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The annual Rugby Championship, featuring World Cup title-holders South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, kicks off on Saturday amid uncertainty over its future.

Israel's finance minister backed plans on Thursday to build 3,400 homes in a particularly contentious area of the occupied West Bank, calling for the territory's annexation in response to several countries' plans to recognise a Palestinian state.

Robert MacIntyre used a red-hot putter to birdie the last six holes and surge to a three-shot lead over Tommy Fleetwood in the US PGA Tour BMW Championship in Maryland on Thursday.

Outside the busiest train station in Washington, newly deployed National Guard troops wearing camouflage lean on a huge military Humvee.

Talks on striking a global treaty on combating plastic pollution were extended an extra day into Friday but with no clear endgame in sight.

Tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on dozens of countries have so far not affected container ship traffic through the Panama Canal, its administrator said Thursday.

YouTube has started using artificial intelligence (AI) to figure out when users are children pretending to be adults on the popular video-sharing platform amid pressure to protect minors from sensitive content.

Record-breaking Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis has predicted a "super-sick" world championships in Tokyo, where he won his first Olympic medal in the Covid-delayed Summer Games, but insisted statistics were unimportant to him.

Clashes between rival groups of protesters in Serbia flared again late Thursday, police said, as months of anti-government demonstrations boiled over into street violence this week.

Jannik Sinner "felt great on the court" as he annihilated Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-0, 6-2 on Thursday to reach the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Open semi-finals with his 25th straight hardcourt match victory.

Wall Street stocks finished little changed Thursday as markets absorbed a disappointing inflation report, while oil prices shot higher on the eve of a US-Russia summit on Ukraine.

California unveiled plans to redraw its electoral districts Thursday, as Democrats push back on what they say is Donald Trump's effort to rig next year's Congressional elections to safeguard his slim Republican majority.

Apple on Thursday said some of its top smartwatch models are getting a redesigned blood oxygen sensing feature, sidelined for several years by a patent dispute.

Bristol have signed Louis Rees-Zammit following his return to rugby union after the Wales wing gave up on his 18-month long bid to break into the NFL.

US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday he would not be intimidated by Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the eve of a high-stakes summit and said Ukraine would be involved in any deal on its fate.

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin -- and, from a distance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- have dueling interests going into a high-stakes summit in Alaska on Friday.

Countries scrambled Thursday to secure a global agreement on tackling plastic pollution as 10-day talks headed towards overtime, with one diplomat saying negotiators were in a "haze" on how to find common ground.

Bristol have signed Louis Rees-Zammit following his return to rugby union after the Wales wing gave up on his bid to break into the NFL.

Coco Gauff eased past Lucia Bronzetti on Thursday to book a Cincinnati Open quarter-final meeting with Jasmine Paolini, although the American showed signs of some minor rust after receiving a bye in the previous round.

At least 56 people have died and dozens more remain missing after torrents of water and mud driven by intense rain crashed through a Himalayan village Thursday in Indian-administered Kashmir, a top disaster management official told AFP.

Apple on Thursday rejected Elon Musk's claim that its digital App Store favors OpenAI's ChatGPT over his company's Grok and other rival AI assistants.

Italian authorities searched Thursday for migrants missing at sea after two crowded boats sank off the island of Lampedusa, killing at least 27 people.

Air Canada began cancelling flights on Thursday after receiving a strike notice from the flight attendants' union, warning all operations could be shut down by Saturday.

Donald Trump is turning history on its head with his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin -- inviting Russia's leader to land that once belonged to Moscow, and meeting him at a military base that monitored the Soviet Union.

Coco Gauff claimed a 6-2, 6-4 win over Lucia Bronzetti to reach the quarter-finals of the Cincinnati Open on Thursday, with the second seed's game showing some minor rust after a bye in the previous round.

The United Nations warned Israel and Russia on Thursday that their militaries faced being listed as parties suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict in light of credible evidence of violations.

Powerful torrents driven by intense rain smashed into a Himalayan mountain village in Indian-administered Kashmir and killed at least 46 people on Thursday, a top disaster management official told AFP.

The German government sacked the embattled head of Deutsche Bahn on Thursday as it seeks to overhaul the ailing public rail network after years of criticism about deteriorating services.

Negotiators trying to secure a global agreement on tackling the scourge of plastic pollution were frantically trying to find common ground with just hours left on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday acknowledged his high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin may fail, and said any Ukraine deal would come through a future three-way meeting with Kyiv to "divvy things up."

Olympic champion Noah Lyles will renew his rivalry with Jamaica's Kishane Thompson when the pair take to the track for what promises to be a 100m race to remember at the Diamond League meet in Chorzow on Saturday.

Organizers of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics will sell naming rights for some competition venues to "unlock an additional revenue stream" in a move that breaks with Games tradition of forbidding brand names on stadiums and arenas.