WORLD

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.

Britons head to the polls Thursday in a general election widely expected to emphatically return the opposition Labour party to power and end nearly a decade-and-a-half of Conservative rule.

A magistrate Wednesday charged prominent film director Benoit Jacquot for allegedly raping actors Julia Roy and Isild Le Besco, prosecutors said, in a high-profile MeToo case that has rocked France.

The Hamas militant group said Wednesday it has sent new "ideas" to Qatari mediators aimed at ending the nearly nine-month Gaza war with Israel.

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.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled southern Gaza since Israel issued an evacuation order, amid fears of a new offensive in the area which came under Israeli bombardment on Wednesday.

It may not look like much -- just a flaking image of three people around a big red pig.

The US trade gap grew slightly less than expected in May, to the widest level since late 2022, government data showed on Wednesday, as exports and imports both slipped.

Hindu preacher Bhole Baba promised to improve the lives of poor Indian families struggling to get by.

The leaders of Russia and China were in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a regional summit, seeking to harden anti-Western alliances and press their influence in the strategic Central Asian region.

Investigators in Germany and Sweden on Wednesday arrested eight suspects allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government over alleged participation in crimes against humanity in Syria, prosecutors said.

France's prime minister on Wednesday urged voters to form a united front to block the far right in legislative elections, warning the anti-immigration party of Marine Le Pen was the only faction capable of winning an absolute majority.

Russia said Wednesday its forces had captured a district in the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow has been pressing for months.

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

The far-right National Rally (RN) is the only party capable of winning an absolute majority in France's legislative elections, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said Wednesday, urging voters to block their rise to power.

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.

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.

Japan's top court ruled on Wednesday that a defunct eugenics law under which thousands of people were forcibly sterilised between 1948 and 1996 was unconstitutional, local media reported.

Between the orange trunks of the acacia trees in the Chad savannah, a herd of elephants move through Zah Soo National Park, under the watchful eye of one of the only humans allowed to witness the scene.

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.

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.

Iranians will vote on Friday in a presidential runoff pitting the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian against ultraconservative anti-Western former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

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.

Survivors of India's deadliest stampede in over a decade on Wednesday recalled the horror of being crushed at a vastly overcrowded Hindu religious gathering that left 116 people dead.

Britain looks likely to see a change of government this week, swinging leftwards back to the centre ground and the Labour party after 14 years of right-wing Conservative rule.

Garry Conille, a medical doctor by training who once briefly served as Haiti's prime minister, says he never hesitated to return home to take up the post once again.

Robert Towne, the Hollywood writer whose "Chinatown" script is often described as the greatest screenplay ever written, has died at 89.

The Acropolis in Athens, one of the world's most visited ancient monuments, has begun offering private visits for 5,000 euros ($5,400), setting off protests from the site's guards.

Haiti's leaders face a high-stakes balancing act as Kenyan forces arrive in the violence-wracked country, where security is desperately needed and the new, unelected government must also win over ordinary Haitians.