HONG KONG (AP) — China is installing a career security official as the new leader of Hong Kong in the culmination of a sweeping political transformation that has gutted any opposition in the Asian financial center and placed it ever more firmly under Beijing’s control.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli security forces are carrying out a massive manhunt for two Palestinians suspected in a mass stabbing near Tel Aviv that left three Israelis dead. The stabbing on Thursday, Israel’s Independence Day, was the latest in a series of deadly assaults in recent weeks.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian fighters at Mariupol’s pulverized steel plant are holding out against Russian troops in an increasingly desperate effort to keep Moscow from taking the strategic port city. The wife of one of the fighters said the troops would not surrender and her husband told her “words of goodbye.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. says it shared intelligence with Ukraine about the location of the Russian missile cruiser Moskva prior to the strike that sank the warship. The incident was a high-profile failure for Russia’s military.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli officials say at least three people have been killed in a Palestinian stabbing attack near Tel Aviv. Israeli police say the assailants fled in a vehicle on Thursday night. Security forces set up roadblocks in the area of the attack, which took place in the town of Elad, and helicopters hovered overhead.

MILAN (AP) — Rising energy prices in Europe are testing the resolve of those caught between a dependence on cheap Russian energy and their revulsion at Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Governments are trying to replace Russian energy, mindful their regular payments are funding the invasion.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A cardinal has testified that Pope Francis authorized spending up to 1 million euros to free a Colombian nun kidnapped by al-Qaida-linked militants in Mali.

BEIJING (AP) — Rescuers in central China have pulled a woman alive from the rubble of a building that partially collapsed almost six days earlier. The unidentified woman is the 10th survivor of the disaster in the city of Changsha, in which at least five people have died and dozens are still missing.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Heavy fighting is raging at the besieged steel plant in Mariupol as Russian forces attempt to finish off the city’s last-ditch defenders and complete the capture of the strategically vital port. Thursday's bloody battle came amid growing suspicions that President Vladimir Putin wants to present the Russian people with a major battlefield success in time for Victory Day on Monday.

MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge in Miami has ruled that the premier of the British Virgin Islands can be released on a $500,000 bond, following his arrest on drug-smuggling charges in a U.S. government sting in South Florida. In a surprise decision, federal Judge Alicia Otazo-Reyes on Wednesday rejected prosecutors’ argument that Andrew Fahie would flee the U.S. if released pending trial on cocaine charges.