A fire struck downtown Abu Dhabi early Wednesday, with authorities initially blaming a gas cylinder for an explosion caught on camera in social media.

The blast struck Hamdan Street in the capital of the United Arab Emirates as it hosts the FIFA Club World Cup. Journalists from Brazil covering Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras' win against Egypt's Al Ahly initially reported on the explosion.

China has ordered inhabitants of the southern city of Baise to stay home and suspended transportation links amid a surge in COVID-19 cases at least partly linked to the omicron variant.

Classes have been suspended, non-essential businesses closed and mass testing of residents ordered. Restaurants are only permitted to serve take-out. Traffic lights have been switched to red only to remind drivers to stay home.

Two American-born athletes competing for China. Two radically different reactions from Chinese social media to their performances at the Winter Olympics.

As freestyle skier Eileen Gu won her gold medal in the big air competition on Tuesday, praise for the San Franciscan quite literally overwhelmed the Chinese internet.

Israel's police commissioner cut short an official foreign trip Tuesday and rushed home to deal with a growing scandal over reports of illegal spying, including on members of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner circle.

Under mounting pressure, Kobi Shabtai returned early Tuesday from the United Arab Emirates, where the police forces were to establish professional ties during a longer visit. The decision came a day after a local newspaper reported that police illegally used spyware, including on the phones of Netanyahu's son and others, prompting a high-level investigation and upending the opposition leader's corruption trial.

Actors Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan are announcing the nominees for the 94th Academy Awards live on multiple platforms, including Oscar.com, Oscars.org, the academy's social media accounts and on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The nominees for best supporting actress are: Jessie Buckley, "The Lost Daughter"; Ariana DeBose, "West Side Story"; Judi Dench, "Belfast"; Kirsten Dunst, "The Power of the Dog" and Aunjanue Ellis, "King Richard."

Many of the world's largest companies are failing to take significant enough steps to meet their pledges to vastly reduce the impact of their greenhouse gas emissions in the decades ahead.

That's the conclusion of a new report by the NewClimate Institute, an environmental organization that works to combat global warming. Its researchers, who examined the actions of 25 companies, concluded that many of them are misleading consumers by using accounting practices that make their environmental goals relatively meaningless or are excluding key parts of their businesses in their calculations.

The European Union announced a $48 billion plan Tuesday to become a major microchip producer to try to curb its dependency on Asian markets for the component that powers everything from cars to hospital ventilators and game consoles.

At a time when natural gas shortages and reliance on Russia for energy shows the political risks of economic dependency, the 27-nation bloc is moving to boost its economic independence in the critical semiconductor sector with its Chips Act.

Thailand on Tuesday moved one step closer toward being the first Asian nation to decriminalize marijuana, after its health minister signed a measure officially dropping cannabis from a list of controlled drugs.

The delisting will mean all parts of cannabis, including flowers and seeds, are allowed to be used in Thailand. However, extracted content will remain illegal if it contains more than 0.2% of the psychoactive ingredient that produces a "high" — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

COVID-19 vaccine sales boosted Pfizer earnings well past expectations in the fourth quarter, but the drugmaker is setting a lower-than-expected bar for 2022.

Pfizer debuted on Tuesday annual forecasts for both earnings and revenue that fell short of analyst expectations even as the drugmaker expects another robust year of sales from its vaccine, Comirnaty, and its new coronavirus treatment, Paxlovid.

The hawksbill sea turtle lay belly-up on the metal autopsy table, its shell ashen and stomach taut.

A week ago, the adolescent turtle washed up on a beach in Kalba, a city on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates. Once unspoiled, the coast of mangrove trees is now fouled by piles of trash dragged from nearby landfills. Strewn across the shore are plastic bags, packages, bottle caps — and far too often, dead turtles.