Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib met Tuesday with Cyprus Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos in Beirut and discussed the bilateral relations between their countries, the refugee crisis and the border clashes.

In a news conference after their meeting, Kombos encouraged "all parties to engage in a diplomatic dialogue" to "peacefully settle" the Israeli-Lebanese conflict.

The French navy frigate, bristling with weaponry and powering through frigid Norwegian seas not so far from Russia, awoke at 7:30 a.m. sharp to what, in the circumstances, was a surreal sound.

The 1967 " Summer of Love " hippie anthem "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" was playing over the warship's public address system. Singer Scott McKenzie's voice reverberated through the passageways starting to bustle with sailors clutching coffee mugs: "All across the nation, such a strange vibration, people in motion."

Ukraine launched a wave of long-range drones against targets deep inside Russia on Tuesday, Russian officials said, hitting at least two oil facilities in the attack on eight regions of Russia in the latest display of Kyiv's expanding drone capacity.

Also Tuesday, soldiers who Kyiv officials say are Russian volunteers fighting for Ukraine reported to have crossed the border into Russia, as they have several times during the war. Russia said it had beaten back attempted incursions, but it wasn't possible to verify either side's claims and the reports of border fighting were murky.

Four astronauts from four countries caught a lift back to Earth with SpaceX on Tuesday to end a half-year mission at the International Space Station.

Their capsule streaked across the U.S. in the predawn darkness and splashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle.

Consumer prices in the United States picked up last month, a sign that inflation remains a persistent challenge for the Federal Reserve and for President Joe Biden's re-election campaign, both of which are counting on a steady easing of price pressures this year.

Prices rose 0.4% from January to February, a pickup from the previous month's figure of 0.3%. Compared with 12 months earlier, consumer prices rose 3.2% last month, faster than January's 3.1% annual pace.

India has implemented a controversial citizenship law that has been widely criticized for excluding Muslims, a minority community whose concerns have heightened under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government.

The rules for the law were announced Monday. It establishes a religious test for migrants from every major South Asian faith other than Islam. Critics argue that the law is further evidence that Modi's government is trying to reshape the country into a Hindu state and marginalize its 200 million Muslims.

Swiss federal prosecutors said Tuesday they have indicted former Syrian Vice President Rifaat Assad, the uncle of the war-battered country's current president, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering murder and torture more than four decades ago.

The attorney general's office said Assad, 86, is accused of directing the crimes in Syria in February 1982 while serving as commander of defense brigades that carried out an attack in the city of Hama during a conflict between the military and the Islamist opposition. Security forces killed thousands to crush a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city that year.

China, Iran and Russia have begun a joint naval drill in the Gulf of Oman, a crucial waterway near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, officials said Tuesday.

Footage aired by Chinese state television and a video released by the Russian navy showed the ongoing drill, known as "Marine Security Belt 2024."

Europe is facing growing climate risks and is unprepared for them, the European Environment Agency said in its first-ever risk assessment for the bloc Monday.

The agency said Europe is prone to more frequent and more punishing weather extremes — including increasing wildfires, drought, more unusual rainfall patterns and flooding — and it needs to immediately address them in order to protect its energy, food security, water and health.

Two backcountry skiers have died in a mountain avalanche on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, according to news reports.

The dead in Monday's avalanche on the 1,898 meter (6,227 feet) Mount Yotei were from New Zealand, according to the New Zealand Herald.