The United States and Britain pledged nearly $1.5 billion in additional aid to Ukraine on Wednesday during a visit to Kyiv by their top diplomats as Ukrainian officials renewed their pleas to use Western-provided missiles against targets deeper inside Russia.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced more than $700 million in humanitarian aid, while British Foreign Secretary David Lammy confirmed that his country would provide another $782 million in assistance and loan guarantees. Much of the effort was aimed at bolstering the energy grid that Russia has repeatedly pounded ahead of an expected difficult winter.

European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell met Thursday with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, as he visits Lebanon to prevent further escalation of the Gaza war.

Berri told Borell during their meeting in Ain el-Tineh that "Lebanon does not want war but that it has the right to defend itself and is able to do it," while Borell said after the meeting that Lebanon cannot protect its foreign interests if there is no domestic accord, urging for a solution to the presidential impasse.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is wrapping up a three-nation, Ukraine-focused European tour in Poland after hearing repeated appeals from Ukrainian officials to use Western-supplied weaponry for long-range strikes inside Russia.

Blinken traveled to Warsaw on Thursday after spending a day in Kyiv with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy during which they pledged to bring the Ukrainian requests to their leaders.

For her 26th birthday in July, human rights activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and osprey fish overhead.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of people traveled to the same beach in grief, love and anger to mourn her. Eygi was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers last Friday in the occupied West Bank, where she had gone to protest and bear witness to Palestinian suffering.

Alex Luna, a 20-year-old missionary, saw the sky turn from a cherry red to black in about 90 minutes as an explosive wildfire raced toward the Southern California mountain community of Wrightwood and authorities implored residents to leave their belongings behind and get out of town.

"It was very, I would say, hellish-like," Luna said Tuesday night. "It was very just dark. Not a good place to be at that moment. ... Ash was falling from the sky like if it was snowing."

Potential coaching upheaval, players' injuries, an underdog continuing to soar — oh, and Cristiano Ronaldo stealing the spotlight once again.

The post-pandemic spike in U.S. inflation eased further last month as year-over-year price increases reached a three-year low, clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates next week.

Wednesday's report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices rose 2.5% in August from a year earlier. It was the fifth straight annual drop and the smallest such increase since February 2021. From July to August, prices rose just 0.2%.

Former President Donald Trump spoke heatedly in the presidential debate about wanting Russia's war in Ukraine to be over — but twice refused to directly answer a question about whether he wanted U.S. ally Ukraine to win.

Trump also falsely claimed Tuesday that the war had killed "millions" since Russia invaded Ukraine 2 1/2 years ago, while the United Nations says 11,700 civilian deaths have been verified. Trump also claimed without evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, had bungled a diplomatic mission just days before Russia launched the invasion.

Hamas released the first public statement from Yahya Sinwar since he was appointed its overall leader in August.

In the written statement late Tuesday, Sinwar congratulated Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on his reelection and thanked the country for its support for the Palestinian cause. Algeria, the Arab representative on the United Nations Security Council, circulated a draft resolution in May demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and a halt to Israel’s military operation in the southern city of Rafah.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said that “this has been a very painful and difficult morning for the people of Israel” because of an attack in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and a helicopter crash in Gaza.

Speaking in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, Herzog described Wednesday's attack as a “horrific, criminal terror attack” and expressed “sorrow for the pain it has inflicted.” He did not elaborate but was apparently referring to the incident when a fuel tanker crashed into a West Bank bus stop, seriously injuring one person. Israeli officials said it was an attack.