Thousands of teachers, health care workers, trash collectors and others walked off their jobs across Italy on Friday to protest a decline in spending power, persistently low salaries and government policies they say have weakened public services.

Italy's most powerful trade unions called the eight-hour strike and mobilized marches in cities across the country to target Premier Giorgia Meloni's latest budget that they say penalizes schools, health care and other services. They also are pressing for a more equitable distribution of profits from private companies to workers.

A cryptocurrency entrepreneur who bought a piece of conceptual art consisting of a simple banana, duct-taped to a wall, for $6.2 million last week ate the fruit in Hong Kong on Friday.

Chinese-born Justin Sun peeled off the duct tape and enjoyed the banana in a press conference held in The Peninsula Hong Kong, one of the city's priciest hotels, in the popular shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui.

Every Wednesday, retiree Zhang Zhili travels an hour by bus to an education center, drawn by the pulsing rhythms of the African drum she plays there in a classroom filled with fellow retirees whose hands move in unison, every beat lifting her spirits.

Zhang, 71, has found joy and new friends at the "elderly university" in Beijing. Besides African drums, the former primary school teacher joins social dance classes, paying about 2,000 yuan ($280) for two courses this semester. Seeing herself standing tall in dance class boosts her confidence. After class, she hangs out with her friends.

On a bright winter day, workers at a Ukrainian thermal power plant repair its heavily damaged equipment as drops of water from melted snow leak through gaping holes in its battered roof.

Several weeks earlier, the facility was targeted by a Russian air attack that left scorch marks, shrapnel scars on the walls, and missile fragments scattered across the production floor.

Desertion is starving the Ukrainian army of desperately needed manpower and crippling its battle plans at a crucial time in its war with Russia, which could put Kyiv at a clear disadvantage in future ceasefire talks.

Facing every imaginable shortage, tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops, tired and bereft, have walked away from combat and front-line positions to slide into anonymity, according to soldiers, lawyers and Ukrainian officials. Entire units have abandoned their posts, leaving defensive lines vulnerable and accelerating territorial losses, according to military commanders and soldiers.

Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov arrived in North Korea on Friday for talks with North Korean military and political leaders as the countries deepen their cooperation over Russia's war in Ukraine.

In announcing the visit, Russia's Defense Ministry didn't say whom Belousov would meet or the purpose of the talks. North Korean state media didn't immediately confirm the visit.

Five years after a catastrophic fire reduced Notre Dame Cathedral to a smoldering shell, The Associated Press entered the Gothic masterpiece for a first glimpse of its fully restored interiors during a visit with French President Emmanuel Macron that was broadcast to the public. The transformation is nothing short of breathtaking: light dances across brilliant stone, gilded accents gleam anew, and the Gothic icon's majesty is reborn. From Dec. 8, visitors will once again marvel at the cathedral's blend of history and craftsmanship.

Here's a reporter's-eye view:

Two children and a 50-year-old woman were crushed to death Friday as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, medical officials said.

The flow of food allowed into Gaza by Israel has fallen to nearly its lowest level of the almost 14-month-old war for the past two months, according to Israeli official figures. U.N. and aid officials say hunger and desperation are growing among Gaza’s population, almost all of which relies on humanitarian aid to survive.

Hamas claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on an Israeli bus in the occupied West Bank on Friday that wounded eight people, including four soldiers.

It was the latest violence to scar the territory as tensions run high 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war.

In eastern Lebanon's city of Baalbek, the Jawhari family gathered around a gaping crater where their home once stood, tears streaming as they tried to make sense of the destruction.

"It is heart-breaking. A heartache that there is no way we will ever recover from," said Lina Jawhari, her voice breaking as she hugged relatives who came to support the family. "Our world turned upside down in a second."