WORLD NEWS

In Costa Rica, election officials are encouraging those infected with the coronavirus to skip voting in upcoming national elections.

Daily new coronavirus infections in Russia have reached an all-time high and authorities are blaming the highly contagious omicron variant, which they expect to soon dominate the country’s outbreak.

A top U.N. official says that the Islamic extremist insurgency in northeast Nigeria is a “very, very dangerous (and) very threatening” crisis that needs more than $1 billion in aid in 2022 to assist those hit by the decade-long conflict.

The Biden administration has announced policy changes to attract international students specializing in science, technology, engineering and math.

Ministers from European Union nations under pressure from unauthorized migration are asking for more action to strengthen and protect the bloc’s external borders as well as for regulations to return migrants to their homelands.

China has criticized Washington for imposing sanctions on Chinese companies accused of exporting missile technology, and accused the United States of hypocrisy for selling nuclear-capable cruise missiles.

Pope Francis is vowing to provide justice to victims of clergy sexual abuse after an independent audit faulted retired Pope Benedict XVI for having botched four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is testing the country's commitment to tolerance and rehabilitation.

Top U.S. and Russian diplomats agreed to keep talking in the standoff over Ukraine, even though their meeting produced no movement in the crisis that has seen Moscow mass tens of thousands of troops at the border and the West ramp up supplies of weapons to Kyiv.

Dozens of former guests from New Zealand, Australia, the U.S. and elsewhere are raising money to help the owners of the Ha’atafu Beach Resort in Tonga after it was destroyed by a tsunami.

For Boris Johnson, facts have always been flexible.

Members of the Islamic State group have launched two sophisticated, deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq, including an attempt to break into a prison where suspected extremists are being held by U.S.-backed fighters.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro says he has spoken by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin about cooperation between the two countries.

Trying to defuse large protests by environmentalists, Serbia’s populist government said Thursday that it was canceling all licenses for mining giant Rio Tinto to open a lithium mine in the Balkan country.

Cuban courts have wrapped up the hearing phase of six mass trials for people accused of involvement in the largest and most unruly protests on the island in decades.

The U.S. Treasury Department says it's levying new sanctions against four Ukrainian officials, including two current members of parliament who administration officials say are part of a Russian influence effort to set the pretext for further invasion of Ukraine.

U_S_ Secretary of State Antony Blinken says talks with Iran over its nuclear program are at a “decisive moment.”.

Portugal’s government is under fire over its preparations for people infected with COVID-19 to vote in an upcoming snap election.

Officials in Liberia say that at least 29 people in Liberia, including 11 children and a pregnant woman, have died in a stampede of worshippers at a Christian ceremony in a densely populated area of the capital, Monrovia.

Germany’s health minister expects the number of coronavirus infections in the country to keep rising for several weeks reaching hundreds of thousands of cases a day.

Russia has announced sweeping naval drills in several parts of the world this month, and claims the West is plotting “provocations” in neighboring Ukraine where the Kremlin has been accused of planning aggressive military action.

A British man who held four people hostage in a Texas synagogue ranted against Jews and American wars in countries like Afghanistan as his brother pleaded with him to give up and free the captives.

As the massive undersea Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Saturday, Tongans from around the world gazed on as their relatives livestreamed images of the billowing clouds of ash, gas and steam emerged from beneath the depths.

Austria’s parliament has voted to introduce a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for adults from Feb. 1, the first of its kind in Europe.