Ahead of the 96th Academy Awards on March 10, Associated Press Film Writers Jake Coyle and Lindsey Bahr share their predictions.

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After the most dramatic offseason in recent Formula 1 history comes its longest ever season.

The season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix will be the first of 24 race weekends. Champion Max Verstappen — sixth in the first practice Thursday — is among several drivers raising concerns about the impact of a relentless schedule.

Three dozen leaders at news organizations around the world have signed a letter expressing solidarity with journalists in Gaza, calling for their safety and freedom to report in the war zone.

The letter, released Thursday, was spearheaded by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which said at least 89 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, the vast majority of them Palestinians.

It might be the biggest party this small west Indian city has ever seen. As billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani prepares for the wedding of his son this summer, he's expecting billionaires from around the world, heads of state, and Hollywood and Bollywood royalty to attend a three-day bash in the family's hometown, starting Friday.

The nearly 1,200-person guest list includes Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sunder Pichai and Ivanka Trump; Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Kumar Mangalam Birla; legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar; and Bollywood celebrities such as Deepika Padukone, Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee.

Relatives and supporters of Alexei Navalny are bidding farewell to the opposition leader at a funeral Friday in southeastern Moscow, following a battle with authorities over the release of his body after his still-unexplained death in an Arctic penal colony.

His supporters say several churches in Moscow refused to hold the service before Navalny's team got permission from one in the capital's Maryino district, where he once lived before his 2020 poisoning, treatment in Germany and subsequent arrest on his return to Russia.

Iran began voting Friday in its first parliamentary elections since the mass 2022 protests over its mandatory hijab laws after the death of Mahsa Amini, with questions looming over just how many people will turn out for the poll.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 84, cast one of the first votes in an election that also will see new members elected to the country's Assembly of Experts. The panel of clerics, who serve an eight-year term, is mandated to select a new supreme leader if Khamenei steps down or dies, giving their role increased importance with Khamenei's age.

Austria's foreign minister on Thursday urged Israel and Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group against escalating the conflict along the volatile Israel-Lebanon border and expressed hope for a pause in the fighting in Gaza in time for the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in March.

The Middle East has witnessed enough devastation and cruelty, said Alexander Schallenberg, speaking after meeting his Lebanese counterpart in Beirut.

Pope Francis, who recently had the flu, was brought to a hospital in Rome for diagnostic testing after the papal audience Wednesday, the Vatican said, without giving further details.

Turkish drone strikes in northeastern Syria on Wednesday killed at least three members of a local Christian force and wounded others, including civilians, a Kurdish official and a Syrian opposition war monitor said.

There was no immediate comment from Ankara. Turkey has been attacking Kurdish fighters in Syria for years but attacks on the fighters from the country's Christian minority have been rare.

Iran is holding parliamentary elections this Friday, yet the real question may not be who gets elected but how many people actually turn out to vote.

Widespread discontent over the cratering economy, years of mass protests rocking the country, and tensions with the West over Tehran's nuclear program and Iran's support for Russia in its war on Ukraine have many people quietly saying they won't vote in this election.