A nor'easter that battered the Atlantic coast with hurricane-force wind gusts left more than a half-million homes and businesses without power in New England and forced the closure of bridges, ferries and schools in the region.

Utility workers labored to restore power as the storm's winds and rain, which were felt as far north as Nova Scotia, diminished throughout the day. Restoring power in the hardest-hit areas in southeastern Massachusetts will take days, the utility Eversource told the Cape Cod Times.

For nine months under President Joe Biden, the U.S. has pursued a diplomatic strategy that could be characterized as about China, without China.

On security, trade, climate and COVID-19, the Biden White House has tried to reorient the focus of the U.S. and its allies toward the strategic challenges posed by a rising China — all while there has been little direct engagement between the two rivals.

Investigators said Wednesday that there was "some complacency" in how weapons were handled on the movie set where Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed a cinematographer and wounded another person, but it's too soon to determine whether charges will be filed.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza noted that 500 rounds of ammunition — a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and suspected live rounds — were found while searching the set of the Western "Rust."

A resident of a high-rise condominium in Thailand cut the support rope for two painters, apparently angry she wasn't told they would be doing work, and left them hanging above the 26th floor until a couple rescued them, police said.

The woman is facing attempted murder and property destruction charges, Pol. Col. Pongjak Preechakarunpong, chief of the Pak Kret police station north of the Thai capital, told The Associated Press.

For centuries, Lake Tuz in central Turkey has hosted huge colonies of flamingos that migrate and breed there when the weather is warm, feeding on algae in the lake's shallow waters.

This summer, however, a heart-wrenching scene replaced the usual splendid sunset images of the birds captured by wildlife photographer Fahri Tunc. Carcasses of flamingo hatchlings and adults scattered across the cracked, dried-up lake bed.

A young Saudi man was released from prison after spending nearly a decade behind bars in a case that drew international scrutiny because until recently he'd been facing a possible death sentence for protest-related crimes committed as a minor.

Ali al-Nimr's case also drew attention because his uncle was influential Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, who was executed in January 2016 in a mass execution of 47 people in the kingdom. He was an outspoken government critic and a key leader of Shiite protests in eastern Saudi Arabia in 2011 demanding greater rights in the majority Sunni nation and fair treatment.

India has test-fired a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,125 miles) from an island off its east coast amid rising border tensions with China.

The successful launch on Wednesday was in line with "India's policy to have credible minimum deterrence that underpins the commitment to no first use," said a government statement.

Taiwan's defense minister said Thursday that Taiwan must be prepared to defend itself and could not entirely depend on other countries to help if China were to launch an attack against the island, even as Taiwan's president said she had faith the U.S. would defend it.

"The country must rely on itself, and if any friends or other groups can help us, then it's like I said before, we're happy to have it, but we cannot completely depend on it," the minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, told reporters after being questioned in the legislature as part of a session on national defense.

The U.K. said Thursday that a threat by France to block British boats from its ports in a dispute over fishing appeared to breach international law, and the government vowed to retaliate if Paris goes ahead with the move.

France announced Wednesday that it will bar British fishing boats from some French ports starting next week if no deal is reached with the U.K. in a dispute over fishing licenses. It also suggested it may restrict energy supplies to the Channel Islands, British Crown dependencies that lie off the coast of France.

The United States has issued its first passport with an "X" gender designation, marking a milestone in the recognition of the rights of people who do not identify as male or female, and expects to be able to offer the option more broadly next year, the State Department said.

The department did not identify the passport recipient, but Dana Zzyym, an intersex activist from Fort Collins, Colorado, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that they received it. Since 2015, Zzyym, who prefers a gender-neutral pronoun, has been in a legal battle with the State Department to obtain a passport that did not require Zzyym to lie about gender by picking either male or female.