LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, joined other members of Britain’s royal family Friday at a church service honoring Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne. The queen herself skipped the event at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London due to difficulties getting around that have limited the 96-year-old monarch’s public engagements in recent months.

POTASHNYA, Ukraine (AP) — In 100 days of war in Ukraine, countless lives have been forever shattered. Nila Zelinska and her husband Eduard are one of those families. They returned for the first time since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion to what used to be their home in a village outside Kyiv. It was in ruins, reduced to charred walls with no roof by shelling.

WASHIR, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have begun a campaign to eradicate poppy cultivation, aiming to wipe out the country’s massive production of opium and heroin. But the ban will likely strike a heavy blow to millions of impoverished farmers and day laborers who rely on proceeds from the crop to survive.

CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen says that Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to renew a nationwide truce for another two months.Hans Grundberg commended the two sides in a statement, calling the truce “a significant shift in the trajectory of the war.” The ceasefire between Yemen’s internationally recognized government and the Houthi rebels first came into effect on April 2. It has been the first nationwide truce in six years in Yemen’s conflict.

LONDON (AP) — Four days of celebrations honoring Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne are getting underway. Formal celebrations for the Platinum Jubilee begin on Thursday with Trooping the Color, a review of British military traditions. The queen is expected to join members of her family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at the end of the event as 70 planes fly overhead.

SHANGHAI (AP) — Traffic, pedestrians and joggers have reappeared on the streets of Shanghai as China’s largest city begins returning to normalcy amid the easing of a strict two-month COVID-19 lockdown that has drawn protests over its heavy-handed implementation. Shanghai’s Communist Party committee, the city’s most powerful political body, issued a letter Wednesday proclaiming the lockdown's success and thanking citizens for their “support and contributions.”

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Western nations promised more and more advanced arms to bolster Ukraine’s defense as its troops battled a grinding Russian offensive that was closing in on capturing a key city in the east. Germany said Wednesday it will supply Ukraine with modern anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems. The U.S. will unveil a new weapons package later in the day that will include high-tech, medium-range rocket systems.

BEIJING (AP) — Shanghai authorities say they will take some major steps Wednesday toward reopening China’s largest city after a two-month COVID-19 lockdown that has throttled the national economy and largely bottled up millions of people in their homes. Full bus and subway service will be restored as will basic rail connections with the rest of China, and schools will partially reopen.

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces in a “frenzied push” have seized half of the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk that is key to Moscow’s efforts to quickly complete the capture of the industrial Donbas region. The city's mayor also told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Sievierodonetsk "is essentially being destroyed ruthlessly block by block."

PUERTO ESCONDIDO, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Agatha has made history as the strongest hurricane ever recorded to come ashore in May during the eastern Pacific hurricane season. It made landfall Monday afternoon on a sparsely populated stretch of small beach towns and fishing villages in southern Mexico's Oaxaca state.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders have agreed to embargo most Russian oil imports into the bloc by year-end. The move is part of new sanctions on Russia worked out Monday at a summit focused on helping Ukraine with a long-delayed package of new financial support.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in May in the eastern Pacific has swept ashore on a stretch of tourist beaches and fishing towns in southern Mexico. Torrential rains and howling winds whipped palm trees and drove tourists and residents into shelters at the approach of Hurricane Agatha.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Protesters angry over a building collapse in southwestern Iran that killed at least 32 people have shouted down an emissary sent by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A crackdown saw riot police club demonstrators and fire tear gas.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops pushed farther into a key eastern Ukrainian city and fought street by street with Kyiv’s forces Monday. The mayor said the battle has left the city in ruins and driven tens of thousands from their homes.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Families across Africa are paying about 45% more for wheat flour as Russia's war in Ukraine blocks exports from the Black Sea. Some countries like Somalia get more than 90% of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Rescuers searching a mountainside in Nepal have recovered the bodies of 17 of the 22 people who were on board a plane that crashed a day earlier. The Tara Air turboprop Twin Otter lost contact with the airport tower on Sunday while flying on a scheduled 20-minute flight in an area of deep river gorges and mountaintops.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The first hurricane of the season formed off Mexico’s southern Pacific coast Sunday and rapidly gained power ahead of an expected strike along a stretch of tourist beaches and fishing towns as a major storm.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard says it has seized two Greek oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. The Guard’s statement on Friday night said the ships were seized over unspecified violations. It did not elaborate. The U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet had said it was investigating earlier reports that Iran seized two Greek tankers.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The biggest convoy of aid since Ethiopia’s government declared a unilateral "humanitarian cease-fire" in the country’s long-encircled Tigray region two months ago has departed for Tigray, a U.N. official told The Associated Press, as the conflict gripping Africa’s second most populous nation continued to ease.

DJIBO, Burkina Faso (AP) — African leaders have gathered for a summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to address growing humanitarian needs on the continent, which is also facing increased violent extremism, famine and a run of military coups. Leaders on Friday called for increased mobilization to resolve a humanitarian crisis that has left millions displaced and more than 280 million suffering from malnourishment.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — About two weeks after North Korea acknowledged its first domestic COVID-19 outbreak, it says about 3.3 million people have come down with fever but only 69 have died. If they were all virus patients, it would suggest the coronavirus fatality rate of 0.002%, something no other country has achieved.

BEIJING (AP) — Residents in China's largest city of Shanghai have become bolder in demanding the lifting or easing of coronavirus restrictions that have left millions locked up in their compounds for almost two months.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces are pounding the last Ukrainian strongholds in a separatist-controlled eastern province of Ukraine. Ukraine’s foreign minister warned that without a new injection of foreign weapons, Ukrainian forces would not be able to stop Russia from seizing Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Moscow is pressing the West to lift sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, seeking to shift the blame for a growing food crisis. That crisis is worsened by Kyiv’s inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products because of the conflict.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — No matter where Ukrainians live, the 3-month-old war never seems to be far away. Those in towns and villages near the front lines hide in basements from constant shelling, struggling to survive with no electricity or gas — and often no running water. But even in regions out of the range of the big guns, frequent air raid sirens wail in a constant reminder that a Russian missile can strike at any time, even for those walking their dogs, riding bicycles or taking their children to parks in cities like Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv.