Dozens of attacks on U.S. military facilities by Iran-backed factions in Iraq over the past two months have forced the government in Baghdad to perform a balancing act that is becoming more difficult by the day.

A rocket attack on the sprawling U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Friday marked a further escalation as Iraqi officials scramble to contain the ripple effects of the Israel-Hamas war.

A century-old territorial dispute deepened by the discovery of oil is boiling over between neighbors Guyana and Venezuela. Steeped in patriotism, the Venezuelan government is seizing on the fight to boost support ahead of a presidential election among a population fed up with a decadelong crisis that has pushed many into poverty.

Venezuelans on Sunday approved a referendum to claim sovereignty over Essequibo, a mineral-rich territory that accounts for two-thirds of Guyana and lies near big offshore oil deposits. Military confrontation appears unlikely for now, but several countries have echoed Guyana's concerns over an annexation by its neighbor to the west.

Sometime in the early 2010s, Yekaterina Duntsova's eldest daughter drew a picture of her debating Russian President Vladimir Putin live on prime-time TV.

A decade on, the little-known journalist and mom-of-three from a small town in western Russia recalls the drawing as a joke about her civic activism — but says it also carried a "message about the future."

When U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Antarctica in November to highlight a planet in peril to set the stage for global climate talks in Dubai, he went to see an accelerating ice melt, not penguins.

But penguins were all around as Guterres and his entourage toured glaciers and visited Chile's Eduardo Frei Air Force Base on King George Island.

Pressure mounted on Hungary on Monday not to veto the opening of European Union membership talks and the supply of economic aid to war-torn Ukraine at a pivotal EU summit this week, after Prime Minister Viktor Orban demanded that the issue be struck from the agenda.

With tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance blocked by Senate Republicans in the United States, Ukraine is desperate to ensure longer-term financial and military assistance as fighting in its almost 2-year war with Russia bogs down.

President Joe Biden goes into next year's election with a vexing challenge: Just as the U.S. economy is getting stronger, people are still feeling horrible about it.

Pollsters and economists say there has never been as wide a gap between the underlying health of the economy and public perception. The divergence could be a decisive factor in whether the Democrat secures a second term next year. Republicans are seizing on the dissatisfaction to skewer Biden, while the White House is finding less success as it tries to highlight economic progress.

Why promise net zero emissions when you can go even lower, such as negative emissions?

As countries at the COP28 climate talks are wrangling over ways to lower their greenhouse gas emissions, a Danish-led group of countries has decided to set the ultimate goal: to remove more carbon dioxide, the main source of global warming, from the atmosphere than they emit.

Visibly tired and frustrated top United Nations officials urged climate talks to push harder for an end to fossil fuels. Time seems to be running out both in the talks in Dubai and for action that could keep warming at or below the internationally agreed-upon threshold.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres returned to the summit on Monday and said it was "time to go into overdrive, to negotiate in good faith, and rise to the challenge." He said negotiators at the COP28 summit in particular must focus on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and climate justice.

Your Google search history for 2023 has arrived.

Well, actually, the world's. On Monday, the California-based tech giant released its "Year in Search," a roundup of 2023's top global queries, ranging from unforgettable pop culture moments (hello, Barbenheimer ), to the loss of beloved figures and tragic news carrying worldwide repercussions.

Erling Haaland was ruled out of Manchester City's 2-1 win at Luton in the Premier League on Sunday because of a foot injury.

City manager Pep Guardiola said Haaland had a "bone stress reaction" after the 1-0 loss to Aston Villa on Wednesday.