Spotlight
President Vladimir Putin basked in a victory early Monday that was never in doubt, as partial election results underlined the Russian leader's total control of the country's political system.
After facing only token challengers and harshly suppressing opposition voices, Putin was set to extend his nearly quarter-century rule for six more years. Even with little margin for protest, Russians crowded outside polling stations at noon on Sunday, the last day of the election, apparently heeding an opposition call to express their displeasure with the president.
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Pakistani airstrikes targeted multiple suspected hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban inside neighboring Afghanistan early on Monday, killing at least eight people, two days after insurgents killed seven soldiers in a suicide bombing and coordinated attacks in a northwestern region, officials said.
The Afghan Taliban government denounced the strikes, which are likely to further increase tensions between Islamabad and Kabul.
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Israeli forces launched another raid on the Gaza Strip's largest hospital early Monday, saying Hamas militants had regrouped there and had fired on them from inside the compound, where Palestinian officials say tens of thousands of people were sheltering.
The army last raided Shifa Hospital in November after claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center within and beneath the facility. The military revealed a tunnel leading to a bunker, as well as weapons it said were found inside the hospital, but the evidence fell short of the earlier claims, and critics accused the army of recklessly endangering the lives of civilians.
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Israeli airstrikes hit several sites in southern Syria early Sunday wounding a soldier, Syrian state media reported.
State news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military official, said air defenses shot down some of the missiles, which came from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights at around 12:42 a.m. local time. The strikes led to "material losses" and the wounding of a soldier, the statement said.
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President Joe Biden expressed support Friday for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer after the senator called for new elections in Israel, the latest sign that the U.S. relationship with its closest Middle East ally is careening toward fracture over the war in Gaza.
Schumer, a Jewish Democrat from New York, sent tremors through both countries this week when he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has "lost his way" and warned that "Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah" as the Palestinian death toll continues to grow.
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Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has returned to Instagram to tease a new brand that records show could feature jams, household items, cookbooks and cutlery.
The former actor left Instagram when she got engaged to Prince Harry, and as recently as last week, spoke about the dangers of social media. On Thursday, a new account called American Riviera Orchard appeared on Instagram, saying it was created by Meghan. The unverified account included photos of a logo and link to a website to join a waitlist to learn more details.
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Frida Kahlo used her own experiences to inform her art. In that spirit, Kahlo's personal writings are used to help tell the story of her life in a new documentary, "Frida."
Filmmaker Carla Gutiérrez blends first person narration with archival footage and interpretive animation of Kahlo's work in the film, which is now streaming on Prime Video.
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Irene Leonor Flores de Callata, 68, treks along a bone-dry riverbed, guiding a herd of llamas and sheep through stretching desert.
Flores de Callata's native Kolla people have spent centuries climbing deep into the mountains of northern Argentina in search of a simple substance: Fresh drinking water.
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By the time Nicholas Winton died in 2015 at the ripe age of 106, the former London stockbroker and self-proclaimed "ordinary man" had been widely recognized for his extraordinary deeds — rescuing 669 Jewish children from the Nazis, saving them from certain death.
But for most of his life, Winton's rescue of those children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, bringing them to safety in Britain, was unknown to the public. His story was revealed dramatically on the BBC show "That's Life!" in 1988, which introduced him, in an emotional surprise, to some of the very people he'd saved. Tears were shed and a fuss was made over this unfussy man. He was dubbed the "British Schindler," and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003.
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The Biden administration will be allocating more than $120 million to tribal governments to fight the impacts of climate change, the Department of the Interior announced Thursday. The funding is designed to help tribal nations adapt to climate threats, including relocating infrastructure.
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