Chinese President Xi Jinping called for further cooperation with Italy on Monday at a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, saying the two countries were the ends of the historical Silk Road trade route.

Meloni pulled Italy out of China's Belt and Road Initiative — whose name refers to the ancient overland trade route — in December, but signed an agreement Sunday that provides a new path for the two countries to cooperate on trade and other issues.

Russian forces have overrun two front-line villages, a Ukrainian army sergeant said Monday, after relentless assaults that are part of a Kremlin summer push to overwhelm battlefield defenses in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

"They pressed non-stop" to capture the villages of Vovche and Prohres, the chief sergeant of Ukraine's 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade told Radio Svaboda. "They sent in a large number of troops, which had not previously been used." His name was not given for security reasons.

Hezbollah has started moving precision-guided missiles as Israel threatens to launch an attack on Lebanon following the weekend strike that killed 12 children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

An official with the Lebanese group told The Associated Press that Hezbollah’s stance has not changed and that the Iran-backed group does not want a full-blown war with Israel, but if war breaks out it will fight without limits.

Concerns about the water quality in the Seine River led officials to call off the swimming portion of an Olympic triathlon training session for a second straight day Monday.

Organizers overseeing the event at the Paris Games are optimistic that triathletes will be able to swim in the city's famed waterway when the competition starts Tuesday.

Yazan Al Bawwab's refugee father never reached his goal to become an Olympic swimmer. He had to leave Palestine at 18, bouncing around Europe and the Middle East, even selling tomatoes in Italy at one point to get by.

Eventually opening a furniture business in Dubai, Rashad Al Bawwab made sure his son Yazan had time and training to swim to accomplish what he never could. But work kept the father from traveling to Paris to see his son's last Olympic race.

Warm morning light reflects from the remains of a natural rock arch near Darwin Island, one of the most remote islands in the Galapagos. In clear, deep blue water, thousands of creatures — fish, hammerhead sharks, marine iguanas — move in search of food.

The 2021 collapse of Darwin's Arch, named for the famed British naturalist behind the theory of evolution, came from natural erosion. But its demise underscored the fragility of a far-flung archipelago that's coming under increased pressure both from climate change and invasive species.

More than 5,000 people isolated by flooding in northwest North Korea were rescued in airlifts and other evacuation work supervised by leader Kim Jong Un, state media reported Monday.

Heavy rainfall on Saturday had caused a river on the North Korean-Chinese border to exceed a dangerous level and created "a grave crisis," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

Firefighters made progress and were aided by improving weather Sunday in the battle against wildfires covering massive areas and leaving a trail of damage in the western United States, but further evacuations and resources have been necessary as thousands of personnel tackle the flames.

The so-called Park Fire, the largest wildfire in California this year, was one of more than 100 blazes burning in the U.S. on Sunday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were sparked by the weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the western U.S. endures blistering heat and bone-dry conditions.

Officials from Egypt and Hamas said Monday that mediators negotiating a Gaza cease-fire deal were still working to iron out sticking points.

The officials, who have direct knowledge of the negotiations, said the contentious points include Israeli demands to maintain a presence in a strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi corridor, as well as along a highway separating Gaza’s south and north.

Osama Siblani's phone won't stop ringing.

Just days after President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, top officials from both major political parties have been asking the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News if Harris can regain the support of the nation's largest Muslim population located in metro Detroit.