Champagne producers are racing to pick their grapes as the region's earliest harvest on record gets underway, after extreme heat and drought accelerated ripening, leaving growers a narrow window to preserve the quality of the region's world-famous sparkling wine.
On the hillsides of Hautvillers, teams of grape pickers start work at 6:30 a.m. among rows of vines that were recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015.
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Communities still recovering from last weekend's hurricane in Hawaii could get pounded again in coming days from another tropical system gaining strength over warm Pacific waters.
Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rocks and left many households without electricity. With thousands of homes and businesses still in the dark Thursday, forecasters warned yet another tropical cyclone is likely to approach the islands soon.
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Paris Saint-Germain's opening game of its title defense in the French league against Rennes has been relocated at short notice because of damage to the champion's pitch following a heatwave this summer.
Sunday's match will now take place in Rennes, French soccer's competitions committee announced late Wednesday.
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The first round of the German Cup faces disruption this weekend with several supporter groups planning major protests against the use of video technology during games.
The new German soccer season begins Friday with Bundesliga teams Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart facing lower-league opposition among other games, with the first round continuing through the weekend and Monday.
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The United States has demanded that Cuba open up to private investment, and Cuba has passed sweeping reforms to encourage just that. So Cuba's U.N. ambassador says he wants to know why Washington keeps piling on sanctions that stymie the very economic opening it has sought for decades.
Ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, in an interview this week with The Associated Press, directed his question to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the main architect of the Trump administration's Cuba policy:
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For weeks, migrants in the Spanish territory of Ceuta had gathered on a beach away from the city center, sleeping on cardboard sheets, under reed huts and guarding their few possessions in tattered plastic bags.
They were gone by Thursday morning after Spanish police escorted them to makeshift shelters. But an hour later, other migrants were combing through the trash they had left behind for anything useful: an abandoned mattress, plastic chairs, sheets, a scrap of tarp.
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Top ministers for Indonesia and China discussed increasing defense cooperation and strengthening food and energy security between their countries at their meetings Friday in Jakarta.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono said they aimed to ensure a new bilateral dialogue delivered progress toward their priorities for strengthening cooperation: political, economic, security, maritime and people-to-people relations.
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Tehran's grocery stores are well-stocked, but many families can barely afford the basics. Unemployment is soaring and those with jobs are working more hours for money worth half as much as a year ago, putting food, medicine and everything else — except for heavily subsidized gasoline — further out of reach.
"We have virtually given up on many things," said Ahmad Karimi, 52, a taxi driver and father of two who has been working 15-hour days to make ends meet. "We're cutting out fruit, we're cutting out protein, we've given up leisure, we even work on weekends."
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Indonesia n authorities warned Friday they would take legal action against anyone who starts an open fire, as huge blazes on Borneo and elsewhere created a choking haze that blanketed cities and dense smoke drifted into neighboring Malaysia.
The fires are concentrated on Borneo, the world's third-largest island shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Indonesia occupies about three-quarters of the island, where more than 5,000 hot spots were recorded by the country's Forestry Ministry.
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A summer of extreme heat has left many Tunisians short of water and electricity — and full of anger at the country's leadership. Protesters rallied in the capital Tunis on Thursday, many calling on President Kais Saied to leave power.
Mobilized by a new opposition collective, the demonstrators pleaded for improvements to basic utility services and an end to medicine shortages, rising living costs and restrictions on freedoms. Some denounced what they described as the president's failure to meet the people's demands since he was elected seven years ago.
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