NASA unveiled close-up pictures on Wednesday of the interstellar comet that's making a quick one-and-done tour of the solar system.

Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas is only the third confirmed object to visit our corner of the cosmos from another star. It zipped harmlessly past Mars last month.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he plans to put greater attention on helping find an end to the brutal civil war in Sudan after being urged to take action by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Trump, who claims to have ended several wars since returning to office and has openly lobbied for the Nobel Peace Prize, admitted the conflict "wasn't on my charts" before his conversation with the crown prince.

President Donald Trump said late Wednesday that the long-awaited meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani would happen in Washington later this week, setting up an in-person clash between the political polar opposites who for months have antagonized each other from afar.

The sit-down, which Trump said on social media would take place Friday in the Oval Office, could possibly represent a detente of sorts between the Republican president and Democratic rising star, as Trump has since Mamdani's win moved toward acceptance of Mamdani's central, winning campaign issue of affordability.

President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bowing to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting those efforts.

Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own months ago.

National Book Awards judges honored authors worldwide on Wednesday night, from Lebanese novelist Rabih Alameddine's "The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)" to Chicago-born poet Patricia Smith's "The Intentions of Thunder."

Alameddine's narrative of intense family bonds within the chaos of modern Lebanon received the fiction prize, while Smith, who has received numerous previous awards for her lyricism and intensity, won for poetry. The nonfiction prize was given to the Canadian Iranian novelist-journalist Omar El Akkad for his fierce indictment of the contemporary West, "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This."

Two global power players will spend Wednesday pushing negotiators to find compromises at United Nations climate talks in Brazil's Belém, where a self-imposed deadline is rushing up fast.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres roamed the meeting rooms on Tuesday, while Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was set to join the COP30 talks Wednesday morning.

In South Africa 's oldest township, volunteers in wetsuits jump into the thigh-deep water of the polluted Jukskei River to untangle a net that's designed to trap garbage but damaged by heavy rains. Without the nets, the shacks of low-lying Alexandra on the outskirts of Johannesburg could face disastrous flooding.

World leaders with the Group of 20 rich and developing nations will meet this weekend in Johannesburg for the bloc's first summit in Africa. Host South Africa wants to prioritize issues affecting poor countries, including responses to disasters made worse by climate change.

Britain's Royal Mint is celebrating Freddie Mercury with a new coin design that marks 40 years since his iconic Live Aid concert performance.

The coin features an image of the Queen front man, head thrown back and holding the microphone stand midperformance. A musical stave that runs around the edge of the coin represents his four-octave vocal range.

Inflation in the U.K. fell to a four-month low in October, official figures showed Wednesday, in a move that has raised expectations of another Bank of England interest rate cut next month.

The Office for National Statistics said the annual rate of inflation, as measured by the consumer prices index, fell to 3.6% in October from 3.8% the previous month.

A stunning bicycle kick and two stoppage-time goals sealed Scotland's dramatic return to the World Cup after a 28-year wait.