ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — At least 76 hostages, including children, have been freed after Nigeria’s military targeted militants with precision airstrikes in the country’s northwest, local authorities said.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — All that remains of Afaf al-Tayeb’s home in Sudan’s Khartoum province is a charred, windowless structure with peeling paint — yet in June, she eagerly returned, feeling safe again for the first time since the Sudanese army said it retook the capital from the rival Rapid Support Forces.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Three young sisters have died after an overcrowded rubber dinghy took on water in bad weather while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, a German nonprofit organization reported Sunday.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s defense minister warned Friday that Gaza’s largest city could be destroyed unless Hamas terrorists yield to his country's terms.

JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Wednesday blamed a recent breakdown in Gaza ceasefire talks on the decision by some European leaders to recognize Palestinian statehood.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is preparing to launch an expanded military operation in Gaza City, possibly in the coming days, even as negotiators scramble to bring Israel and Hamas to a ceasefire to end 22 months of fighting.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel gave final approval Wednesday for a controversial settlement project in the West Bank that would effectively cut the territory in two, and that Palestinians and rights groups say could destroy hopes for a future Palestinian state.

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO defense chiefs held a “candid discussion" Wednesday about what security guarantees they could offer Kyiv to help forge a peace agreement that ends Russia’s three-year war on Ukraine, a senior alliance official said.

CAIRO (AP) — When Ahlam Saeed awoke last month to the sound of gunfire and roaring vehicle motors, the 43-year-old widow rushed outside her home in war-torn Sudan to find a line of at least two dozen vehicles, many of them motorcycles carrying armed fighters.

A bus crash in northwestern Afghanistan killed at least 79 people returning from Iran, including 19 children, an official said. Two people were also injured in the crash, Ministry of Interior spokesperson Abdul Mateen Qani told The Associated Press.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A key mediator on Tuesday stressed the urgency of brokering a ceasefire in Gaza after the terrorist group Hamas showed a “positive response” to a proposal, but Israel has yet to weigh in as its military prepares an offensive on some of the territory's most populated areas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump expressed hope that Monday's critical talks with Ukrainian and European leaders at the White House could lead to trilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to Russia's war on Ukraine.

NEW YORK (AP) — Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump that the United States and its European allies could offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the war, a U.S. official said Sunday.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — European and NATO leaders announced Sunday they will join President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington to present a united front in talks with President Donald Trump on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine and firming up U.S. security guarantees now on the negotiating table.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Erin weakened to a Category 3 hurricane Sunday as its outer bands continued to lash the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico with heavy rains and tropical-storm force winds.

BUNER, Pakistan (AP) — Rescuers recovered dozens more bodies from the rubble of collapsed homes in a northwestern district of Pakistan, bringing the death toll to at least 274, as authorities defended their response to the flooding and said they did not need any foreign help at this point.

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin met in  Alaska on Friday for hours of discussions that could reshape the war in Ukraine and relations between Moscow and Washington.

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin kicked off their Alaska summit on Friday, greeting each other before heading into hours of discussions that could reshape the war in Ukraine and relations between Moscow and Washington.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Flash floods triggered by torrential rains have killed over 280 people in India and Pakistan and left scores of others missing, officials said Friday, as rescuers brought to safety some 1,600 people from two mountainous districts in the neighboring countries.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan paid tribute Friday to more than 3 million war dead as the country marked its surrender that ended World War II 80 years ago, as concern grows about the rapidly fading memories of the tragedy of war and the bitter lessons from the era of Japanese militarism.

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Flash floods caused by torrential rains in a remote village in India-controlled Kashmir have left at least 44 people dead and dozens missing, authorities said Thursday, as rescue teams scouring the devastated Himalayan village brought at least 200 people to safety.

MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (AP) — Israel’s finance minister announced a contentious new settlement construction in the West Bank on Thursday, which Palestinians and rights groups worry will scuttle plans for a future Palestinian state by effectively cutting the West Bank into two separate parts.

BERLIN (AP) — President Donald Trump warned Wednesday that there will be “very severe consequences” if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop the war against Ukraine after the two leaders meet for a summit later this week in Alaska.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Wildfires intensified across southern Europe on Wednesday after a nightlong battle to protect the perimeter of Greece’s third-largest city, with at least three more deaths reported in Spain, Turkey, and Albania.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders appealed on Tuesday to U.S. President Donald Trump to defend their security interests at a key summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin later this week over the war in Ukraine.