Russian officials on Tuesday denied reports that Moscow sent Washington a written response to a U.S. proposal aimed at deescalating the Ukraine crisis, a day after the two countries exchanged sharp accusations at the United Nations Security council.

The Kremlin is seeking legally binding guarantees from the U.S. and NATO that Ukraine will never join the bloc, deployment of NATO weapons near Russian borders will be halted and the alliance's forces will be rolled back from Eastern Europe.

A Lebanese father tells his teenage daughter she is free to choose whether to have sex with her boyfriend despite his reservations.

An Egyptian wife discreetly slips off her black, lacy underwear from under her clothes before heading out for dinner, and it's not her husband she's trying to tantalize.

President Joe Biden has designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally, a largely symbolic honor but one that was meant to convey his administration's gratitude for the tiny Persian Gulf nation's assistance with evacuations from Afghanistan and in ending last year's Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Biden announced the designation during a meeting with the ruling leader of Qatar at the White House. It comes as he looks for the gas-rich nation to step up again to help the West as it faces the prospect of a European energy crunch if Russia invades Ukraine.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it would reprimand a senior officer and remove two others from leadership roles over the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian who was dragged from a car, bound and blindfolded after being stopped at a checkpoint.

It said the soldiers believed Omar Asaad was asleep when they cut his zip-ties and left him face-down in an abandoned building where he had been detained with three other Palestinians. The other detainees said they did not know he was there until after the army left.

The United States on Monday urged its allies to repatriate suspected Islamic State-linked nationals detained in northeast Syria, after the jihadist group launched an attack on a prison to free its fighters.

Washington called on its partners in the international coalition to defeat the Islamic State (IS), also referred to as ISIS, "to improve the secure and humane detention of ISIS fighters, support rehabilitation initiatives, and urgently repatriate their nationals and other detainees remaining in northeast Syria," in a statement from State Department spokesman Ned Price.

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard killed an unidentified gunman who attacked its intelligence office Monday in southern Iran, near the Pakistani border, the country's state-run IRNA news agency reported.

The report said the attack happened in the town of Saravan, in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, about 1,360 kilometers (850 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran. According to the report, a local citizen was also wounded during the shootout.

Wall Street pointed toward a lower open Monday on the heels of last week's furious rally that gave the major stock indexes their biggest gains of the year.

On Wall Street, futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index slipped 0.5% while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.7%.

Dolce&Gabbana announced Monday that it would drop the use of animal fur in all its collections starting this year, and transition to eco-friendly faux fur.

The Milan fashion house joins other luxury brands, including Armani, Gucci, Prada and Moncler, in adhering to guidelines set by the Fur Free Alliance, a network of animal rights groups around the world.

The highest-ranking Arab Muslim officer in Israel's police force has resigned, according to a statement Monday — a week after a video emerged showing him tripping over the body of a stabbing victim as he left the scene of a crime in 2020.

Police said in a statement that Maj. Gen. Gamal Hakroosh tendered his resignation on Sunday, and that it would take effect Monday.

Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi had been thinking about the concept behind " A Hero " long before he started making movies.

In fact, the spark came before he even knew that he'd ever make a film. As a theater student, he saw the Bertolt Brecht play "Galileo" and it triggered an idea about a person who does a good deed, has a quick ascent and even quicker descent. It's been rattling in his brain since.