In Japan's ancient capital, Nara, deer moved through grass fields and shaded paths, lowering their heads toward visitors holding special crackers made just for them.

Nara this week hosted a Japan–South Korea summit, with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is from the city, welcoming South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.

Scientists on Wednesday inaugurated the first global repository of mountain ice cores, preserving the history of the Earth's atmosphere in an Antarctic vault for future generations to study as global warming melts glaciers around the world.

An ice core is something of a time capsule, containing the history of the Earth's past atmosphere in a frozen climate archive. With global glaciers melting at an unprecedented rate, scientists have raced to preserve ice cores for future study before they disappear altogether.

China's trade surplus surged to a record of almost $1.2 trillion in 2025, the government said Wednesday, as exports to other countries made up for slowing shipments to the U.S. under President Donald Trump's onslaught of higher tariffs.

China's exports rose 5.5% for the whole of last year to $3.77 trillion, customs data showed, as Chinese automakers and other manufacturers expanded into markets across the globe. Imports flatlined at $2.58 trillion. The 2024 trade surplus was over $992 billion.

Strong winter winds collapsed walls onto flimsy tents for Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing at least four people, hospital authorities said Tuesday.

Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls. A ceasefire has been in effect since Oct. 10. But aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces exchanged fire Tuesday in a tense area of eastern Aleppo province, marking a possible escalation after days of clashes in the northern city.

No casualties were immediately reported, as an impasse continues in negotiations between the central government and the SDF over merging its thousands of fighters into the national army.

Russia launched a second major drone and missile bombardment of Ukraine in four days, officials said, aiming again at the power grid amid freezing temperatures in an apparent snub to U.S.-led peace efforts as Moscow's invasion of its neighbor approaches the four-year mark.

Russia fired almost 300 drones, 18 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles at eight regions overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media.

Along the narrow, snow-covered main street in Greenland's capital, international journalists and camera crews stop passersby every few meters (feet) asking them for their thoughts on a crisis which Denmark's prime minister has warned could potentially trigger the end of NATO.

Greenland is at the center of a geopolitical storm as U.S. President Donald Trump is insisting he wants to own the island — and the residents of its capital Nuuk say it is not for sale. Trump said he wants to control Greenland at any cost and the White House has not ruled out taking the island by force.

The head of Iran's judiciary signaled Wednesday there would be fast trials and executions ahead for those detained in nationwide protests despite a warning from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The comments from Iran's judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei come as activists had warned hangings of those detained could come soon. Already, a bloody security force crackdown on the demonstrations has killed at least 2,571, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. That figure dwarfs the death toll from any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

During Lebanon's civil war, the Commodore Hotel in western Beirut's Hamra district became iconic among the foreign press corps.

For many, it served as an unofficial newsroom where they could file dispatches even when communications systems were down elsewhere. Armed guards at the door provided some sense of protection as sniper fights and shelling were turning the cosmopolitan city to rubble.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has made good on its pledge to label three Middle Eastern branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as "terrorist" organizations, imposing sanctions on them and their members in a decision that could have implications for U.S. relationships with allies Qatar and Turkey.

The Treasury and State departments announced the actions Tuesday against the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they said pose a risk to the United States and American interests.