Donald Trump returned to the White House ready to immediately overhaul the government using the fastest tool he has — the executive order.

He's looked on his first day to increase domestic energy production and stop diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government, among other actions.

Economic losses from hurricanes and other natural disasters soared in the U.S. last year and were above average globally, reflecting another year of costly severe storms, floods and droughts.

Damage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton helped push total economic losses from natural disasters in the U.S. to $217.8 billion last year, according to insurance broker Aon PLC. That figure represents an 85.3% increase from 2023, when losses totaled about $117.5 billion. It's also the largest annual tally of economic losses from natural disasters since 2017.

Millions of people in Ireland and northern parts of the U.K. were urged to stay at home Friday as hurricane-force winds disabled power networks and brought widespread travel disruptions.

Forecasters issued a rare "red" weather warning, meaning danger to life, across the whole island of Ireland and central and southwest Scotland.

At least 242 million children in 85 countries had their schooling interrupted last year because of heatwaves, cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather, the United Nations Children's Fund said in a new report Friday.

UNICEF said it amounted to one in seven school-going children across the world being kept out of class at some point in 2024 because of climate hazards.

Samir al-Baghdad grabbed his pickax and walked up a wobbly set of stairs made of cinderblocks and rubble.

He is rebuilding his destroyed family house in the Qaboun neighborhood near Damascus, Syria 's capital.

When Dania Hanatsheh was released from an Israeli jail this week and dropped off by bus into a sea of jubilant Palestinians in Ramallah, it was an uncomfortable déjà vu.

After nearly five months of detention, it was the second time the 22-year-old woman had been freed as part of a deal between Israel and Hamas to pause the war in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be flying high.

Israel's enemies across the region have been badly weakened during 15 months of war. Israeli hostages have begun to come home from captivity in Gaza, and Netanyahu's good friend, Donald Trump, is back in the White House.

Experts from the U.S. Air Force are looking at ways to upgrade Cyprus' premier air base for use as a humanitarian staging post in future operations in the Middle East, a Cypriot official told The Associated Press Thursday.

Cyprus, which is only 184 kilometers (114 miles) from the Lebanese capital, Beirut, has acted as a transit point for the r epatriation of foreign nationals fleeing conflict in the Middle East and beyond on numerous occasions in the past. It has also served as a transit point for humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Israel may seek to delay pulling all of its troops out of southern Lebanon, which would violate the terms of a ceasefire it reached with Hezbollah.

An Israeli government spokesperson said Thursday that Israel wants the ceasefire agreement to endure, however he hinted that the Lebanese army wasn't deploying fast enough to secure areas.

Residents returned Thursday to the town of Naqoura near the Lebanon-Israel border, which hosts the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force, after Israeli forces withdrew from the area.

Long lines of cars, some waving Hezbollah flags, inched along the coastal road. The Lebanese Army and U.N. peacekeepers had reopened roads, cleared mines and removed unexploded ordnance from residential neighborhoods.