Manchester United staged a rousing second-half comeback to beat Aston Villa 3-2 in the Premier League on Tuesday after conceding two goals inside 26 minutes at Old Trafford.

In the first game since British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe agreed to buy a stake of up to 25% of the 20-time league champions, Erik ten Hag's team made a dreadful start and was booed by its own fans in the first half.

From an ice storm in North Dakota that sealed windows shut to blizzard conditions in Colorado causing hundreds of airport delays and cancellations, a winter storm pummeled much of the central United States on Tuesday, the day after Christmas.

"The heavy snow conditions in the Plains should be slowly alleviating today, but it'll be very slow," said Weather Prediction Center forecaster David Roth. "Even when the snow ends, the high winds should keep visibility near zero — whiteout conditions — for a decent part of today."

Russia fired almost 50 Shahed drones at targets in Ukraine and shelled a train station where more than 100 civilians were gathered to catch a train to Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday. The barrages killed at least five people and knocked out power in most of the southern city of Kherson.

The aerial barrage came a day after Ukrainian warplanes damaged a Russian ship moored in the Black Sea off Crimea as both sides' soldiers struggle to make much progress along the front line of the 22-month war.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un praised what he called achievements and victories that strengthened national power and boosted the country's prestige this year, as he opened a key political meeting to set new policy goals for 2024, state media reported Wednesday.

Experts said that during this week's year-end plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party, North Korea would likely hype its progress in arms development because the country lacks economic achievements amid persistent international sanctions and pandemic-related economic hardships.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, who helped negotiate German reunification in 1990 and as finance minister was a central figure in the austerity-heavy effort to drag Europe out of its debt crisis two decades later, has died. He was 81.

Schaeuble died at home on Tuesday evening, his family told German news agency dpa on Wednesday.

A Russian politician calling for peace in Ukraine on Wednesday lost her appeal against election officials' refusal to accept her nomination for the country's presidential race that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win.

Former regional legislator Yekaterina Duntsova has promoted her vision of a "humane" Russia "that's peaceful, friendly and ready to cooperate with everyone on the principle of respect."

Lee Sun-kyun, a popular South Korean actor best known for his role in the Oscar-winning movie "Parasite," was found dead in a car in Seoul on Wednesday, authorities said, after weeks of an intense police investigation into his alleged drug use.

Police and emergency officers initially found Lee in what they believed was an unconscious state in the car parked on a street in northern Seoul. Emergency officers later confirmed he was dead, according to Seoul's Seongbuk police station.

Sweden edged closer toward joining NATO on Tuesday after the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee greenlighted a protocol for the Nordic country's membership in the military alliance.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dropped his objection to Sweden's membership during a NATO summit in July, but it took him several months to send the bill to parliament for ratification and weeks for the parliamentary committee to give its consent.

Turkey has hit more than 70 sites allegedly linked to Kurdish groups in Syria and northern Iraq during airstrikes launched this week in retaliation for the deaths of 12 Turkish soldiers in Iraq, the defense minister said Wednesday.

At least 59 Kurdish militants were killed in the strikes as well as in land clashes, Yasar Guler said in a video message to top military officials which was posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Israel launched heavy strikes across central and southern Gaza overnight and into Wednesday after broadening its offensive against Hamas to more areas where the military had told Palestinians to seek shelter earlier in the war.

Residents reported heavy bombing in the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, in the southern city of Khan Younis and in the southern town of Rafah, areas where tens of thousands have sought refuge as much of northern Gaza was pounded to rubble.