Kuwait said Thursday it executed five prisoners, including an inmate convicted over the bombing of a Shiite mosque in 2015 that killed 27 people and was claimed by the Islamic State group.

The inmates were hanged at the Central Prison, Kuwait's Public Prosecution said in a statement. Prosecutors said the five include the mosque attacker, three people convicted of murder and a convicted drug dealer.

A Russian fighter jet has fired flares and struck another U.S. drone over Syrian airspace, the White House said, in a continued string of harassing maneuvers that have ratcheted up tensions between the global powers.

It's the sixth reported incident this month, and the second in the past 24 hours, in which the United States has said Russian warplanes have flown dangerously close to American manned and unmanned aircraft, putting crews and the planes at risk and raising questions as to what the U.S. may need to do in response.

Saudi Arabia's path to the 2026 World Cup being played in North America will start in a first qualifying group drawn Thursday with neighboring Jordan, Tajikistan plus either Cambodia or Pakistan.

Players in the Saudi national team -- which stunned eventual winner Argentina in a 2-1 win to open the 2022 tournament in Qatar -- will now prepare for the next edition training and playing with a slew of global stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema lured to the multi-billion dollar project that the Saudi Pro League has become.

Some African leaders arrived in Russia for a summit with President Vladimir Putin as he seeks allies amid the fighting in Ukraine, while the Kremlin accused Western powers of "outrageous" efforts to pressure other African heads of state not to attend.

Putin has billed the two-day summit that opens Thursday in St. Petersburg as a major event that would help bolster ties with a continent of 1.3 billion people that is increasingly assertive on the global stage.

Dozens of people protested in front of the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad and bank owners called for official action to stem a sharp increase in the dollar exchange rate Wednesday, after the United States blacklisted 14 Iraqi banks.

Over the past two days, the market rate of the dollar jumped from 1,470 dinar per dollar to 1,570 dinar per dollar. The jump came after the U.S. listed 14 private Iraqi banks among banks that are banned from dealing with U.S. dollars due to suspicions of money laundering and funneling funds to Iran.

Israeli military fire killed a 14-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said Thursday, as an extremist Israeli Cabinet minister visited a sensitive Jerusalem holy site that has been a frequent flashpoint for violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

Itamar Ben-Gvir's visit to the disputed hilltop compound comes as Israel and the Palestinians are locked in a year-and-a-half long bout of fighting and could enflame already surging tensions. It also drew condemnation from Palestinians who view such visits as provocative. The site is revered by Jews and Muslims, and the competing claims lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A jury in the UK on Wednesday found Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey not guilty of nine sex offences against four men alleged to have occurred between 2001 and 2013.

The jury at Southwark Crown Court in south London reached majority decisions on the nine counts, which included sexual assault, after more than 12 hours of deliberations.

Drew Barrymore, whose honors include a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award, will be presiding over a more literary ceremony this fall.

Barrymore will be hosting the 74th annual National Book Awards, the National Book Foundation announced Tuesday. And Oprah Winfrey, a previous winner of an honorary National Book Award, will be a guest speaker.

Bronny James, the oldest son of NBA superstar LeBron James, was hospitalized in stable condition on Tuesday, a day after going into cardiac arrest while participating in a practice at the University of Southern California, a family spokesman said.

The spokesman said medical staff treated the 18-year-old James on site at USC's Galen Center after he went into cardiac arrest on Monday morning. He was transported to a hospital, where he was in stable condition Tuesday after leaving the intensive care unit.

A California appeals court on Wednesday will consider reviving the dismissed lawsuits of two men who allege Michael Jackson sexually abused them as children for years, a move the court appears likely to make after a tentative decision that would order the cases back to a lower court for trial.

The suits were filed after Jackson's 2009 death by Wade Robson in 2013 and James Safechuck the following year. The two men became more widely known for telling their stories in the 2019 HBO documentary, " Leaving Neverland."