Smaller movies didn't mean smaller viewer numbers for the Oscars.

An estimated 19.7 million viewers watched Sunday night's 97th Academy Awards ceremony, the biggest audience in five years, according to figures released by ABC on Tuesday.

Residents were stacking sandbags to protect low-lying properties Wednesday ahead of a tropical cyclone forecast to become the first in 51 years to hit the Australian east coast near Brisbane, the nation's third-most populous city.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred is forecast to cross the coast between the Queensland state capital Brisbane and the tourist city of Gold Coast to the south late Thursday or early Friday, Bureau of Meteorology manager Matt Collopy said. Brisbane and Gold Coast are a continuous urban sprawl. Their centers are 80 kilometers (50 miles) apart.

The Chinese government unveiled an annual economic growth target of "around 5%" on Wednesday, despite the possible negative impact of a looming trade war with the United States, and pledged to address what it called "inadequate" consumer spending at home.

The target, announced at the opening session of the annual meeting of China's legislature, is the same as the last two years but will likely be more difficult to achieve because of higher U.S. tariffs on Chinese products and other economic headwinds. The use of the modifier "around" gives the government some wiggle room if growth falls short of the target.

Ir Amim, an Israeli rights group, said Israel demolished a record number of Palestinian homes — 181 — in annexed east Jerusalem last year.

It said that more recently, Israel appears to have dropped a longstanding policy against demolishing homes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began last weekend. It said a residential building and three apartments have been destroyed over the past week.

Arab leaders on Tuesday endorsed Egypt's postwar plan for the Gaza Strip that would allow its roughly 2 million Palestinians to remain, in a counterproposal to U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to depopulate the territory and redevelop it as a beach destination.

The $53 billion plan's endorsement by Arab leaders at a summit in Cairo amounted to a rejection of Trump's proposal. The summit conclusions were welcomed by Hamas, rejected by Israel and given a lukewarm response by the Trump administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump's long-threatened tariffs are here, plunging the country into an escalating trade war with China, Canada and Mexico.

Trump's 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico went into effect Tuesday, along with a heightened 20% levy on Chinese goods. In response, all three countries announced retaliatory measures.

Israel's cutoff of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza's 2 million people has sent prices soaring and humanitarian groups into overdrive trying to distribute dwindling stocks to the most vulnerable.

The aid freeze has imperiled the progress aid workers say they have made to stave off famine over the past six weeks during Phase 1 of the ceasefire deal Israel and Hamas agreed to in January.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky had written to him to say he appreciates U.S. support for his country in its war with Russia and is ready to sign a deal that could ensure future American support.

In a speech to Congress following last week's disastrous meeting at the White House, Trump said Zelensky had told him that Ukraine is ready to negotiate a peace deal with Russia as soon as possible and would accept a critical minerals agreement with the U.S. to facilitate that.

President Donald Trump 's Tuesday night address to a joint session of Congress highlighted several of the initiatives he's started in his first six weeks in office, but many of his comments included false and misleading information.

Here's a look at the facts.

Greenland's prime minister declared Wednesday that "Greenland is ours" and cannot be taken or bought in defiance of a message from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said his administration supported the Arctic island's right of self-determination — but added that the United States will acquire the territory "one way or another."

Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede said the island's citizens are neither American nor Danish because they are Greenlandic. The United States needs to understand that, he wrote in a post in Greenlandic and Danish on Facebook Wednesday.