Global stock markets and Wall Street futures rose Friday ahead of a U.S. jobs market update after Federal Reserve officials reignited hopes that another interest rate hike might be postponed.
London and Paris opened up more than 1%. Hong Kong surged 4% after U.S. lawmakers approved a deal to avert a government debt default. Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul also advanced.

At the height of the Islamic State group's rampage across Syria, the world watched in horror as the militants blew up an iconic arch and temple in the country's famed Roman ruins in Palmyra.
Eight years later, IS has lost its hold but restoration work on the site has been held up by security issues, leftover IS land mines and lack of funding.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that there can be no cease-fire in the war in Ukraine unless it is part of a "just and lasting" peace deal that includes Russia's military withdrawal.
Blinken said that "a cease-fire that simply freezes current lines in place — and enables Putin to consolidate control over the territory he has seized, and rest, rearm, and reattack — that is not a just and lasting peace."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a populist with increasingly authoritarian tendencies, is scheduled to take the oath of office and start his third presidential term Saturday following his latest election win.
Erdogan, who has led Turkey as prime minister or president for 20 years, prevailed in a runoff race last weekend despite the country's ongoing economic crisis and his government's criticized response to a February earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people.

Prominent members of German mainstream parties have expressed alarm at a new poll that shows support for the far-right Alternative for Germany at a record high.
The DeutschlandTrend survey, conducted monthly by infratest dimap for public broadcaster ARD, that was released on Thursday puts voter support for Alternative for Germany at 18%, on a par with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats. In the 2021 election, Scholz's party received 25.7% of the vote, while Alternative for Germany, or AfD, got 10.3%.

China's Ukraine envoy appealed Friday to other governments to "stop sending weapons to the battlefield" and hold peace talks but gave no indication that his trip to the region made any progress toward a settlement.
Li Hui's appeal came as Washington and its European allies are ramping up supplies of missiles, tanks and other weapons to Ukrainian forces that are trying to take back Russian-occupied territory.

President Joe Biden quipped that he got "sandbagged" Thursday after he tripped and fell — but was uninjured — while onstage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation.
Biden had been greeting the graduates in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the front of the stage with salutes and handshakes, and turned to jog back toward his seat when he fell. He was helped up by an Air Force officer as well as two members of his U.S. Secret Service detail.

Clashes between police and supporters of Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko left nine people dead, the government said Friday, with authorities issuing a blanket ban on the use of several social media platforms in the aftermath of the violence.
The deaths occurred mainly in the capital, Dakar, and Ziguinchor in the south, where Sonko is mayor, Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome said in a statement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has met with China's deputy foreign minister and other top diplomats from the BRICS bloc of developing economies for discussions that included the group's possible expansion to include the major oil-producing nations of Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
Ahead of the talks at a luxury oceanside hotel in South Africa, Lavrov cast BRICS — an acronym for current members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — as central to the establishment of a "more just" world order.

A 3-year-old Palestinian boy was in critical condition at an Israeli hospital Friday morning after being shot by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank. The army opened an investigation into what it said was an unintentional shooting.
In a statement, the military said that gunmen opened fire late Thursday toward the West Bank settlement of Neve Tzuf. It said soldiers at a guard post returned fire.
