The notion that online gaming could help players develop charitable habits seemed bold when the anti-poverty nonprofit Comic Relief US tested its own multiverse on the popular world-building app Roblox last year.

As philanthropy wrestles with how to authentically engage new generations of digitally savvy donors, Comic Relief US CEO Alison Moore said it was "audacious" to design an experience that still maintained the "twinkle" of the organization that's behind entertainment-driven fundraisers like Red Nose Day.

European markets opened higher while Asian stocks ended mixed on Tuesday after the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to an all-time high and Big Tech companies pulled the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite lower.

Germany's DAX picked up 0.3% to 18,665.08 after data from the statistics office on Tuesday showed the country's second-quarter gross domestic product fell by 0.1% from the previous quarter.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has a new advertising push to draw attention to her plan to build 3 million new homes over four years, a move designed to contain inflationary pressures that also draws a sharp contrast to Republican Donald Trump's approach.

Ski season is still at least several months away, but the unusually cold storm that frosted West Coast mountain peaks late last week brought a hint of winter in August.

The calendar briefly skipped ahead to November as the system dropped out of the Gulf of Alaska, down through the Pacific Northwest and into California.

Ukraine says it has a new long-range weapon to strike deep into Russia without asking permission from allies — a homegrown combination of missile and drone that the defense minister vowed Monday would provide "answers" to a wave of Russian bombings.

The Palianytsia was created due to urgent necessity, Ukrainian officials said, as Russia has dominated the skies since the outbreak of the war in February 2022 and Ukraine's Western allies have placed conditions on use of their long-range missiles in Russia. On Monday, a wave of Russian missiles and drones targeted Ukraine's electrical infrastructure in the largest such attack in weeks.

Iran's supreme leader opened the door Tuesday to renewed negotiations with the United States over his country's rapidly advancing nuclear program, telling its civilian government there was "no barrier" to engaging with its "enemy."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's remarks set clear red lines for any talks taking place under the government of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and renewed his warnings that America wasn't to be trusted.

Sixteen evacuation orders by Israel’s military this month have squeezed Gazans into even smaller areas of the territory and the latest has shut the U.N. humanitarian operations center. However, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA is still providing health care and other assistance.

As a result of the orders, several hundred thousand already displaced Palestinians have been forced to move again, and the humanitarian zone declared by Israel has shrunk to about 11% of the entire Gaza Strip, Sam Rose, the senior deputy field director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told reporters Monday.

Palestinian officials say Jewish settlers rampaged through a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, fatally shooting a Palestinian and wounding three others.

The Israeli military said its forces opened fire to disperse clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, and that it was investigating the reported fatality.

Highlighting seas that are rising at an accelerating rate, especially in the far more vulnerable Pacific island nations, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued yet another climate SOS to the world. This time he said those initials stand for "save our seas."

The United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization Monday issued reports on worsening sea level rise, turbocharged by a warming Earth and melting ice sheets and glaciers. They highlight how the Southwestern Pacific is not only hurt by the rising oceans, but by other climate change effects of ocean acidification and marine heat waves.

It's been a wild week of weather in many parts of the United States, from heat waves to snowstorms to flash floods.

Here's a look at some of the weather events: