WASHINGTON (AP) — The Islamic extremists drove up to the American missionary's home in Niger under the cover of evening, gunning down two guards who stood watch. Jeff Woodke recalls seeing the muzzle blasts and hearing the screams before being thrown into a pickup truck that then sped away. So began more than six years of captivity, a period in which he says he was beaten, locked in chains for hours a day and pressured repeatedly to convert to Islam and endured self-imposed hunger strikes.

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping and said they agreed to “stabilize” badly deteriorated U.S.-China ties, but America’s top diplomat left Beijing with his biggest ask rebuffed: better communications between their militaries. After meeting Xi, Blinken said China is not ready to resume military-to-military contacts, something the U.S. considers crucial to avoid miscalculation and conflict, particularly over Taiwan.

MELEKHOVO, Russia (AP) — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny went on trial Monday on new charges of extremism that could keep him behind bars for decades. The trial opened at a maximum security penal colony in Melekhovo, 150 miles east of Moscow, where Navalny, 47, is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court — charges he says are politically motivated. Soon after it began, the judge ruled to close the trial despite Navalny's call to keep it open.

JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) — The Israeli military raided the West Bank city of Jenin on Monday, striking the refugee camp with helicopter gunships. The Israeli military said that helicopters fired at Palestinian gunmen as security forces tried to extract damaged vehicles from the camp.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine are suffering high numbers of military casualties as Ukraine fights to dislodge the Kremlin’s forces from occupied areas in the early stages of its counteroffensive, British officials said Sunday. Russian losses are probably at their highest level since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March, U.K. military officials said in their regular assessment.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Top North Korean officials vowed to push for a second attempt to launch a spy satellite as they called their country’s first, and failed, launch last month “the most serious” shortcoming this year and harshly criticized those responsible, state media reported Monday. In late May, a North Korean rocket carrying a military reconnaissance satellite crashed soon after liftoff, posing a setback to leader Kim Jong Un’s push to acquire a space-based surveillance system to better monitor the United States and South Korea.

MANDVI, India (AP) — Cyclone Biparjoy knocked out power and threw shipping containers into the sea in western India on Friday before aiming its lashing winds and rain at part of Pakistan that suffered devastating floods last year. A man and his son died trying to save their livestock in Gujarat state, where the storm came ashore late Thursday after more than 180,000 people took shelter in the two countries.

MALILIPOT, Philippines (AP) — Nearly 20,000 people have fled from an erupting Philippine volcano and taken shelter in schools, disrupting education for thousands of students, many of whom are having classes in chapels and tents or under trees, officials said Friday.

BERLIN (AP) — A large mass of rock slid down a mountainside above a Swiss village that was evacuated last month, stopping just short of the settlement, authorities said Friday. Brienz, in the southeastern Graubuenden region of Switzerland, was evacuated on May 12 after geology experts warned that the Alpine rock looming over the village could break loose. In recent days, local officials said rock movements on the slope were accelerating.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States deployed a nuclear-powered submarine capable of carrying about 150 Tomahawk missiles to South Korea on Friday, a day after North Korea resumed missile tests in protest of the U.S.-South Korean live-fire drills.

KALAMATA, Greece (AP) — Rescue workers transferred the bodies of dead migrants to refrigerated trucks as a major search continued Thursday for possible survivors of a sea disaster in southern Greece. Hundreds of people are still feared missing. At least 78 bodies have been recovered after a fishing boat crammed with migrants seeking to make it from Libya to Italy capsized and sank a day earlier in deep waters off the Greek coast.

MOSCOW (AP) — More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner during fighting in Ukraine went on trial in southern Russia on Wednesday. The captured soldiers were members of the Azov battalion, an elite Ukrainian armed forces unit that fought Russian troops in the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol. Russia captured Mariupol last year after a three-month battle that reduced most of the city to smoldering ruins.

KALAMATA, Greece (AP) — A fishing boat carrying migrants trying to reach Europe capsized and sank Wednesday off the coast of Greece, authorities said, leaving at least 79 dead and many more missing in one of the worst disasters of its kind this year. Coast guard, navy and merchant vessels and aircraft fanned out for a vast search-and-rescue operation set to continue overnight.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces fired cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa and shelled the eastern Donetsk region early Wednesday, killing at least six people and damaging dozens of homes, regional Ukrainian officials said. Russian forces have stepped up aerial strikes in their nearly 16-month war, a Ukrainian military spokesman said, while the country's armed forces have reported limited gains in the early stages of a counteroffensive to take back the nearly one-fifth of Ukraine's territory that is under Russian control.

TOKYO (AP) — An 18-year-old army trainee shot three fellow soldiers at a firing range on a Japanese army base Wednesday, killing two of them, officials said. The suspect was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder at the scene in Gifu prefecture in central Japan, police said.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Tuesday that he could order his troops to try to seize more land in Ukraine to protect bordering Russian territory — a threat with questionable credibility because the Kremlin lacks full control over areas it already annexed.

KOWACH, South Sudan (AP) — Martha Nyanguour didn't have time to bury her husband, son or granddaughter when they were killed by gunfire in September. Instead, the 50-year-old paid her respects by throwing bits of grass over their bodies, then grabbed her remaining children and fled.

LONDON (AP) — Three people were slain in the streets of the English city of Nottingham in early morning attacks Tuesday that culminated with the suspect mowing down three pedestrians with a van, leaving one in critical condition, police said. A 31-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and police said they believe he acted alone. Nottinghamshire Police detectives were working with counterterrorism officers to try to establish a motive.

BEIRUT (AP) — A helicopter accident in northeastern Syria over the weekend left 22 American service members injured, the U.S. military said Tuesday, adding that the cause of the accident was under investigation and that no enemy fire was involved. The military statement said the service members were receiving treatment and 10 were moved to “higher care facilities” outside the region.

SAINT-LOUIS-DU-SUD, Haiti (AP) — Mylouise Veillard was 10 when her mother dropped her off at an orphanage in southern Haiti and promised her a better life. For three years, Mylouise slept on a concrete floor. When she was thirsty, she walked to a community well and hauled heavy buckets of water herself. Meals were scarce, and she lost weight. She worried for her younger brother, who struggled even more than she did at the facility.

A regional governor says at least three people have been killed and 25 wounded after missiles hit civilian buildings in an overnight attack in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. Serhiy Lysak, …

SANTO DOMINGO, Philippines (AP) — Truckloads of villagers on Tuesday fled Philippine communities close to the erupting Mayon volcano, traumatized by the sight of red-hot lava flowing down its crater and fearful of sporadic blasts of ash.

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Pakistan’s army and civil authorities are planning to evacuate 80,000 people to safety along the southern coast, and thousands in neighboring India sought shelter ahead of Cyclone Biparjoy, which is forecast to slam ashore in the densely populated region later this week, officials said Tuesday.

Ukrainian troops are probing Russian defenses as spring gives way to a second summer of fighting, and Kyiv's forces are facing an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in the 15-month-old war. But analysts say Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills.

MILAN (AP) — Silvio Berlusconi, the boastful billionaire media mogul who was Italy's longest-serving premier, died Monday, according to his television network. He was 86. Mediaset announced his death with a smiling photo of the man on its homepage and the headline: “Berlusconi is dead.”