The United States and the Philippines are conducting joint air and maritime patrols in the South China Sea, which come as the two countries step up cooperation in the face of growingly aggressive …

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a temporary cease-fire with the Hamas terrorist group that is expected to bring the first halt in fighting in a devastating six-week war and win freedom for dozens of hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for the release of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel and the Hamas terrorist group on Tuesday appeared close to a deal to temporarily halt their devastating six-week war so that dozens of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip could be freed in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Hamas predicted a Qatari-mediated deal could be reached in “the coming hours,” while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening top decision-makers to discuss the matter.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP) — A late night stampede at a military stadium in Republic of Congo where large crowds of young people waited hours to register at a recruitment event left 31 people dead, authorities said Tuesday. The Congolese Armed Forces Command announced that all recruitment operations were suspended in the capital, Brazzaville, until further notice following the tragedy late Monday.

ASHKELON, Israel (AP) — Tatyana Prima thought she'd left the bombs behind when she fled Ukraine more than a year and a half ago, after Russia decimated her city, Mariupol. The 38-year-old escaped with her injured husband and young daughter, bringing the family to safety in southern Israel.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces pressed their offensive against Hamas in northern Gaza on Monday, battling militants around the Indonesian hospital. Israel said its troops returned fire on militants who targeted them from inside the 3.5-acre compound.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday in a high-profile push to keep money and weapons flowing to Ukraine even as U.S. and international resources are stretched by the new global risks raised by the Israel-Hamas conflict.

BEIJING (AP) — China’s top diplomat welcomed four Arab foreign ministers and the Indonesian one to Beijing on Monday, saying his country would work with “our brothers and sisters" in the Arab and Islamic world to try to end the war in Gaza as soon as possible.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Populist Javier Milei resoundingly won Argentina's presidential election Sunday following a fiercely polarized campaign in which he promised a dramatic shake-up to the state to deal with soaring inflation and rising poverty. With 99.4% of votes tallied in Sunday's presidential runoff, Milei had 55.7% and Economy Minister Sergio Massa 44.3%, according to Argentina's electoral authority. It is the widest victory margin in a presidential race since Argentina's return to democracy in 1983.

Yemen's Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route on Sunday, officials said, taking over two dozen crew members hostage and raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front.

An orphaned Ukrainian teenager who was taken to Russia last year during the war in his country returned home after being reunited with relatives in Belarus on his 18th birthday Sunday.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Days after Israeli forces entered Gaza 's main hospital to look for Hamas operations, the army said it had strong evidence supporting its claims that Hamas maintains a sprawling command post inside and under Shifa.

At least 130 people have died in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia following heavy rains that triggered what aid agencies described as flooding seen only once every 100 years.

NEW YORK (AP) — Emily Tony Korenberg Hand celebrated her eighth birthday last year romping with friends and family among the jugglers, acrobats and stilt walkers for her circus-themed party at Kibbutz Be'eri, not far from the Gaza Strip.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Patients, staff and displaced people left Gaza's largest hospital Saturday, health officials said, leaving behind only a skeleton crew to care for those too sick to move and Israeli forces in control of the facility.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The United Nations was forced to stop deliveries of food and other necessities to Gaza on Friday after internet and telephone services collapsed  because of a lack of fuel. The communications blackout, now in its second day, largely cuts off Gaza’s 2.3 million people from one another and the outside world — and paralyzes the coordination of aid, which humanitarian groups were already struggling to deliver because of the fuel shortage.

Abbey Onn lost her aunt and a young cousin when Hamas attackers rampaged through Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7. Now Onn is worried about what will happen to three other family members taken hostage that day as Israel pounds Gaza City in a bid to end Hamas’ control of the Gaza Strip.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The bullets began piercing the windows of the hospital as women cradling young children ran from room to room searching for a safe place to hide while the heavily armed gang drew closer. The louder the gunfire grew, the more the women screamed until a hospital employee begged them to stay quiet and ordered them to lie on the ground.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza, residents said Thursday, signaling a possible expansion of their offensive to areas where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded into U.N.-run shelters and family homes.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Russian court on Thursday convicted an artist and musician for replacing supermarket price tags with antiwar slogans and sentenced her to seven years in prison, Russian media reported. Sasha Skochilenko was arrested in her native St. Petersburg in April 2022 on charges of spreading false information about the military.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A heavily armed gang surrounded a hospital in Haiti on Wednesday, trapping women, children and newborns inside until police rescued them, according to the director of the medical center, who pleaded for help via social media.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces on Wednesday raided Gaza’s largest hospital, a facility that it says is a Hamas command post nestled under civilians. Israel viewed Shifa Hospital as a key target in the conflict against the terrorist group. The war between Israel and Hamas erupted after the militant group killed some 1,200 people and seized around 240 captives in a surprise Oct. 7 attack.

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Some of the 40 construction workers trapped in a collapsed road tunnel for a fourth day were getting sick as falling debris and technical glitches delayed the work to free them, officials in northern India said Wednesday.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Batman and the Joker, a man decked out in a full-body lion costume, and another whose head and arms have been replaced by chainsaws. This isn’t Carnival or Comic-Con, but rather an enthusiastic campaign rally for Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei.

LONDON (AP) — The British government said Wednesday it will still try to send some migrants on a one-way trip to Rwanda, despite the U.K. Supreme Court ruling that the contentious plan is unlawful. In a major blow to one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's key policies, five justices on the country’s top court ruled unanimously that asylum-seekers sent to Rwanda would be “at real risk of ill-treatment” because they could be returned to the conflict-wracked home countries they'd fled.