WORLD

The United States paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over fears it would invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, an official said Tuesday, marking the first time in the conflict that President Joe Biden has squeezed military aid to the key US ally.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic reaffirmed his strong support for China's sovereignty over Taiwan Wednesday as he gave a lavish welcome to President Xi Jinping, who is seeking to deepen political and economic ties with friendlier countries in Europe.

Washington is redoubling efforts to disrupt irregular migration, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday at regional talks in Guatemala, as the hot-button issue looms large once again over US elections in November.

Protests by students demanding universities sever ties with Israel over the Gaza war spread across western Europe on Tuesday, sparking clashes and dozens of fresh arrests.

Inflation-battered Argentina on Tuesday introduced a 10,000-peso banknote, worth the equivalent of about $11 -- five times the face value of the previous biggest 2,000-peso bill.

France's ambassador to Moscow on Tuesday represented Paris at the inauguration of President Vladimir Putin for a fifth term, a day after the envoy was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry in a move France denounced as intimidation.

Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the heart of Donald Trump's historic criminal trial, testified Tuesday -- in sometimes explicit detail -- about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with the former president in a hotel penthouse suite.

US President Joe Biden condemned a "ferocious surge" in anti-Semitism on Tuesday, in a Holocaust memorial speech that came at a fraught moment in Israel's war in Gaza and with protests roiling American universities.

A senior British lawmaker said on Tuesday China was probably behind a massive cyberattack on the names and banking details of UK armed forces personnel, prompting a furious denial by Beijing.

Two people were dead and 21 wounded after a man went on a stabbing spree at a hospital in southwest China on Tuesday, local officials said.

The Israeli army said it took "operational control" of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Tuesday and that troops were scanning the area.

Protesters in New York converged near the Met Gala on Monday in a rally against the ongoing war in Gaza, leading to several arrests, police said.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday is to host Chinese leader Xi Jinping at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees mountains, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia's war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade.

US air safety authorities are investigating whether embattled aviation giant Boeing completed required inspections on its 787 aircraft and whether employees falsified records, officials said Monday.

The war in Gaza featured prominently in Monday's Pulitzer Prizes, which included a special citation for journalists covering the Israel-Hamas conflict.

An American soldier was detained in Russia last week on charges of "criminal misconduct," the US Army said Monday.

Columbia University, the epicenter of US student protests against the war in Gaza, on Monday canceled its main graduation ceremony, as colleges seek to contain the demonstrations that have rocked campuses for weeks.

Israel's military on Monday called for the evacuation of Palestinians from eastern Rafah, ahead of a long-threatened ground invasion of the southern Gaza city, the prospect of which has triggered widespread global alarm.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered nuclear weapons drills near Ukraine, Moscow said Monday, in response to "threats" from Western officials to deploy NATO troops to Ukraine.

Relatives of two Australians and an American who disappeared on a surfing trip arrived in Mexico Sunday to identify their presumed bodies, which were found with gunshot wounds to the head, authorities said.

Far-right populist parties are way ahead of their traditional rivals in the race for voter attention on social media, where disinformation is stirring fear and rage around key issues in June's European elections, experts say.

After years of delays, Boeing's Starliner capsule is set to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) Monday, a milestone for the US aerospace giant and NASA. The flight, a final test before Starliner takes up regular service for the space agency, is critical for Boeing, whose reputation has suffered of late due to safety issues with its passenger jets.

Police entered Paris' Sciences Po university on Friday to remove dozens of students staging a pro-Gaza sit-in in the entrance hall, AFP journalists saw, as protests fire political debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The death toll from flood-related incidents in Kenya has crossed 200 since March, the interior ministry said Friday, as a cyclone barrelled towards the Tanzanian coast.

After months of stop-start negotiations, Hamas has sounded an optimistic tone about the latest hostages-for-ceasefire proposal, raising hopes an agreement may soon be reached -- even as medics in the besieged strip reported fresh strikes on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah on Friday.

A rocket carrying the Chang'e-6 lunar probe blasted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China's Hainan province just before 5:30 pm (0930 GMT), AFP journalists near the site said.

Israel's Iron Dome defence system has long shielded it from incoming rockets.

Illegal immigration on the US southern border is a top talking point among Republican politicians, but some are taking it a step further by promoting disinformation about non-citizens voting in the presidential election.

Work has begun in a small Japanese town to erect a barrier blocking views of the country's most famous sight, Mount Fuji, after locals complained of bad behaviour by photo-hungry tourists.