The secrecy surrounding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's hospitalizations due to prostate cancer surgery set off a political firestorm, launched multiple reviews and triggered calls for his ouster.

To some, the uproar may be puzzling or even offensive. An individual's right to privacy, particularly about medical issues, is sacred. And most people have that right to privacy. But not all.

Israel will defend itself in the United Nations' highest court starting Thursday against allegations that its military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

South Africa asked the International Court of Justice to consider Israel's actions in light of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

Barely two weeks after he was released from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela flew to Zambia to meet with African leaders who had supported his fight against South Africa's apartheid system of forced racial segregation.

One figure stood out among the men in dark suits eagerly waiting to greet Mandela on the airport tarmac: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, wearing his black and white checkered keffiyeh headdress, had traveled to see the newly freed Mandela.

Iran's intelligence ministry on Thursday identified a top suspect, described as ringleader and bomb-maker, in the twin suicide bombings last week claimed by the Islamic State group as the death toll from the attack rose to at least 94, state media reported.

The Jan. 3 attack, in which two suicide bombers targeted a commemoration for an Iranian general slain in a 2020 U.S. drone strike in Iraq, was the deadliest in Iran in decades as the wider Middle East remains on edge.

Iran's navy seized an oil tanker on Thursday in the Gulf of Oman that once was at the center of a major crisis between Tehran and Washington, officials said, a seizure that further escalates tensions in the Mideast waterways.

The vessel was once known as the Suez Rajan and was involved in a yearlong dispute that ultimately saw the U.S. Justice Department seize 1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil on it.

Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold will be sidelined for three weeks because of a slightly torn knee ligament, the team said Tuesday.

The right-back hyperextended his knee during Liverpool's 2-0 win over Arsenal in an FA Cup third-round game Sunday.

Tottenham signed Timo Werner on loan from Leipzig on Tuesday, giving the Germany forward another shot at the Premier League after his inconsistent stint with Chelsea.

The 27-year-old Werner joined Spurs on a six-month deal that included an option to make the transfer permanent this summer.

Liverpool winger Fabio Carvalho has joined Championship team Hull on loan for the rest of the season.

The 21-year-old Carvalho spent the first half of the season on loan at German club RB Leipzig but returned to Liverpool last week after struggling for playing time.

Climate-altering pollution from greenhouse gases declined by nearly 2% in the United States in 2023, even as the economy expanded at a faster clip, a new report finds.

The decline, while "a step in the right direction,'' is far below the rate needed to meet President Joe Biden's pledge to cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, said a report Wednesday from the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm.

Americans of various racial backgrounds largely agree that the government should focus on the economy and foreign policy issues in 2024, but recent polling shows that views among racial groups diverge on some high-profile topics, including racism and immigration.

About 7 in 10 U.S. adults across racial backgrounds — including white, Black, Hispanic and Asian adults — name issues related to the economy in an open-ended question that asks people to share up to five topics they would like the government to prioritize in 2024, making it the most commonly mentioned issue for each group, as well as for U.S. adults overall at 76%.