LeBron James certainly didn't look like he had been away from an NBA court for nearly seven months when he began his unprecedented 23rd season Tuesday night — even if his burning lungs told him otherwise.

After reaching another landmark in what is now officially the longest career in league history, James was not at all surprised to return from his lengthy injury absence by fitting in seamlessly with the surging Los Angeles Lakers in yet another victory.

The tiny Caribbean island country Curaçao will go to the 2026 World Cup as the smallest nation by population ever to qualify for the marquee event in men's football.

Curaçao, an autonomous territory of about 156,000 people within the Netherlands kingdom, takes the record of Iceland, with a population of just over 350,000, which was the previous smallest country to reach the World Cup when it qualified for Russia 2018.

Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was at the White House on Tuesday as President Donald Trump hosted a glitzy dinner to honor Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The football star was seated near the front of the East Room, not far from where the president and crown prince gave remarks to officials from both nations, along with major business leaders such as Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla founder Elon Musk.

A jovial President Donald Trump held a warm and friendly meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman at the White House, packed with plenty of handshakes and back pats. He brushed aside questions about Saudi Arabia's human rights record, praised the prince for his statesmanship and announced hundreds of billions of dollars in new Saudi investment in the United States.

The White House rolled out plenty of pomp for the Saudi royal on Tuesday, dispatching fighter jets that the two leaders watched from a red carpet, parading out an honor guard on horseback and giving a lavish dinner in the East Room.

President Donald Trump denounced ABC News' Mary Bruce as a "terrible reporter" Tuesday and threatened the network's license to broadcast after she asked him three sharp questions at the White House.

The network's chief White House correspondent was among reporters let into the Oval Office to question the president and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. She asked Trump whether it was appropriate for his family to be doing business in Saudi Arabia while he was president.

The head of the Louvre Museum said Wednesday that new surveillance cameras and anti-intrusion systems will soon be installed at the Paris landmark after last month's stunning crown jewels heist.

The cameras — some 100 of them — will be up and running by the end of next year while anti-intrusion systems will start to be put in place within two weeks, Louvre director Laurence des Cars said.

A mountain of illegally dumped trash near a river in the country outside Oxford was visible from space but few on Earth seemed to notice the mess.

Hidden behind a thick row of trees from the busy highway next to it, the pile grew to the length of three Olympic-sized swimming pools and reached up to the roof of a two-story house as motorists unknowingly sped past.

Britain warned Russia on Wednesday that it was ready to deal with any incursions into its territory after the spy ship Yantar was detected on the edge of U.K. waters north of Scotland.

Defense Secretary John Healey said the Russian vessel had directed lasers at pilots of surveillance aircraft monitoring its activities.

Firefighters and army helicopters battled a fire Wednesday that burned through a neighborhood of old wooden houses in a fishing town in southwestern Japan, killing one person, injuring another and forcing more than 170 people to evacuate.

A man in his 70s was unaccounted for and firefighters later found a body, possibly of the missing man, and a woman in her 50s suffered a minor injury, the Oita prefecture disaster response team said.

Nigeria's leader promised authorities would intensify efforts to rescue 24 schoolgirls who were abducted by gunmen earlier this week from a school in the country's restive northwestern region.

The girls were kidnapped from their dorm before dawn on Monday, when gunmen attacked their boarding school, the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the town of Maga in Nigeria's Kebbi state.