Palestinians reported another widespread outage of internet and phone service in Gaza early Wednesday, hours after Israeli airstrikes leveled apartment buildings near Gaza City and as ground troops battled Hamas militants inside the besieged territory.

Humanitarian aid agencies have warned that such blackouts severely disrupt their work in an already dire situation in Gaza, where more than half of the population of 2.3 million Palestinians has been displaced and basic supplies are running low more than three weeks into the war triggered by Hamas' bloody Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israel.

The human rights group Amnesty International has said that civilians in southern Lebanon were injured this month when Israeli forces hit a border village with shells containing white phosphorus, a controversial incendiary munition.

The organization said it verified three other instances of Israel's military dropping white phosphorus on Lebanese border areas in the past month, but Amnesty said it did not document any harm to civilians in those cases.

The inflation that has been wearing on European consumers fell sharply to 2.9% in October, its lowest in more than two years as fuel prices fell and rapid interest rate hikes from the European Central Bank took hold.

But that encouraging news was balanced by official figures showing economic output in the 20 countries that use the euro shrank by 0.1% in the July-September quarter.

Pfizer lost more than $2 billion in the third quarter as an expected COVID-19 product sales decline clipped revenue.

Sales of the drugmaker's COVID treatment Paxlovid and the vaccine Comirnaty slid 97% and 70%, respectively, as Pfizer, like its competitors, switched to selling on the commercial market instead of to governments.

The heir to the Spanish throne, Princess Leonor, swore allegiance to her country's Constitution on her 18th birthday Tuesday, laying the groundwork for her eventual succession as queen when the time comes.

The nationally televised ceremony in the lower house of parliament is understood to symbolize the continuity of Spain's parliamentary monarchy and the institution's allegiance to the chamber.

Saudi Arabia is all but certain to host the men's 2034 World Cup after the Australian football federation decided not to enter the bidding contest, which had been widely seen as shaped by FIFA to suit the oil rich kingdom.

FIFA had set Tuesday as the deadline to formally declare interest in hosting the tournament, but Australia's decision not to enter the race leaves Saudi Arabia as the only declared candidate — to the dismay of many human rights activists.

In a little more than five years – sometime in early 2029 – the world will likely be unable to stay below the internationally agreed temperature limit for global warming if it continues to burn fossil fuels at its current rate, a new study says.

The study moves three years closer the date when the world will eventually hit a critical climate threshold, which is an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1800s.

A wildfire is suspected to have killed a man, destroyed more than 50 homes and razed 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) of farm and scrubland in eastern Australia, authorities said on Tuesday.

Firefighters have been battling the blaze that has scorched the Queensland state town of Tara for more than a week.

U.N investigators on Tuesday urged Russia to acknowledge responsibility for a missile strike on a Ukrainian village that killed 59 civilians, conduct a transparent investigation into what happened, provide reparations for victims and hold those responsible to account.

The strike on a cafe in the village of Hroza on Oct. 5 was one of the deadliest strikes since the Kremlin's forces launched a full-scale invasion 20 months ago. Whole families perished while attending a wake for a local soldier who died fighting Russian troops. The blast killed 36 women, 22 men and an 8-year-old boy. Numerous bodies were found torn to pieces, and it took nearly a week to identify all the dead.

Cyprus is working out with partners in the European Union and the Middle East the logistics to establish a sea corridor to deliver a stream of vital humanitarian aid to Gaza from the island's main port of Limassol once the situation on the ground permits it, authorities said Tuesday.

A senior government official — who spoke on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to publicly discuss details of the proposal — said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "wasn't opposed" to the idea pitched by Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides last week.