WORLD

Cold weather, disease and capacity cuts pushed wine production in France's Bordeaux region last year to a low not seen in three-and-a-half decades, the local industry body said Friday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that a Russian drone had struck a cover built to contain radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, adding that radiation levels were normal.

The vice president said the U.S. is considering its options for the talks between Trump and Putin, including sanctions and "military tools."

The drone strike caused a fire on the protective shell above the crippled reactor but no radiation was believed to have leaked.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was on "high alert" after a drone hit the reactor's protective shell.

The trial of Spain's former football chief Luis Rubiales over the forced kiss he gave star forward Jenni Hermoso wrapped up Friday, with a verdict expected in several weeks.

In a desolate area of Syria where Lebanese militant group Hezbollah once held sway, security forces shot open the gates to an abandoned building and found a defunct drug factory.

At a scam compound in Myanmar, Filipina worker Pieta had just days to romance strangers online and trick them into investing in a fake business -- failing which she would be beaten or tortured with electric shocks.

Three years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many who fled the conflict are returning home due to financial hardship in their host countries, the Red Cross said Friday.

The Japanese government said Friday it will release a fifth of its emergency rice stockpile after hot weather, poor harvests and panic buying over a "megaquake" warning nearly doubled prices over a year.

An Indonesian court has handed lengthy prison terms to poachers who killed dozens of rare Javan rhinos, court rulings seen by AFP Friday showed, drawing praise from conservationists who said it would help deter lucrative wildlife crime.

Two teenage figure skaters who died in the Washington plane crash that killed 67 people were poignantly remembered this week at the Asian Winter Games in China's Harbin.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet US Vice President JD Vance in Germany on Friday with a warning against trusting Russia's Vladimir Putin, as concerns mount in Kyiv and among its European allies that the Ukraine war will be settled over their heads.

From George Clooney to LeBron James, American celebrities have cashed in on tequila's soaring popularity.

In a century-old building in Tehran, Saeed Anvarinejad turned the dial of a vintage radio to tune into some of Iran's earliest recorded sounds, some serving as reminders of the seismic changes that shaped the country's history.

Donald Trump unveiled an extraordinary vision of a shake-up to the world order Thursday, eyeing a three-way summit with the Russian and Chinese leaders just a day after saying he had agreed with Vladimir Putin to start Ukraine peace talks.

It acknowledged that watchdog Financial Conduct Authority is examining whether the bank's UK division had broken any laws by being too lax

On Ecuador's lawless southwest coast, drug gangs operate with impunity and terrified residents ask if their president's "iron fist" security policies are just words.

Lebanon's parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri said on Thursday that Beirut rejected Israel's demand to remain in five southern locations after a February 18 deadline for fully implementing a ceasefire deal.

Mexico on Thursday threatened to sue Google over its changing the Gulf of Mexico's name to "Gulf of America" for Maps users in the United States to comply with President Donald Trump's executive order.

Recent diplomatic efforts by President Donald Trump to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine have drawn comparisons to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany in the late 1930s.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Thursday that the European Union was working toward swiftly easing Syria sanctions as Paris hosted a conference on the transition in the war-torn country after president Bashar al-Assad's fall.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been largely shunned by the West since his troops attacked Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. That era of isolation came to an abrupt end on Wednesday, when US President Donald Trump picked up the phone.

Hegseth said Europe needs to increase defense spending and take a primary role in its own defense.

In eastern Ukraine, the battleground of ferocious fighting against Russian troops, the spectre of US President Donald Trump forcing a halt to the war has injected new worries among exhausted and outgunned Ukrainian servicemen.

The American was not identified. Their release comes a day after Marc Fogel, an American teacher, was released by Russia.

President Donald Trump announced "reciprocal tariffs" in the early morning on his social media platform, Truth Social.

An Afghan asylum seeker was arrested after a suspected car ramming attack injured at least 28 people in the southern German city of Munich on Thursday, police said.

While NATO countries living near the Russian border pay well over two percent of their GDP on defence, those further away pay less.