A Kuwaiti court has acquitted two former ministers and their co-defendants of the corruption charges they faced in an explosive case that tarnished the government and was widely seen as a test of accountability.

The charges against Kuwait's former Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak Al Sabah and his ally, former Interior Minister Sheikh Khalid al-Jarrah Al Sabah, along with other officials, concerned the embezzlement of $790 million that had gone missing from a military aid fund years ago.

Riot police has set up barricades and fired pepper gas to block demonstrators from joining an International Women's Day march in central Istanbul. At least 38 women were detained, media reports said.

As in previous years, authorities declared the city's main square, Taksim, and surrounding areas off-limits for demonstrations. Riot police then put up metal barricades around Taksim and on side streets leading to the square as well as to a nearby pedestrian thoroughfare.

Iran's foreign ministry strongly condemned on Wednesday the killing of two Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers in an Israeli missile attack on the Syrian capital.

The foreign ministry's website quoted ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh as saying revenge for the Monday strike will definitely be taken.

Ukrainian forces were bolstering defenses in key cities Wednesday as Russia's advance faltered amid fierce resistance in some areas, the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said, while the strategic port city of Mariupol remained encircled as a humanitarian crisis grew.

Across the country, thousands of people are thought to have been killed, both civilians and soldiers, in nearly two weeks of fighting. Russian forces have seen their advances stopped in certain areas — including around Kyiv — by fiercer resistance than expected from the Ukrainians.

For better and worse, "Turning Red" is like no Pixar film before it.

The film, directed by Domee Shi, who made the lovely Oscar-winning short "Bao," is the first Pixar movie directly solely by a woman. Its leadership team, including producers and art departments, is entirely female. And its protagonist, 13-year-old Meilin Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), is a Chinese-Canadian eighth-grader in the throes of puberty.

Hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government broke into the computer networks of at least six state governments in the United States in the last year, according to a report released Tuesday by a private cybersecurity firm.

The report from Mandiant does not identify the compromised states or offer a motive for the intrusions, which began last May and continued through last month. But the Chinese group believed responsible for the breaches, APT41, is known to launch hacking operations both for old-fashioned espionage purposes and for financial gain.

With some star power likely missing, Carlo Ancelotti and Mauricio Pochettino will have tinkering to do for the decisive encounter between their Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain sides in the Champions League round of 16 on Wednesday.

Kylian Mbappé is doubtful for PSG because of a left-foot injury, while Madrid is likely to be without Toni Kroos because of a muscle problem.

The English Premier League will disappear from Russian TV after suspending its deal with its state-owned broadcast partner after the invasion of Ukraine.

Clubs agreed at a meeting in London on Tuesday to cancel the rights deal with Sberbank-owned Rambler that was due to run until the end of the season.

The European Union is seeking to fully phase out its dependency on Russian energy "well before 2030" to ensure the 27-nation bloc no longer faces difficult decisions about hurting their own economies in geopolitical crises like the invasion of Ukraine.

The EU leaders meet in Versailles outside Paris for a two-day summit starting Thursday and will be working on ways to reduce their dependency on Moscow for fossil fuels.

An expert group convened by the World Health Organization said Tuesday it "strongly supports urgent and broad access" to booster doses amid the global spread of omicron, in a reversal of the U.N. agency's insistence last year that boosters weren't necessary and contributed to vaccine inequity.

In a statement, WHO said its expert group concluded that immunization with authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide high levels of protection against severe disease and death amid the continuing spread of the hugely contagious omicron variant. WHO said in January that boosters were recommended once countries had adequate supplies and after protecting their most vulnerable.