AFP news

The massive coral bleaching episode signaled by US authorities last month is expanding and deepening in reefs around the globe, scientists warned Thursday.

Taiwan's president-elect Lai Ching-te, a staunch defender of the island's democracy, will be sworn into office Monday as Beijing ratchets up military and diplomatic pressure on Taipei.

Rockstar Games parent Take-Two Interactive on Thursday said the eagerly awaited video game "Grand Theft Auto VI" will be released in fall of 2025.

OpenAI will have access to Reddit data for training its artificial intelligence models and will put its technology to work on the popular discussion platform, the companies said Thursday.

US President Joe Biden's administration formally proposed on Thursday reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift that would bring federal policy more in line with public opinion.

China cut the minimum down payment rate for first-time homebuyers on Friday and suggested the government could buy up commercial real estate, in some of Beijing's most ambitious moves yet to lift the ailing housing market out of an unprecedented debt crisis.

The sharp drop in prices for minerals critical to the green energy transition is masking a looming shortage due to inadequate investment, the International Energy Agency said Friday.

The social network formerly known as Twitter has fully migrated over to X.com, owner Elon Musk said on Friday.

The Women's World Cup will take place in South America for the first time after Brazil was chosen to host the 2027 edition at a FIFA congress Friday marked by debate about the war in Gaza.

The EU on Thursday opened a formal investigation into Facebook and Instagram on suspicion the platforms owned by Meta are causing addictive behaviour in children.

US troops early Thursday anchored a long-awaited temporary pier, meant to boost aid deliveries into war-ravaged Gaza, to a beach in the besieged Palestinian territory, the US military said.

Easyjet said Thursday that chief executive Johan Lundgren would step down at the start of 2025 after seven years piloting the no-frills airline, notably through Covid turbulence.

The newly agreed Dutch coalition government on Thursday proposed what it called the "strictest ever" asylum policy, including an opt-out from European Union rules, and vowed to examine moving its Israel embassy to Jerusalem.

German industrial giant Siemens said Thursday it will sell its electrical motors business Innomotics to private US equity firm KPS Capital Partners for 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion).

Japan's economy suffered a worse-than-expected contraction in the first quarter, official data showed Thursday, in further bad news for its unpopular government.

US President Joe Biden unveiled steep tariff hikes on Chinese green tech this week, hitting imports like electric vehicles, chips and solar cells -- and adding stress to US-China ties.

Arab leaders are gathering Thursday in Bahrain for a summit dominated by the Israel-Hamas war which has been raging in the Gaza Strip without a ceasefire in sight.

Since announcing plans in late March to replace CEO Dave Calhoun at the end of 2024, Boeing's problems have seemingly gone from bad to worse, complicating an already daunting executive search.

It's crunch time for Donald Trump's defense team as they take another stab Thursday at Michael Cohen, the key witness in the criminal trial in which the former president is accused of fraudulently covering up his affair with a porn star to influence his first presidential bid.

Leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin framed their nations' ties as a stabilising force in a chaotic world as they met Thursday in Beijing, where the Russian president is seeking greater Chinese support for his war effort in Ukraine and isolated economy.

Another masterpiece emerging from chaos, or just a chaotic mess?

Google's use of artificial intelligence to sum up answers to search queries has publishers wondering if traffic to their websites will wither.

"Furiosa", the latest frenetically paced "Mad Max" action movie, zoomed into pole position among this year's blockbusters with a raucous world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday.

A suspect detained for shooting Slovakia Prime Minister Robert Fico is a 71-year-old writer from the centre of the European nation, the interior minister said Wednesday, after media identified the man.

US President Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed Wednesday to hold election debates in June and September, with the rivals trading barbs about their first on-stage meetings in nearly four years.

Tens of thousands of civilians fled heavy fighting in Gaza as Palestinians on Wednesday marked 76 years since their mass displacement during Israel's wartime creation which they call the Nakba or "catastrophe".

Donald Trump's lawyers on Tuesday got their first stab at Michael Cohen, the former president's confidante-turned-foe,trying to paint him as a money-hungry, untrustworthy narrator.

Qatar expects to sign more long-term natural gas supply deals this year to meet growing international demand, Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi said on Wednesday.

The EU on Wednesday predicted eurozone inflation to fall faster in 2024 but warned the single-currency area's economy still faced risks from geopolitical tensions including wars in Ukraine and Gaza.