WORLD

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.

A US judge on Thursday pushed against the central pleas of both US government and Google lawyers as he heard their closing arguments at a landmark antitrust trial in Washington.

Dozens of overturned tents, "Free Palestine" signs strewn on the lawn, keffiyehs and flashlights discarded in haste: not much of the pro-Palestinian protest encampment was left Thursday morning at the University of California, Los Angeles.

President Joe Biden broke his virtual silence Thursday on the nationwide Gaza campus protests, saying the United States was not authoritarian but insisting "order must prevail."

The Gaza Strip is filled with more war debris and rubble than Ukraine, the head of UN demining operations for the narrow Palestinian territory said Wednesday.

Wearing a bulletproof vest and with a gun strapped to his waist, Constable Lennie McCloskey opens his folder and looks through the court orders: eleven evictions to be carried out today.

Police tore down a protest encampment at the University of Texas on Wednesday, arresting more than a dozen people, as unrest over Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza simmered on US campuses.

A Ukrainian man was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison in Texas on Wednesday for his role in ransomware attacks by the notorious Russia-based REvil hacking group, the US Justice Department said.

Five people were killed Wednesday as Russia struck Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, local officials said.

A Saudi court's decision to sentence fitness influencer Manahel al-Otaibi to 11 years in prison highlights what activists describe as a fierce crackdown on even vaguely critical online speech.

Clashes broke out on Wednesday at pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, as dozens of universities around the United States struggle to contain similar protests.

When Nepal suddenly announced a ban on TikTok last year, lawyer Sunil Rajan Singh was determined to fight what he said was a government effort to hide its wrongdoings.

Eruptions at a remote Indonesian volcano forced more than half a dozen airports to close with ash spreading as far as Malaysia, officials said Wednesday, while authorities rushed to evacuate thousands due to tsunami fears.

The oil industry's public relations strategy has evolved from climate science denial to "disinformation and doublespeak" to counter meaningful environmental policies, US congressional Democrats said in a report Tuesday.