Holding his skis beside a bunny slope, Li Wei enthuses over his winter job as a farmer-turned-ski coach on the northwestern outskirts of Beijing.

The tall, tanned 36-year-old works December to March at a resort in the Yanqing district, which will host skiing, luge and other sliding events at the Winter Olympics, which open next week.

An autopsy has found that a 78-year-old Palestinian man who was pronounced dead shortly after being detained by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank died of a heart attack caused by "external violence."

The autopsy, undertaken by three Palestinian doctors, confirmed that Omar Asaad, who has U.S. citizenship, suffered from underlying health conditions. But it also found bruises on his head, redness on his wrists from being bound, and bleeding in his eyelids from being tightly blindfolded.

When the coronavirus began spreading around the world, the remote Pacific archipelago of Kiribati closed its borders, ensuring the disease didn't reach its shores for nearly two full years.

Kiribati finally began reopening this month, allowing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to charter a plane to bring home 54 of the island nation's citizens. Many of those aboard were missionaries who had left Kiribati before the border closure to spread the faith abroad for what is commonly known as the Mormon church.

In a break from the past, the U.S. and its allies are increasingly revealing their intelligence findings as they confront Russian preparations for invading Ukraine, looking to undercut Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans by exposing them and deflecting his efforts to shape world opinion.

The White House in recent weeks publicized what it said was a developing Russian "false-flag" operation to create pretext for an invasion. Britain named specific Ukrainians it accused of having ties to Russian intelligence officers plotting to overthrow President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The U.S. also released a map of Russian military positions and detailed how officials believe Russia will try to attack Ukraine with as many as 175,000 troops.

Multiple channels of Iran's state television have broadcast images showing the leaders of an exiled dissident group and a graphic calling for the death of the country's supreme leader, an incident that authorities later described as a hack.

For several seconds, graphics flashed on screen, interrupting the broadcast to depict the leaders of the opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. The name of a social media account, which claimed to be a group of hackers who broadcast the message honoring the dissidents, also appeared. Two state radio stations were also interrupted.

Construction workers with heavy machinery have started work on Poland's border with Belarus on a $394 million wall to stop migrants pushed across by Belarus in what the European Union calls a "hybrid attack."

Reporters were allowed to see the work in the village of Tolcza, near the closed border crossing of Kuznica in eastern Poland.

France's Macron takes own path, seeks dialogue with Russia

There's still room for diplomacy in the Ukrainian crisis. At least that's the conviction of French President Emmanuel Macron, who continues to push for dialogue with Russia despite signs pointing to a potential war.

Forces of Yemen's internationally recognized government and their Emirati-backed allies have swept through a strategic province, forcing Houthi rebels out of its second largest district, officials said.

The development in Marib province is another setback for the Iran-backed Houthis, who for a year attempted to take control of the oil-rich province. Their offensive crumbled when the United Arab Emirates-backed Giants Brigades helped reclaim the nearby Shabwa province earlier this month before advancing in Marib under air cover from the Saudi-led coalition.

The Biden administration and NATO told Russia on Wednesday there will be no U.S. or NATO concessions on Moscow's main demands to resolve the crisis over Ukraine.

In separate written responses delivered to the Russians, the U.S. and NATO held firm to the alliance's open-door policy for membership, rejected a demand to permanently ban Ukraine from joining, and said allied deployments of troops and military equipment in Eastern Europe are nonnegotiable.

Australians celebrated and protested the anniversary of British colonization of their country Wednesday on a day that is officially known as Australia Day but is considered by Indigenous activists Invasion Day.

Argument rages over how history should remember a fleet of 11 British ships carrying a human cargo of convicts arriving at Port Jackson in present-day Sydney on Jan. 26, 1788.