Joe Biden on Sunday dropped out of the U.S. presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's new nominee, in a stunning move that upends the 2024 race for the White House.

The 81-year-old Biden stepped aside after weeks of pressure from Democrats following a disastrous debate performance, throwing the election battle against Republican Donald Trump into unprecedented turmoil.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Friday he had spoken by telephone with Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky, and pledged to end the European country's war with Russia.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted Friday of espionage and sentenced to 16 years on charges that his employer and the U.S. have rejected as fabricated.

The conclusion of his swift and secretive trial in the country's highly politicized legal system perhaps cleared the way for a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.

A widespread Microsoft outage was disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday.

Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

As President Joe Biden faces a growing drumbeat of pressure to drop his reelection bid, a majority of Democrats think his vice president would make a good president herself.

A new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Kamala Harris would do a good job in the top slot. About 2 in 10 Democrats don't believe she would, and another 2 in 10 say they don't know enough to say.

Critical days ahead, President Joe Biden is facing the stark reality that many Democrats at the highest levels want him to consider how stepping aside from the 2024 election to make way for a new nominee atop the ticket could be the party's best chance of preventing widespread losses in November.

Isolated as he battles a COVID infection at his beach house in Delaware, Biden's already small circle of confidants before his debate fumbling has downsized further. The president, who has insisted he can beat Republican Donald Trump, is with family and relying on a few longtime aides as he weighs whether to bow to the mounting pressure to drop out.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised to bring an end to raging international crises and restore American prestige on the world stage, saying he could "stop wars with a telephone call."

EU lawmakers on Thursday handed Ursula von der Leyen another five-year term as European Commission president during their first parliamentary session since June elections.

Von der Leyen won with the support of 401 MEPs in the 720-seat chamber -- comfortably over the 361-vote majority she needed to remain head of the EU's executive body. There were 284 who voted against in the secret ballot.

Leaders from across Europe gather at an English country mansion on Thursday for a summit clouded by worries about whether the United States would remain a reliable ally if Donald Trump secures a second presidency.

Newly elected U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is welcoming some 45 heads of government to discuss migration, energy security and the threat from Russia as he seeks to restore relations between the U.K. and its European Union neighbors, four years after their acrimonious divorce.

In a relative rarity for presidential elections, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have long records on foreign policy and clearly stated positions on many of the world's hot spots.

Trump's allies at the Republican National Convention are expected to argue that Biden has weakened America's standing abroad and permitted the outbreak of conflicts between Russia and Ukraine as well as the Israelis and Palestinians. Biden, a Democrat who ran four years ago on a message of shoring up America's foreign alliances and reversing Trump policies, argues that he has restored U.S. standing abroad.