PARIS (AP) — Winds up to 108 mph slammed France's Atlantic coast overnight as Storm Ciaran lashed countries around western Europe, uprooting trees, blowing out windows and leaving 1.2 million French households without electricity Thursday. Strong winds and rain also battered southern England and the Channel Islands, where gusts of more than 100 mph were reported.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — After more than three weeks of siege, the first Palestinians — dozens of dual passport holders and seriously injured — were allowed to leave Gaza, where Israeli airstrikes pounded a refugee camp for the second day Wednesday. Even as bombings have driven tens of thousands from their homes and food, water and fuel run low, no one has been allowed to leave the embattled enclave, except for four hostages released by Hamas. Another captive was rescued by Israeli forces earlier this week.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan said Wednesday that China sent 43 military aircraft and seven ships near the self-ruled island, the latest sign that Beijing plans no let-up in its campaign of harassment, threats and intimidation. Taiwan's Defense Ministry said the figure was current for the 24 hours up to 6:00 a.m. Wednesday and that 37 of the aircraft had crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait, which China no longer recognizes as an informal divider between the sides.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops battled Hamas militants and attacked underground compounds on Tuesday with a focus on northern Gaza. An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south, even though Israeli airstrikes have pounded the entirety of the besieged enclave. Buoyed by the first successful rescue of a captive held by Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a cease-fire and again vowed to crush Hamas' ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel following its bloody Oct. 7 rampage, which ignited the war.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops and tanks pushed deeper into Gaza on Monday, freeing a soldier held captive by Hamas militants and advancing on two sides of the territory’s main city.  The military said a female soldier captured during Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 incursion was rescued in Gaza — the first since the weekslong war began. It provided few details, but said in a statement that Pvt. Ori Megidish “is doing well” and had met with her family.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin called a meeting of top security and law enforcement officials on Monday, the day after a mob stormed the airport in the region of Dagestan after a plane from the Israeli city of Tel Aviv landed there. Hundreds of angry men rushed onto the tarmac of the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the predominantly Muslim region, late on Sunday, looking for Israeli passengers, according to Russian news reports.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops and tanks pushed deeper into Gaza on Monday, advancing on two sides of the territory’s main city, as the U.N. and medical staff warned that airstrikes have hit closer to hospitals where tens of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter alongside thousands of wounded.

MOSCOW (AP) — Hundreds of people stormed into the main airport in Russia's Dagestan region and onto the landing field Sunday, chanting antisemitic slogans and seeking passengers arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv, Israel, Russian news agencies and social media reported. Russian news reports said the crowd surrounded the airliner, which belonged to Russian carrier Red Wings.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Nearly three dozen trucks entered Gaza on Sunday in the largest aid convoy since the war between Israel and Hamas began, but humanitarian workers said the assistance still fell desperately short of needs after thousands of people broke into warehouses to take flour and basic hygiene products.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — At least 48 people died when Category 5 Hurricane Otis slammed into Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, most of them in Acapulco, Mexican authorities said Sunday as the death toll continued to climb and families buried loved ones. Mexico's civil defense agency said in a statement that 43 of the dead were in the resort city of Acapulco and five in nearby Coyuca de Benitez.

The Negro River, the major tributary that runs through the Brazilian Amazon, has reached historic lows, revealing millennia-old carvings previously hidden under water.

As an Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip looms in its most devastating war yet with Hamas, one of the greatest threats to both its troops and the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped inside the seaside enclave is buried deep underground.

Israel on Saturday expanded its ground operation in Gaza, sending in tanks and infantry backed by massive strikes from the air and sea. Israel's defense minister said that “the ground shook in Gaza” and that the war against the territory's Hamas rulers entered a new stage.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel's defense minister said Friday that it expects to launch a ground offensive into Gaza soon that will be long and difficult, and aim to destroy a vast network of tunnels used by the territory's militant Hamas rulers. Yoav Gallant spoke to a small group of foreign reporters after Israeli forces backed by fighter jets and drones carried out a second ground raid into Gaza in as many days, striking the outskirts of Gaza City.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Survivors of the Category 5 storm that killed at least 27 people and devastated Mexico’s resort city of Acapulco are getting desperate amid a slow government response, worrying that the focus will remain on repairing infrastructure for the city’s economic engine of tourism instead of helping the neediest. Despite hopes of incoming aid by many in Acapulco, the coastal city of 1 million once known for its beachside glamour was still in a state of complete chaos by the end of Thursday.

BEIJING (AP) — Former Premier Li Keqiang, China’s top economic official for a decade, died Friday of a heart attack. He was 68. Li was China’s No. 2 leader from 2013-23 and an advocate for private business but was left with little authority after President Xi Jinping made himself the most powerful Chinese leader in decades and tightened control over the economy and society.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military launched airstrikes early Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said, in retaliation for a slew of drone and missile attacks against U.S. bases and personnel in the region that began early last week.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops and tanks launched an hourslong ground raid into northern Gaza overnight into Thursday, the military said, striking several militant targets in order to "prepare the battlefield" before a widely expected ground invasion after more than two weeks of devastating airstrikes.

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Mahmoud Shalabi did not evacuate his home in northern Gaza despite the frightful Israeli warnings of a looming, far more brutal assault to come as it presses ahead with its war against the Hamas militant group. The Palestinian aid worker is among hundreds of thousands who have remained. Others who initially heeded the Israeli warnings to head south have returned to the territory's north.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Mexican authorities on Thursday gave the first human toll for Hurricane Otis' destruction along the country's Pacific coast: at least 27 dead and four missing. Tens of thousands of residents in damaged homes without electricity awaited help more than a day after Otis roared ashore in Acapulco. The municipal water system wasn't functioning, because there was no electricity to run the pumps.

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Hamsa Diakite can't remember the last time her family of eight had a good meal. She once sustained them by selling fried bread, until a coup in Niger three months ago resulted in sanctions against the West African nation, squeezing incomes in one of the world's poorest countries and leaving millions like Hamsa struggling in the absence of aid.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Otis tore across Mexico's southern Pacific coast as a powerful and dangerous Category 5 hurricane Wednesday, unleashing massive flooding in the resort city of Acapulco, sending sheets of earth down steep mountainsides, and cutting power and cell service in large swaths of the state of Guerrero.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli officials were outraged Wednesday over U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' comment that the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel “did not happen in a vacuum,” calling it justification for terrorism. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen canceled a scheduled meeting with Guterres while Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, said the U.N. chief “failed the test.”

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers appears to enforce leader Xi Jinping’s demand for total obedience and the elimination of any potential rivals within the ruling Communist Party, analysts say. State media this week confirmed that former defense minister Gen. Li Shangfu and former foreign minister Qin Gang were “no longer serving in office,” but offered no details.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees warned Wednesday that without immediate deliveries of fuel it will soon have to sharply cut back relief operations across the Gaza Strip, which has been blockaded and hit by devastating Israeli airstrikes since Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel more than two weeks ago.