A Ukrainian drone attack Friday on the Russian border region of Belgorod killed two people, the Russian regional governor said.

The outskirts of a village in the region "was attacked by the Ukrainian armed forces using three kamikaze drones. As a result of the explosions, two people were killed and a third man was serious wounded," Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a post on Telegram.

The U.N. human rights office says in a report published Friday that the establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem amount to a war crime.

The report covers the one-year period from Nov. 1, 2022, to Oct. 31, 2023, when it says roughly 24,300 housing units in existing settlements in the West Bank were "advanced" — the highest number in a year since monitoring began in 2017. It deplored an increase in the building of new settlement homes in recent months.

It's not just Israeli bombs that have killed children in war-ravaged Gaza — now some are dying of hunger too.

Officials have long warned over the risk of famine in the Palestinian territory that's been under Israel's bombardment, offensives and siege for the past five months.

Over 230 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation, most of whom live in Africa, according to a report issued on Friday by the United Nations children's agency.

In the last eight years, some 30 million people have undergone the procedure, in which external genitalia are partially or fully removed, UNICEF estimated in the report, which was released on International Women's Day.

A ship was preparing Friday to leave Cyprus and head for Gaza with humanitarian aid, the European Commission president said, as international donors launch a sea corridor to supply the besieged territory facing widespread hunger and shortages of essential supplies after five months of war.

The vessel, belonging to Spain's Open Arms, will make a pilot voyage to test the corridor, Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Cyprus, where she's inspecting preparations for the sea corridor. The ship has been waiting at Cyprus's port of Larnaca for permission to deliver food aid from World Central Kitchen, a U.S. charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés.

By Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College

(THE CONVERSATION) In October 2022, Lebanon and Israel signed a maritime border agreement brokered by the U.S., a move interpreted as the beginning of normalizing relations between two countries technically at war.

A report by an independent research organization in The Netherlands confirmed that Israeli tank fire killed a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists in southern Lebanon last October.

The journalists were covering cross-border clashes between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israeli forces on Oct. 13, just days after the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, when an Israeli tank shell landed among them.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivered a defiant argument for a second term in his State of the Union speech Thursday night, lacing into GOP front-runner Donald Trump for espousing "resentment, revenge and retribution" and for jeopardizing freedom at home and abroad.

U.S. President Joe Biden Biden said overnight that the U.S. military will help establish a temporary pier on the coast of Gaza as a way to boost the delivery of aid for Palestinians trapped in the besieged territory by the Israel-Hamas war.

He unveiled the plan during his State of the Union address to Congress. The move comes after Biden last week approved the U.S. military airdropping aid into Gaza.

Paul Simon's latest honor places him among public figures well outside the music industry. He is this year's winner of PEN America's PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, which previously has been given to former President Barack Obama, the late Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and Stephen King among others.

The 82-year-old Simon is known for such classic songs as "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "The Sound of Silence" and for his globe-spanning musical tastes, from Brazil to South Africa to his native New York City. Later this month, he will be featured in the MGM+ docuseries "In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon."