The deadliest fire in Hong Kong in decades is piling pressure on Beijing's "patriots-only" governance system, casting a shadow on elections widely seen as a further step to tighten control over the city's legislature.

Sunday's vote to elect new lawmakers to Hong Kong's 90-member Legislative Council comes just 11 days after a massive fire engulfed seven towers in a high-rise apartment complex, killing at least 159 people in the financial hub's worst blaze since 1948.

For LeBron James, the win mattered more than the streak.

James' NBA-record run of 1,297 consecutive regular-season games with at least 10 points ended Thursday night at Toronto, and he was the one who made the decision to have it end. Instead of trying to score to win the game — and extend his streak — he set up Rui Hachimura for the final shot.

Emergency crews were racing against time on Friday after last week's catastrophic floods and landslides struck parts of Asia, killing more than 1,500 people. Relief operations are underway, but the scale of need is overwhelming the capabilities of rescuers.

Authorities said 867 people were confirmed dead in Indonesia, 486 in Sri Lanka and 185 in Thailand, as well as three in Malaysia.

Iran launched massive missiles in the Sea of Oman and near the strategic Strait of Hormuz during the second day of a naval drill, state TV reported Friday.

The report said the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched the missiles from the depth of Iran's mainland, hitting targets in the Oman Sea and neighboring area near Strait of Hormuz in a drill that began on Thursday.

Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and an oil refinery as U.S. peace efforts continued out of public view.

U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were set to meet Thursday in Miami with a Ukrainian delegation but there was no official confirmation whether the meeting took place.

German lawmakers on Friday approved the government's plan to attract more military recruits as the country tries to boost the ranks of its armed forces in the face of rising concern about the threat posed by Russia. The plan also foresees mandatory medical checks for young men.

It stops short of reintroducing conscription, though it leaves open the possibility of compulsory service for at least a limited number should the need arise.

Pope Leo XIV has taken his biggest step yet to correct one of Pope Francis' more problematic financial moves, canceling a special Holy See fundraising commission that was announced under questionable circumstances while Francis was hospitalized.

Leo on Thursday formally suppressed the fundraising commission, abrogated its statutes and fired its members. He decreed that its assets would go to the Holy See as a whole, and that the Vatican patrimony office would oversee the commission's extinction.

Close to 1.5 million Syrian refugees have voluntarily returned to their home country over the past year.

UNHCR Estimates that 383,326 have returned from Lebanon to Syria since the fall of the Bashar Assad regime in December 2024.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he would continue "uninterrupted shipments" of fuel to India, as New Delhi faces heavy US pressure to stop buying oil from Moscow.

"Russia is a reliable supplier of oil, gas, coal, and everything that is required for the development of India's energy," Putin told Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a visit to New Delhi.

An ancient dam, pandas and ping-pong: French leader Emmanuel Macron concluded his fourth state visit to China on Friday, striking a more relaxed note in the city of Chengdu after tough discussions on Ukraine and trade with his counterpart Xi Jinping a day earlier.

Far from the imposing Great Hall of the People in Beijing where the two leaders held talks, Xi and First Lady Peng Liyuan showed Macron and his wife Brigitte around the centuries-old Dujiangyan Dam, a World Heritage Site set against the mountainous landscape of Sichuan province in the center of China.