result in regime change.

Brazilian thriller “The Secret Agent” has grabbed Oscars attention with nominations for best international film and best picture.