The IMF announced Thursday that after months of negotiations it reached a staff-level agreement to provide Lebanon with $3 billion in aid to help it emerge from a severe economic crisis.

The country has been battered by triple digit inflation, soaring poverty rates, and the collapse of its currency since a 2020 debt default, and officials in Beirut applauded the announcement as it will open the door to additional financial support.

Ukraine was bracing to battle for control of its industrial east and appealing for more help from the West after Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup.

Authorities were urging people to immediately evacuate from the Donbas region before Russia intensifies its offensive. In Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged NATO to provide more weapons for his war-torn country to help prevent further atrocities like those reported in the city of Bucha.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is set to meet with Moroccan King Mohammed VI on Thursday during a two-day visit to Rabat that seeks to mark an easing of diplomatic tensions centered on Morocco's disputed region of Western Sahara.

The King will invite Sánchez and his family to share in the Iftar meal to break the day's fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to a Spanish government official not authorized to be named in media reports.

Yemen's exiled president stepped aside and transferred his powers to a presidential council on Thursday, as international and regional efforts to end the country's long-running civil war gained momentum with a two-month truce.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, major players in the conflict appear to have played a role in President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's decision, quickly welcoming it with a pledge of $3 billion in aid. The head of the new council has close ties to Riyadh.

A Turkish court ruled Thursday to suspend the trial in absentia of 26 Saudis accused in the gruesome killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and for the case to be transferred to Saudi Arabia.

Kaghoggi, a United States resident who wrote for the Washington Post, was killed on Oct. 2, 2018, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone for an appointment to collect documents required for him to marry his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz. He never emerged from the building.

The capital of the United Arab Emirates announced Wednesday it would start banning single-use plastic bags from June, the oil-rich country's latest move to advance its ambitious carbon reduction goals.

The statement from Abu Dhabi's government-run media office did not specify how the upcoming ban would be enforced, whether by fining businesses distributing the ubiquitous thin bags or charging people for their use. The emirate also said it plans to completely get rid of single-use Styrofoam cups, plates and food containers by 2024.

A rare video has appeared of al-Qaida's chief praising an Indian Muslim woman who in February defied a ban on hijab wearing, revealing the first proof in months that he is still alive.

Rumors of the death of Ayman al-Zawahri have persistently circulated, but in a video released Tuesday and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, the reclusive al-Qaida chief praises Muskan Khan who defied a ban on the wearing of the hijab in schools in India's southwestern state of Karnataka.

Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi says he was surprised by the international popularity of his Oscar-winning film "Drive My Car," but attributes it to the universality of the short story by Haruki Murakami on which it is based.

The movie centers on an actor played by Hidetoshi Nishijima who is directing a multilingual production of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." Still mourning the sudden loss of his wife, the actor, Kafuku, leads the cast in rehearsals in which they sit and read their lines flatly, ingesting the language for days before acting them out.

Grammy Award-winning songwriter Ed Sheeran won a U.K. copyright battle over his 2017 hit "Shape of You" on Wednesday, then slammed what he described as a "culture" of baseless lawsuits intended to squeeze money out of artists eager to avoid the expense of a trial.

The British pop star and his co-writers, Snow Patrol's John McDaid and producer Steven McCutcheon, had denied allegations that the song copied part of 2015's "Oh Why" by Sami Chokri, who performs under the name Sami Switch.

A group of financial donors committed to racial equity plans has secured at least $100 million annually to benefit minority groups that are disproportionately harmed by extreme weather events.

The group, the Donors of Color Network, also announced that 10 of the nation's top 40 donors to environment causes have now signed on to at least a portion of a pledge the network established last year. The Climate Funders Justice Pledge commits the donors to make their climate-related grants transparent and to direct at least 30% of their donations to groups that have Black, Indigenous or other people of color as their leaders.