The tide of global rage against the Islamic State group lends greater urgency to ending the jihadis' ability to operate at will from a base in war-torn Syria. That momentum could also force a reevaluation of what to do about President Bashar Assad and puts a renewed focus on the position of his key patrons, Russia and Iran.

The Syrian leader has lost much of the country to IS and other groups in the four-year war; half the population has been displaced, many areas have been leveled, and masses of refugees are flooding Europe. Along the way, Assad's brutal military response has made him persona non grata in most of the world.

Islamic State militants are stiffening their defenses for a possible assault on their de facto capital of Raqa, as international airstrikes intensify on the Syrian city in retaliation for the Paris attacks. IS fighters are hiding in civilian neighborhoods and preventing anyone from fleeing, former residents say.

The northern Syrian city's estimated 350,000 people are gripped by fear, rattled by powerful Russian and French airstrikes that shake the city daily. They are also worried they would be trapped with nowhere to go amid signs of a looming ground invasion by U.S.-allied Kurdish and Arab forces in Syria, according to the former residents who have fled to Turkey and now report on events in Raqa through acquaintances and activists inside.

Jonah Lomu, who bulldozed opponents with his size and blistering speed only to be felled by a kidney illness that extinguished his meteoric All Blacks career, died suddenly at his home in Auckland. He was 40.

Nadene Lomu, the wife and manager of the rugby great, confirmed Lomu's death in a statement Wednesday. Lomu had struggled with a kidney illness for 20 years but former All Blacks doctor and family friend John Mayhew said the cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Police have detained four protesters who wanted to walk to the venue of the G-20 summit to deliver a letter to world leaders.

The state-run Anadolu Agency says police in the Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya on Sunday blocked the four protesters — belonging to left-wing groups opposed to the G-20 — from marching toward the secluded seaside resort of Belek, where the leaders are meeting.

Even as airlines operated a normal schedule of flights into and out of Paris on Saturday, travelers with future plans to visit the French capital reconsidered their options after a series of terror attacks. Some quickly canceled their tickets, a worrisome sign for the travel and tourism industries.

Joe Nardozzi, a 31-year-old New York investment banker, and his wife won't be taking the wedding-anniversary trip they planned later this month.

Iran will receive the bulk of the S-300 air defense missile systems it ordered from Russia by the end of the year, Tehran's defense minister has said.

"We signed a contract with Russia. It is being done. We will acquire a large portion of the systems by the end of this year," Hossein Dehghan told state television late Tuesday.

Russia has circulated a document on ending the nearly five-year-old Syrian conflict that calls for drafting a new constitution in up to 18 months that would be put to a popular referendum and be followed by an early presidential election.

The document, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, makes no mention of Syrian President Bashar Assad stepping down during the transition — a key opposition demand. It only mentions that "the president of Syria will not chair the constitutional commission."

Authorities in Dubai are holding a Yemeni member of the emirate's police force on suspicion of murder after he shot and killed another officer inside a police station.

Dubai police confirmed the Sunday shooting in postings to official social media accounts on Monday. Neither officer was identified, but police say the victim was also Yemeni.

Caitlyn Jenner took the stage at Glamour magazine's Women of the Year awards and told an admiring crowd that the six months since she came out as a woman have been "the most eye-opening experience of my life."

Jenner, one of a group of honorees that included actress Reese Witherspoon, ballerina Misty Copeland, designer Victoria Beckham, the victorious U.S. women's soccer team, and a group of women from Charleston, South Carolina, who suffered great loss in the June church shooting there, also said she believes she was put on Earth to tell her story and perhaps make a difference in the world.

Pope Francis has denounced the "cancer" of abusive labor practices during a visit to the Italian industrial city of Prato, where a 2013 garment factory fire killed seven Chinese workers.

Francis recalled the "tragedy" of the deaths in off-the-cuff comments Tuesday to Prato residents gathered in the piazza outside the city's cathedral. Prato is home to some 40,000 Chinese immigrants, nearly half of them in Italy illegally, and is a major producer of cheap clothes.