Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release of captives since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukrainian authorities said that 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home in the first exchange in almost five months. Russia's Defense Ministry said that 248 Russian servicemen have been freed under the deal sponsored by the United Arab Emirates.

The killing of a top Hamas commander in an apparent Israeli airstrike on a Beirut apartment has given Israel an important symbolic achievement in its 3-month-old war against the Islamic militant group.

But history has shown the benefits of such dramatic operations are often short-lived, bringing on further violence and equally formidable replacements as leaders of militant groups.

The federal government's gross national debt has surpassed $34 trillion, a record high that foreshadows the coming political and economic challenges to improve America's balance sheet in the coming years.

The U.S. Treasury Department issued a report Tuesday logging U.S. finances, which have become a source of tension in a politically divided Washington that could possibly see parts of the government shutdown without an annual budget in place.

Wall Street was poised to open with losses again on Wednesday, one day after markets kicked off the new year giving back some of last year's big gains.

On a warm summer afternoon, Tina Taniguchi was on her hands and knees scraping dirt off an oblong depression in the ground. Thick brown hair peeked out from her coconut leaf hat. Splotches of mud stuck to her T-shirt and speckled her smiling face.

Taniguchi smiles a lot when she's working in her corner of the Hanapepe salt patch on the west side of Kauai — a terracotta plot of land about the size of a football field — dappled with elliptical pools of brine, crystallizing in clay beds.

Poland became the first team through to the United Cup semifinals with a dominant 3-0 win over China in Perth on Wednesday after France completed a sweep of Italy in Sydney to progress to the quarterfinals.

Top-ranked Iga Swiatek beat No. 14 Zheng Qinwen 6-2, 6-3 in the women's singles to give Poland an unassailable 2-0 lead after Hubert Hurkacz's 6-3, 6-4 win over Zhang Zhizhen in the men's singles.

Luke Littler reached the final of the world darts championship at the age of 16 on Tuesday, extending one of the most unlikely stories in the history of the sport.

Littler, an unseeded player from Runcorn in northwest England who started throwing darts as a toddler, beat 2018 champion Rob Cross 6-2 to get into Wednesday's title match against Luke Humphries.

It's small in stature, big on activity and known for a "smile," and it's ready to compete with 200 other dog breeds.

Say hello to the Lancashire heeler, the latest breed recognized by the American Kennel Club. The organization announced Wednesday that the rare herding breed is now eligible for thousands of U.S. dog shows, including the prominent Westminster Kennel Club show.

The powerful earthquake that shattered the peace of New Year's Day in central Japan did not spur massive tsunamis like those that scoured the Pacific coast in 2011, killing nearly 20,000 people and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

The tsunamis that did roll in along the Sea of Japan, on Japan's western coast, were mostly just a few feet high, rather than waves up to 5 meters (15 feet) tall predicted in alerts issued just after the magnitude 7.6 quake struck on Monday afternoon.

South Korean police on Wednesday raided the residence and office of a man who stabbed the country's opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, in the neck in an attack that left him hospitalized in an intensive care unit, officials said.

The assault occurred when Lee, the leader of the liberal opposition Democratic Party, was passing through a throng of journalists after visiting the proposed site of a new airport in the southeastern city of Busan on Tuesday. The attacker, posing as a supporter, approached Lee asking for his autograph before he took out a 17-centimeter-long (6.7-inch) knife to attack him.