AFP news

Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate as a wildfire rages out of control in northern California, with a swathe of the United States in the grip of a "record-breaking and dangerous" heatwave that was complicating firefighting efforts.

Britain voted Thursday in a general election widely expected to hand the opposition Labour party a landslide win and end nearly a decade-and-a-half of Conservative rule.

As residents of Joe Biden's hometown Scranton prepared to mark that most American of holidays -- July 4 -- many were also voicing alarm about the US president following his disastrous debate last week against Donald Trump.

More than seven percent of all deaths in 10 of India's biggest cities are linked to air pollution, a large study said Thursday, leading researchers to call for action to save tens of thousands of lives a year.

US Vice President Kamala Harris is engaged in a delicate balancing act, playing cheerleader for President Joe Biden while standing by as a leading contender to replace him if he ends his reelection bid.

Venezuela and the United States have agreed to "improve relations" as they resumed negotiations just months after Washington reimposed crippling sanctions on the South American country, Caracas said Wednesday.

Threads, Meta's alternative to X (formerly Twitter), has hit 175 million monthly users a year after its out-of-the-blue launch.

The Kenyan presidency said Wednesday it had ordered a review of salary increases for public servants in an apparent move to defuse tensions after a wave of sometimes deadly anti-government protests.

Two men accused of trying to blackmail relatives of Formula One legend Michael Schumacher had access to private family photos, German prosecutors said Wednesday.

The EU's powerful competition regulator on Wednesday announced it has conditionally approved German airline Lufthansa's proposed stake in Italy's ITA Airways.

Ex-prime minister Boris Johnson tried to rally the Conservative party faithful as UK politicians on Wednesday spent a final day campaigning ahead of the general election.

Georgian student Elene Deisadze was browsing TikTok in 2022 when she stumbled across the profile of a girl, Anna Panchulidze, who looked exactly like her.

Indonesia launched its first electric vehicle battery plant on Wednesday, President Joko Widodo said, as Southeast Asian countries move to gain a foothold in the emerging industry.

Kenyan police said they have arrested more than 270 people masquerading as protesters who are suspected of going on a criminal rampage during anti-government rallies on Tuesday.

One of the world's most renowned photo festivals, in the French town of Arles, returned this week with a timely ode to diversity at a moment when France is turning towards the far right.

Survivors of India's deadliest stampede in more than a decade recalled on Wednesday the horror of being crushed at a vastly overcrowded Hindu religious gathering where 121 people were killed.

South Korea has declared its super-low birthrate a "national emergency" and poured billions into encouraging citizens to marry and reproduce, but one YouTuber has found happiness and success promoting the opposite ideal.

Nearly a quarter of a million people were evacuated in eastern China as rainstorms lashed swathes of the country and caused the Yangtze and other rivers to swell, state media reported Wednesday.

The AI revolution is upon us with companies around the world looking to jump headfirst into the technology made famous by ChatGPT. To satisfy their generative AI urge, firms need to secure state-of-the-art software and ramp up computing power, which quickly brings them knocking on the doors of the globe's cloud computing giants, of which Amazon's AWS is the biggest.

In the battle against drug use at the Paris Olympics, the International Testing Agency (ITA) plans to deploy a more streamlined, high-tech approach to identify and target potential cheats.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday congratulated South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa on winning a new term, devoting time to a key if complicated relationship despite a political storm in Washington.

A second contingent of the Kenya-led multinational policing mission in Haiti will arrive "in the coming weeks," Prime Minister Garry Conille told AFP on Tuesday.

A judge postponed Tuesday Donald Trump's sentencing for covering up hush money payments until September 18, the first fallout of a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, pushing it to after the Republican convention.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on pharmaceutical giants Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to lower prices for diabetes and weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, saying firms must stop "ripping off the American people."

The Philippines and China agreed on Tuesday to "de-escalate tensions" over the South China Sea, Manila said, following a violent clash in the disputed waters last month.

Democrats shocked by Joe Biden's dismal debate performance urged the US president Tuesday to be transparent about his mental fitness as he faced the first call from his own side to drop out of the election.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said Tuesday that 1.9 million people -- 80 percent of the territory's population -- were now displaced, adding she was "deeply concerned" by reports of new evacuation orders for Khan Yunis.

Andy Murray lost his race to be fit for the Wimbledon singles on Tuesday as Novak Djokovic prepared to launch his bid for a record-equalling eighth Wimbledon men's crown.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander swore in former spy chief Dick Schoof as new prime minister Tuesday, at the head of a right-wing coalition cabinet with a mission to implement the country's "strictest-ever" immigration policy.