AFP news

Sydney was elevated on Monday to the World Marathon Majors, joining the likes of London, New York and Boston at the pinnacle of global distance racing.

Irish budget airline Ryanair reported falling net profit for the second quarter on Monday and revised down its passenger growth target following delays in deliveries of Boeing aircraft.

Eight people went on trial in France on Monday charged with contributing to the climate of hatred that led to an 18-year-old Islamist radical of Chechen origin beheading teacher Samuel Paty outside Paris in 2020.

The European Union on Monday welcomed the re-election of Moldova's pro-European President Maia Sandu, in a tense vote that has laid bare divisions in the former Soviet republic bordering war-torn Ukraine.

Israel formally notified the United Nations of its decision to sever ties with the agency supporting Palestinian refugees, it said Monday, after lawmakers voted to ban the organisation vital to the occupied territories.

Quincy Jones, who has died at the age of 91, was a jazzman, composer and tastemaker whose studio chops and arranging prowess connected the dots between the 20th century's constellation of stars.

Most markets rose Monday as investors steel themselves for a too-close-to-call US presidential election, while Chinese leaders meet to hammer out a stimulus package that experts say could be determined by the vote.

Ukrainian soldier Anton Sushko, severely wounded, thought he was finally safe when he spotted a rescue team after crawling for hours through the battlefield in eastern Ukraine.

Yang Chi'ao takes her place next to gym equipment and waits to be called by an instructor at a weight-loss camp in China, where over half of adults are overweight.

World leaders kick off UN climate talks next week, days after a knife edge US election that could send shockwaves through global efforts to limit dangerous warming.

Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign headed into its final hours.

Donald Trump doubled down Sunday on his baseless predictions of voter fraud in battleground states as he and rival Kamala Harris launched their frantic final 48 hours of campaigning to court the last holdouts in a bitterly contested US election.

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike killed three people near the southern city of Sidon on Sunday as more bombs fell in the country's east after Israel warned it would again hit Hezbollah targets there.

Spain's king and queen are due on Sunday to visit the Valencia region, Spanish media reported, where devastating floods have killed more than 200 people with more rain on the horizon.

Moldovans went to the polls on Sunday in a tense presidential election runoff that could play a key role in the country's European future amid fears of Russian interference.

Jen and Cheska are among hundreds of women who have accused the late Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed of sexual assault and they have told AFP of their "huge anger" that his alleged campaign of abuse and humiliation went unpunished.

The world's biggest nature conservation conference closed in Colombia on Saturday with no agreement on a roadmap to ramp up funding for species protection.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump enter the final weekend of the most tense US presidential campaign of modern times with a flurry of swing-state rallies that will test their stamina -- and ability to persuade the country's last undecided voters.

Israel on Saturday again carried out deadly air strikes on north Gaza, where the UN calls conditions "apocalyptic", as Lebanon's Hezbollah intensified rocket fire near Israel's commercial hub of Tel Aviv, on Israel's second front.

Less than a week before the United States chooses its next president, American citizens living in faraway Israel know exactly who they hope it will be: Republican candidate Donald Trump.

As Palestinian-American entrepreneur Jamal Zaglul stood by his olive press at the end of harvest season in the occupied West Bank, his mind was far away on next week's US election.

Rescuers raised the death toll in Spain's worst floods for a generation to 205 on Friday and fears grew for the dozens missing as hopes of finding survivors faded.

Donald Trump came under fire for violent rhetoric against a prominent Kamala Harris supporter Friday as the candidates held dueling rallies in the battleground of Wisconsin four days before the climax of the most volatile US presidential campaign in modern history.

Indonesia has banned the sale of Google Pixel phones over the tech giant's failure to meet investment regulations, its industry ministry said, days after blocking sales of Apple's iPhone 16.

Global stock markets diverged Friday after tame tech earnings and investor jitters less than a week before a neck-and-neck US presidential election.

US job growth slowed drastically in October, hit temporarily by hurricanes and labor strikes, in a final major economic snapshot at the end of a razor-edge presidential election campaign where cost-of-living worries dominated voter concerns.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris hold dueling campaign rallies Friday in Wisconsin's largest city Milwaukee, as both candidates make frantic last-ditch appeals to wavering voters with Election Day just around the corner.

North Korea will stand by Russia until its victory in Ukraine, Pyongyang's foreign minister said in Moscow Friday, as the US has warned thousands of North Korean troops could be sent to combat in the Ukraine conflict in the coming days.

The World Health Organization said Friday that the necessary second round of child polio vaccinations in northern Gaza would begin on Saturday, after Israeli bombing had halted the drive.