BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as president Friday, putting him on track to stay in power for life. The endorsement of Xi's appointment by the ceremonial National People's Congress was a foregone conclusion for a leader who has sidelined potential rivals and filled the top ranks of the ruling Communist Party with his supporters since taking power in 2012.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire artillery drill simulating an attack on a South Korean airfield and called for his troops to be ready to respond to the enemies’ “frantic war preparation moves” — apparently referring to the recent series of military drills between the United States and South Korea.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Thursday that his country does not produce or consume fentanyl, despite enormous evidence to the contrary. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appeared to depict the synthetic opioid epidemic largely as a U.S. problem, and said the United States should use family values to fight drug addiction.

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — A letter claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel blamed for abducting four Americans and killing two of them condemned the violence and said the gang turned over to authorities its own members who were responsible. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press through a Tamaulipas state law enforcement official, the Scorpions faction of the Gulf cartel apologized to the residents of Matamoros where the Americans were kidnapped, the Mexican woman who died in the cartel shootout, and the four Americans and their families.

PENAJAM PASER UTARA, Indonesia (AP) — Orange-red ground has been broken in the jungle of East Borneo, where the Indonesian government has begun construction of its new capital city. Officials promise a “sustainable forest city” that puts the environment at the heart of development and aims to be carbon-neutral by 2045. But the project has been plagued by criticism from environmentalists and Indigenous communities, who say it degrades the environment, further shrinks the habitat of endangered animals such as orangutans and displaces Indigenous people that rely on the land for their livelihoods.

JABA, West Bank (AP) — Three Palestinian militants were killed in a shootout with Israeli troops on Thursday. Israeli security forces said they raided the village of Jaba in the northern West Bank to arrest suspects wanted for attacks on Israeli soldiers in the area. The suspects opened fire on Israeli troops, who shot back and killed three people, all affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, police said.

BEIJING (AP) — China’s leader Xi Jinping has called for “more quickly elevating the armed forces to world-class standards,” in a speech just days after a top diplomat warned of the growing possibility of conflict with the U.S. unless Washington changes course. China must maximize its “national strategic capabilities” in a bid to “systematically upgrade the country’s overall strength to cope with strategic risks, safeguard strategic interests and realize strategic objectives,” Xi said Wednesday.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Thursday fired a short-range ballistic missile toward waters off its western coast, South Korea’s military said. The launch came as the United States and South Korea prepare to hold their biggest combined military training exercises in years next week to counter the threat of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, which leader Kim Jong Un has aggressively expanded in recent years despite his country's deepening economic isolation and pandemic-related difficulties.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a massive barrage of missiles and drones that hit residential buildings and critical infrastructure across Ukraine on Thursday, killing six people, leaving hundreds of thousands without heat or electricity, and knocking a nuclear plant off the power grid for hours. It was the largest such attack in three weeks.

BEIJING (AP) — China President Xi Jinping accused Washington this week of trying to isolate his country and hold back its development. That reflects the ruling Communist Party's growing frustration that its pursuit of prosperity and global influence is threatened by U.S. restrictions on access to technology, its support for Taiwan and other moves seen by Beijing as hostile.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Tens of thousands of people marched in Athens and cities across Greece on Wednesday to protest the deaths of 57 people in the country's worst train disaster, which exposed significant rail safety deficiencies. Labor unions and student associations organized the demonstrations, while strikes halted ferries to the islands and public transportation services in Athens, where at least 30,000 people took part in the protest. Clashes broke out after the rallies in Athens and two other cities.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police used water cannons and fired tear gas to disperse supporters of the country’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday in the eastern city of Lahore. Two dozen Khan supporters were arrested for defying a government ban on holding rallies, police said. The developments followed Khan’s launching of provincial election campaigns Tuesday for eastern Punjab and northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province provinces, where the ex-premier's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has held a majority in past rounds of voting.

NANGAN, Taiwan (AP) — In the past month, bed and breakfast owner Chen Yu-lin had to tell his guests he couldn't provide them with the internet. Others living on Matsu, one of Taiwan’s outlying islands closer to neighboring China, had to struggle with paying electricity bills, making a doctor's appointment or receiving a package. For connecting to the outside world, Matsu's 14,000 residents rely on two submarine internet cables leading to Taiwan's main island. The National Communications Commission, citing the island’s telecom service, blamed two Chinese ships for cutting the cables.

BEIJING (AP) — President Xi Jinping accused Washington this week of trying to isolate his country and hold back its development. That reflects the ruling Communist Party's growing frustration that its pursuit of prosperity and global influence is threatened by U.S. restrictions on access to technology, its support for Taiwan and other moves seen by Beijing as hostile.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The owner of Russia's Wagner Group private military company claimed Wednesday that his troops have extended their gains in the key Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut as fierce fighting continues in the war's longest battle. Yevgeny Prigozhin said Wagner troops have taken full control of the eastern part of Bakhmut. He claimed that they now control all districts east of the Bakhmutka River that crosses the city in the eastern Donetsk region. The center of Bakhmut is located west of the river.

The six-month battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has been the longest and bloodiest fight of the war so far. Little known outside Ukraine before the Russian invasion, Bakhmut has become a symbol of the country’s fortitude and perseverance in the face of the Kremlin's onslaught. The Ukrainian leadership vowed again this week to keep defending the city, but some observers have warned that holding on to it could be too dangerous and costly.

JENIN, West Bank (AP) — Israeli troops raided the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, Palestinian health officials said, leading to a gunbattle that killed at least six Palestinians and wounded more than two dozen others. The military said it had killed the suspected assailant behind a fatal shooting of two Israeli brothers in the northern West Bank town of Hawara last week. Israeli military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said two Israeli soldiers were wounded in Tuesday's firefight in Jenin, one seriously.

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Two of four Americans were killed in Mexico when their van was caught in the crossfire of rival cartel groups last week, a top Mexican official said Tuesday. The two others are alive, with one wounded. Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal confirmed the deaths by phone during a morning news conference by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, saying details about the four abducted Americans had been confirmed by prosecutors.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Police detained a man on suspicion of killing an 11-year-old boy and neighbors wrecked his home Monday amid anger over escalating drug violence in the Argentine city of Rosario, where a threat was directed at soccer superstar Lionel Messi last week. Máximo Jerez was killed early Sunday when at least one gunman attacked a birthday party. Three other children, including a 2-year-old, were injured.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang warned Tuesday that Beijing and Washington are headed for “conflict and confrontation” if the U.S. doesn't change course, striking a combative tone at a moment when relations between the rivals are at a historic low. In his first news conference since taking office late last year, Qin’s harsh language appeared to defy predictions that China might abandon its aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy in favor of more moderate rhetoric as the two countries face off over trade and technology, Taiwan, human rights and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

LONDON (AP) — Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be a Roman shrine beneath a former graveyard on the grounds of a cathedral in central England. Experts from the University of Leicester said Tuesday that they found what appears to be the cellar of a Roman building and a fragment of a 1,800-year-old altar stone during excavations in the grounds of Leicester Cathedral.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — An explosion in a seven-story commercial building in Bangladesh's capital on Tuesday killed at least 14 people and injured dozens, officials said. The explosion occurred in Gulistan, a busy commercial area of Dhaka, but more details could not immediately be determined, fire department official Rashed bin Khaled said by phone.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The influential sister of North Korea’s leader warned Tuesday that her country is ready to take “quick, overwhelming action” against the United States and South Korea, a day after the U.S. flew a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber in a demonstration of strengthen against the North.

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Four Americans who traveled to Mexico last week to seek health care got caught in a deadly shootout and were kidnapped by heavily armed men who threw them in the back of a pickup truck, officials from both countries said Monday. The four were traveling Friday in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates. They came under fire shortly after entering the city of Matamoros from Brownsville, at the southernmost tip of Texas near the Gulf coast, the FBI said in a statement Sunday.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's supreme leader said Monday that if a series of suspected poisonings at girls' schools are proven to be deliberate the culprits should be sentenced to death for committing an “unforgivable crime.” It was the first time Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, has spoken publicly about the suspected poisonings, which began late last year and have sickened hundreds of children.