ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Heavy fighting and shelling continued near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, in a Russian-controlled area of eastern Ukraine. Friday's fighting comes a day after experts from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency voiced concerns about structural damage to the sprawling Zaporizhzhia plant. The inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency braved gunfire and artillery blasts along their route to reach the Zaporizhzhia plant on Thursday in a mission to help safeguard the plant against catastrophe.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — As Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández stepped from her car outside her apartment building and began shaking hands with a throng of well-wishers, a man came forward with a gun, put it just inches from her face and pulled the trigger with a distinct click. The weapon apparently jammed.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities have locked down Chengdu, a southwestern city of 21 million people, following a spike in COVID-19 cases. Residents have been ordered to stay home, and about 70% of the flights have been suspended to and from the city, which is a major transit hub in Sichuan province and a governmental and economic center.

BEIJING (AP) — The U.N. has accused China of serious human rights violations that may amount to “crimes against humanity” in a long-delayed report examining a crackdown on Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups. Beijing on Thursday denounced the assessment as a fabrication cooked up by Western nations. For several years, human rights groups have accused China of sweeping a million or more people from the minority groups into detention camps.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev but will not attend the weekend funeral, a decision reflecting the Kremlin’s ambivalence about Gorbachev’s legacy. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin's working schedule wouldn't allow him to attend Saturday's funeral, adding that the Russian leader on Thursday visited a Moscow hospital where Mikhail Gorbachev’s body is kept to lay flowers at his coffin.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s nuclear energy operator says a team from the U.N. nuclear agency has arrived at the site of Europe’s largest nuclear plant to inspect security conditions that forced the shutdown of one reactor. Enerhoatom said the team from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived Thursday at the Zaporizhzhia plant that has been in the thick of recent fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces more than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Officials in Pakistan are raising concerns about the spread of waterborne diseases among thousands of flood victims as waters from powerful monsoon rains began to recede in many parts of the country. Massive flooding from the rains since mid-June has killed at least 1,162 people, a phenomenon experts blame on climate change. Some doctors said Wednesday that initially they were seeing mostly patients traumatized by the flooding. But now they're treating people suffering from diarrhea, skin infections and other waterborne ailments in the country’s flood-hit areas.

KIBBUTZ REVADIM, Israel (AP) — Israeli archaeologists recently unearthed the titanic tusk of an extinct pachyderm near a kibbutz in southern Israel. The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday that the 2.5-yard long fossil belonging to the long-extinct straight-tusked elephant was found during a joint excavation with researchers from Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University.

BUNOL, Spain (AP) — People from around the world pasted each other with tomatoes as Spain’s famous “Tomatina” street tomato fight took place once again following a two-year suspension owing to the coronavirus pandemic. Workers on trucks unloaded 130 tons of over-ripe tomatoes along the main street of the eastern town of Bunol on Wednesday for participants to throw, leaving the area drenched in red pulp. Up to 20,000 people were to take part in the festival, paying $12 a ticket for the privilege.

CHARSADDA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani flood survivors recount how the surging waters were like nothing they had ever seen before, striking their homes swiftly and brutally. Rubina Bibi, a 53-year-old, says when the floods hit her village last week, they swept away her 5-month-old granddaughter, sleeping in her house's yard, so quickly her stunned family couldn't rescue her.