Israel launched heavy strikes across central and southern Gaza overnight and into Wednesday after broadening its offensive against Hamas to more areas where the military had told Palestinians to seek shelter earlier in the war.

Residents reported heavy bombing in the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, in the southern city of Khan Younis and in the southern town of Rafah, areas where tens of thousands have sought refuge as much of northern Gaza was pounded to rubble.

Pope Francis has blasted the weapons industry and its "instruments of death" that fuel wars as he made a Christmas Day appeal for peace in the world and in particular between Israel and the Palestinians.

Speaking from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica to the throngs of people below, Francis said he grieved the "abominable attack" of Hamas against southern Israel on Oct. 7 and called for the release of hostages. And he begged for an end to Israel's military campaign in Gaza and the "appalling harvest of innocent civilians" as he called for humanitarian aid to reach those in need.

Wall Street inched modestly higher in holiday-thinned trading Tuesday, while Asian markets mostly advanced and European markets remained closed.

Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.1% before the bell and futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose less than 0.1% to kick off what's expected to be a quiet, holiday-shortened week of trading.

She's an important figure behind today's artificial intelligence boom, but not all computer scientists thought Fei-Fei Li was on the right track when she came up with the idea for a giant visual database called ImageNet that took years to build.

We lost Twitter and got X. We tried out Bluesky and Mastodon (well, some of us did). We fretted about AI bots and teen mental health. We cocooned in private chats and scrolled endlessly as we did in years past. For social media users, 2023 was a year of beginnings and endings, with some soul-searching in between.

Here's a look back some of the biggest stories in social media in 2023 — and what to watch for next year:

Firefighters and volunteers worked to reinforce dikes against rising floodwaters in northern and eastern Germany as heavy rains falling on already soaked ground pushed rivers and streams over their banks and forced several towns to evacuate residents.

The city of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony deployed an artificial dike — a long tube filled with water from the rising river — to protect its downtown area, while several hundred residents of Windehausen in the Thuringia region were told to leave their homes as the town lost power, the dpa news agency reported.

British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe has finally got his hands on Manchester United after securing a stake of up to 25% in the Premier League club.

Ratcliffe's interest in sports — and football in particular — is long-standing. The 71-year-old owner of petrochemicals giant has been a United fan since childhood, and supporters will like his stated ambitions.

FIFA warned Brazil on Sunday it could suspend its national teams and clubs from international competitions if an intervention by its football body leads to the election of a new president in January.

FIFA said in a letter to a Brazilian football executive that the country's football body CBF could face suspension if it does not heed its call to wait and instead holds a swift election to replace Ednaldo Rodrigues as president regardless. The document was obtained by The Associated Press.

Explosions were heard off the coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, state-linked media said, with witnesses reporting that they saw something fall into the Gulf of Aqaba.

Al Qahera News television, which has links to state intelligence, said the blasts occurred about two kilometers from the Egyptian seaside town of Dahab.

Shares advanced in Asia on Tuesday in holiday-thinned trading, while European markets remained closed for holidays.

The future for the S&P 500 was 0.2% higher and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1%. Oil prices edged higher.