AFP news

Japan's Nippon Steel agreed to buy US Steel Corp for $14.1 billion, the companies announced on Monday, sparking criticism about the firm's ownership in an industry crucial to US national security.

A US jury on Monday ordered chemical company Monsanto to pay $857 million to seven people at a school in the western state of Washington who said they were sickened by chemicals leaking from light fittings.

The Panama Canal delivered $2.5 billion to the national treasury for last year's operations, the government said Monday, despite record-low water levels that limited ship transits.

The EU announced "formal infringement proceedings" against Elon Musk's platform X on Monday, under a law designed to combat disinformation and hate after identifying suspect posts related to Hamas's October 7 attack in Israel.

Artificial intelligence allowed Pakistan's ex-prime minister Imran Khan to campaign from behind bars on Monday, with a voice clone of the opposition leader giving an impassioned speech on his behalf.

When news broke about a bedbug outbreak in his native South Korea, 29-year-old blockchain engineer and self-professed insectophobe Kang Jae-gu got straight to work -- on the data.

Artist Candice Breitz worked for several years to set up an exhibition in the German city of Saarbruecken, only for it to be cancelled over her stance on the Israel-Hamas war.

A second-hand pop-up store in Tokyo by casual clothing giant Uniqlo was a first for the Japanese firm, but also a sign that a local aversion to used garments may finally be fading.

Rising Hollywood star Jonathan Majors was convicted Monday of assaulting and harassing his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari, prompting Marvel to drop him from a prime role in its superhero blockbusters.

Algerian international footballer Youcef Atal went on trial in France Monday accused of inciting hatred after posting a video in which a Palestinian preacher purportedly threatens Israel with a "black day".

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said Monday that the tickets for the Paris Olympics are "expensive" and pleaded for the families of athletes to be given priority by organisers.

The Republican governor of Texas signed a bill on Monday that would allow state police to arrest and deport migrants who cross illegally into the United States from Mexico.

The United States on Monday announced a 10-nation coalition to quell Huthi missile and drone attacks on ships transiting the Red Sea, with Britain, France, Bahrain and Italy among countries joining the "multinational security initiative."

Kenya and the European Union on Monday signed a long-negotiated trade agreement to increase the flow of goods between the two markets, as Brussels pursues stronger economic ties with Africa.

At least 12 people were killed and another dozen were wounded in an attack early Sunday on a pre-Christmas party in central Mexico, authorities in the state of Guanajuato said.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed Italian premier Giorgia Meloni's approach to tackling illegal migration Saturday, in a visit to Rome where they agreed to co-fund a project to help migrants return home from Tunisia.

Dozens of journalists took part in a funeral on Saturday for an Al Jazeera cameraman killed in an Israeli strike in the south of the war-torn Gaza Strip.

With few tourists watching the daring feat, Abraham Estrada dives off La Quebrada, an emblematic Acapulco cliff where the spectacle has resumed but struggles to attract visitors after the Mexican resort was hammered by Hurricane Otis.

Glaciologist Andrew Hodson used to collaborate with his Russian colleagues in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic, but snowmobile excursions to see them have come to a halt since the war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday vowed to make Russia "sovereign and self-sufficient" in the face of the West, in his first campaign speech before a March vote to extend his long rule until at least 2030.

The Israeli army said on Sunday it had uncovered the biggest Hamas tunnel in the Gaza Strip so far, just a few hundred metres from a key border crossing.

Stranded residents sheltered on a hospital roof as flash floods swamped northeastern Australia on Monday, with raging waters severing roads and flushing crocodiles into towns.

Hamas has been the focus of a relentless Israeli onslaught in Gaza but with resilient and diverse finances, it is expected to have a significant war chest at its disposal as the conflict drags on.

On a hillside overlooking cabbage fields outside the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, a drone's rotors begin to whir, lifting it over a patch of forest.

Former South African president Jacob Zuma on Saturday drove a new split in the ruling African National Congress, calling for a boycott of the party in a landmark 2024 election.

The Democratic Republic of Congo gears up for elections on Wednesday that could consolidate its democracy or unleash fresh violence as political tensions threaten to boil over.

The American company Blue Origin plans to launch its rocket Big Shepard Monday for the first time since an accident more than a year ago, as the firm founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos heads back into space.

The chairwoman of major property developer Van Thinh Phat will go on trial in Vietnam, accused with accomplices of embezzling $12.5 billion from a bank "for personal purposes", the official government website said.

Two more major shipping firms, Mediterranean Shipping Company and CMA CGM, said Saturday they were suspending passage through a Red Sea strait vital for global trade after Yemeni rebel attacks in the area.