Intense Israeli airstrikes are pounding the capitals of Iran and Lebanon as the U.S. apparently struck an Iranian drone carrier at sea, intensifying its campaign targeting the Islamic Republic’s fleet of warships.

The United Nations political chief says demand for critical minerals that power technology from smartphones to missiles could triple by 2030 and quadruple by 2040.

The legal team for Hong Kong pro-democracy ex-publisher Jimmy Lai says he will not appeal the national security conviction for which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Trump administration in recent weeks has taken forceful steps in one Latin American country after another aimed at curbing the influence and economic dominance of China.

The State Department says the United States and Venezuela have agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations in a major shift in a historically adversarial relationship.

President Donald Trump's administration is trying to explain why it struck Iran and killed its supreme leader without clear support from Congress or allies.

The Oscar race has tightened after surprise wins at the Actor Awards, and Associated Press Film Writers Lindsey Bahr and Jake Coyle say the top prizes now look less settled.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is urging Latin American countries to take a more aggressive approach against drug cartels.

Israel has ordered residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate, and the move sets off panic and gridlock across the Lebanese capital.

Swaths of Cuba remain without power nearly a day after a massive blackout hit the western part of the island in the latest outage blamed on a fragile electric grid and a lack of fuel.

Azerbaijan has accused Iran of a drone attack on its territory, a development that signaled the war in the Middle East was spreading.

Officials in New Delhi say that an Iranian warship that was sunk by a U.S. submarine near Sri Lanka had participated in naval exercises hosted by India before heading out into international waters in the Indian Ocean on its way home.

For years, Iran’s theocratic government warned it would blanket the Middle East with missile and drone fire if it felt its existence was threatened.

UEFA says it still plans for Qatar to stage the Argentina vs.

Czech lawmakers have rejected a motion to lift Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’ immunity so prosecutors can press a fraud case.

The Iran women’s soccer team has sung and saluted as its national anthem played ahead of the Women’s Asian Cup contest against Australia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the United States and its allies in the Middle East are seeking Ukraine’s expertise in countering Iran’s Shahed drones.

Denmark is debating whether top-level cooking counts as art, and the country’s most theatrical restaurants sit at the center of it.

House lawmakers on Thursday rejected a war powers resolution to halt Trump’s attack on Iran, a day after the Senate voted down a similar measure.

U.S. President Donald Trump says he should be involved in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader.

The House has narrowly rejected a resolution that would curb President Donald Trump’s powers in the Iran war.

Punch the baby orphan macaque is outgrowing the orangutan plushie that comforted him through early rejection from his mother and other monkeys.

The war with Iran is disrupting oil and LNG shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global energy trade, sending prices higher and threatening global growth.

A Pakistani man charged with plotting a political assassination in the U.S. is testifying in his defense at his attempted terrorism trial.

Honduras' new leader was elected with the President Donald Trump's backing and has now ordered a review of economic agreements with China.

Nepal held its first nationwide election since a youth-led uprising forces the last government from power.

China has set an economic growth target of 4.5% to 5% for this year, a slight decrease in the face of a prolonged property slump and other headwinds and global uncertainty.

U.S. stocks sank after the price of oil spiked to its highest level since 2024.

The U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran has stranded hundreds of thousands of travelers amid flight cancellations and airspace closures.

American Airlines received approval Wednesday to become the first U.S. airline to resume flights to Venezuela.

Florida’s attorney general says Florida has reopened a criminal investigation into former Cuban leader Raul Castro’s role in the 1996 shootdown of exile planes.

A mine collapse at Congo’s key Rubaya coltan site has killed a number of miners.

Google will lower the lucrative fees imposed on its Android app store and offer a way for rival options to gain its stamp of approval, ending a bruising legal battle that led to one of several rulings condemning its tactics as an illegal monopoly.

Ten horses — five black, five white — entered the sand ring first.

Kurdish Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq are preparing for a potential cross-border military operation in Iran, and the U.S. has asked Iraqi Kurds to support them, Kurdish officials have told The Associated Press.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is meeting Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez as the Trump administration pushes to shape the country's oil and mineral sector.

A blackout has left millions of people without power in Havana and the rest of western Cuba in the latest outage on an island struggling with dwindling oil reserves and a crumbling electric grid.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hosted Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó for talks in Moscow.

An independent researcher has asserted that a marble bust of Christ in a Roman church is by Michelangelo.

Apple CEO Tim Cook promised a “big week” of product announcements including the introduction of a new budget-friendly iPhone 17e, a new entry-level MacBook Neo, updated iPad Air models, refreshed monitors and higher-end chipsets.

A new study in the journal Nature says most sea level rise research may have underestimated coastal water heights by an average of 1 foot or about 30 centimeters.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. is quickly gaining air superiority over Iran but the U.S. can't stop all air attacks.

British rapper Ghetts has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for killing a 20-year-old Nepali student in a hit-and-run in London last year.

Sri Lanka’s navy has recovered 87 bodies and rescued 32 people after an Iranian warship was sunk by a U.S. submarine in international waters near the island.

Libyan authorities say a Russian-flagged tanker carrying liquefied natural gas exploded and erupted in flames before sinking in the Mediterranean Sea off the North African country's coast.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to mediate for a new ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Governments around the world are rushing to organize the return of their citizens from the Middle East on Wednesday and air traffic seems to be picking up slightly as travel across the region remains heavily disrupted by the widening Iran war.

Spain’s foreign minister has denied that the government has changed its position on supporting the U.S. military operations against Iran.

Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, long has been considered a contender to the post of the country’s next paramount ruler — even before his father's death though he’s never being elected nor appointed to a government position.

Soccer player Sara Didar has expressed the national team's concern for their families and all Iranians amid the war back home while they're in Australia competing in the Women's Asian Cup.

The U.S. and Israel’s joint war against Iran has already upended travel across the Middle East, stranding hundreds of thousands of people.

Senate Republicans have voted down an effort to halt President Donald Trump’s war against Iran.

A widening U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has seen major strikes, missile fire across the region, and fresh fears for global energy and markets.

Iran is launching more missiles at Israel as attacks in the Middle East commence for a sixth day.

An operations center targeted by an Iranian drone strike that killed six American soldiers was located in a civilian port in Kuwait, more than 10 miles away from the main Army base.

The U.S. stock market rebounded after oil prices stopped spiking and reports gave encouraging updates on the economy.

With 100 days to go until the World Cup, the Iran war has added a new layer of complexity to the tournament co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Questions are mounting at the U.S. Capitol over the Trump administration’s shifting rationale for going to war with Iran.

President Donald Trump says “someone from within” the Iranian regime might be the best choice to take power once the U.S.-Israel military campaign is completed.

Jonathan Anderson fall-winter 2026 collection for Dior at the Paris Fashion Week has invoked an Impressionist painting, steeped in flowers, water and the art of being seen.

In the military-heavy communities surrounding Fort Campbell, the war in Iran is on a lot of people's minds.

Anthropic’s moral stand on U.S. military use of artificial intelligence is reshaping the competition between leading AI companies but also exposing a growing awareness that maybe chatbots just aren’t capable enough for acts of war.

President Donald Trump is threatening to cut off trade with Spain.

The largest U.S. diplomatic drawdown in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq War is creating an apparently unplanned for crisis for the Trump administration.

If the adage “geography is destiny” holds true, then Cyprus should be a prime candidate as its poster child.

Jon Rahm is claiming the European tour is extorting players from LIV Golf by making them play extra tournaments if they want to regain membership.

Iranian drone strikes damaged three Amazon Web Services sites in the Middle East, exposing how vulnerable cloud data centers are in conflict.

The killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in joint U.S.-Israeli strikes has sparked anger across Shiite communities worldwide and is raising fears of wider unrest.

France is moving to tie its nuclear deterrent strategy more closely with European allies while keeping full control over any strike decision.

Tens of thousands of airline passengers are stranded by the Iran war that has spread across the Gulf region, but some wealthy travelers are getting out — by paying large sums for luxury flights to Europe via airports that are safe from attacks.

A Russian court has banned a prominent LGBTQ+ rights group and has labeled it as extremist in the latest step in the country’s crackdown on the community.

The medical charity Doctors Without Doctors says 26 staff working with the group remain unaccounted for a month after attacks in South Sudan.

The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight in the U.S. And drivers in Europe waited in line to fill their tanks with fuel.

The U.S.-Israel war on Iran has fueled a disagreement between U.S. President Donald Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Israel has sent troops into southern Lebanon and told residents of more than 80 villages to evacuate as the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group said it was ready for an “open war” with Israel in the wake of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Travelers are scrambling for ways out of the Middle East as the Iran war keeps much of the region’s airspace closed and flights grounded.

Britain’s Treasury chief Rachel Reeves has sought to present a rosy picture of the state of the U.K. economy, even as oil and gas prices soared in the wake of the fast-evolving Iran war that has cast a pall over the global economic outlook.

Pakistan says that Afghan forces have attacked Pakistani military positions along the border, triggering intense clashes that left 67 Afghan troops and one Pakistani soldier dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has steered his country along two pillars of foreign policy throughout his political career.

U.S. President Donald Trump says “someone from within” Iran’s government might be best suited to take power once the U.S.-Israeli war on the country ends.

Israel stepped up airstrikes on Iranian missile launchers and a nuclear research site, and Iran retaliated against Israel and across the Gulf region, disrupting energy supplies and travel.

A crocodile has been caught in an Australian creek on the temperate east coast far from the species' tropical habitat.

A sell-off for stocks wrapped around the world and hit Wall Street, while oil prices climbed even higher on worries about the widening war with Iran.

China’s progress in building a modern economy, evident in its kung-fu fighting robots and self-parking cars, is hitting limits as a downturn in its housing industry drags on and young people struggle to find jobs.

The leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has been buried in a shiny golden casket with enormous flower wreaths and a large military presence in the state that gave name to one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels.

Many in the Iranian American diaspora spent the weekend glued to their TVs, watching news of U.S. and Israeli bombs falling on Iran, some hoping for a brighter future for their homeland but terrified relatives would suffer harm.

The Trump administration took more than 48 hours to make any live, public communication with the American people about why it had decided to go to war with Iran.

The Associated Press is referring to fighting between Iran and the United States and Israel as the “Iran war.”.

President Donald Trump is pushing back on criticism that he hasn’t done enough to explain why it was necessary to start a war with Iran now or to articulate his vision for an endgame to the escalating conflict.

Haiti’s government has opened a 10-day registration period for political parties to run in an upcoming general election.

The distinctive buzz of the Iranian-designed drones has become a familiar sound in Ukraine over the past four years.

U.S. first lady Melania Trump is presiding over a U.N. Security Council meeting that will focus on children in conflict, one of her signature issues.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel says his government should “immediately” focus on implementing urgent transformations to the island’s economic and social model as oil reserves in the Caribbean country dwindle.

President Donald Trump says he was not pleased with the way that negotiations with Iran were proceeding.

Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lewis Hamilton are among the sports stars whose schedules are in doubt because of the spreading war in the Middle East.

In a story published March 2, 2026, about the European response to the Iran war, The Associated Press erroneously reported that NATO troops deployed for 20 years to Afghanistan.

Iran’s place at the men’s soccer World Cup in three months has been put in doubt amid an escalating Middle East conflict sparked by tournament co-host the United States.

Iran’s leaders are scrambling to replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the country for 37 years before he was killed in the surprise U.S. and Israeli bombardment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says U.S.-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine expected later this week may take place in Switzerland or Turkey if a planned meeting in Abu Dhabi is not possible due to the war in the Middle East.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has spoken to widening concerns the U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran could spiral into a protracted regional conflict by declaring: “This is not Iraq.