The two biggest economies and largest carbon polluters in the world announced separate financial attacks on climate change Tuesday.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country will no longer fund coal-fired power plants abroad, surprising the world on climate for the second straight year at the U.N. General Assembly. That came hours after U.S. President Joe Biden announced a plan to double financial aid to poorer nations to $11.4 billion by 2024 so those countries could switch to cleaner energy and cope with global warming's worsening impacts. That puts rich nations close to within reach of its long-promised but not realized goal of $100 billion a year in climate help for developing nations.

Big Tech companies that operate around the globe have long promised to obey local laws and to protect civil rights while doing business. But when Apple and Google capitulated to Russian demands and removed a political-opposition app from their local app stores, it raised worries that two of the world's most successful companies are more comfortable bowing to undemocratic edicts — and maintaining a steady flow of profits — than upholding the rights of their users.

The app in question, called Smart Voting, was a tool for organizing opposition to Russia President Vladimir Putin ahead of elections held over the weekend. The ban levied last week by a pair of the world's richest and most powerful companies galled supporters of free elections and free expression.

A small Spanish island in the Atlantic Ocean is struggling days after a volcano erupted, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people, and authorities are warning that more dangers from the explosion lie ahead.

Here is a look at the volcanic eruption on La Palma and its consequences:

The Kosovo-Serbia border was blocked again Tuesday by ethnic Kosovo Serbs protesting a decision by Kosovo authorities to start removing Serbian license plates from cars entering the country. The traffic chaos raised fears that it may unleash much deeper tensions between the two Balkan neighbors.

Serbia doesn't recognize its former province of Kosovo as a separate nation and considers their mutual border only as an "administrative" and temporary boundary.

Choosing calm language as tensions with the United States grow, Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated his nation's longtime policy of multilateralism on Tuesday, telling world leaders at the United Nations that disputes among countries "need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation."

His remarks came hours after U.S. President Joe Biden said he didn't have any intention of starting a "new Cold War" — itself a response to criticism from the U.N. chief this weekend that both Washington and Beijing need to make sure their differences and tensions don't derail their 42-year-old relationship and cause problems for the rest of the planet.

Racism, the climate crisis and the world's worsening divisions will take center stage at the United Nations on Wednesday, a day after the U.N. chief issued a grim warning that "we are on the edge of an abyss."

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, more than two dozen world leaders appeared in person at the U.N. General Assembly on the opening day of their annual high-level meeting. The atmosphere was somber, angry and dire.

Coronavirus cases are surging to the worst levels of the pandemic in a rebel stronghold in Syria — a particularly devastating development in a region where scores of hospitals have been bombed and that doctors and nurses have fled in droves during a decade of war.

The total number of cases seen in Idlib province — an overcrowded enclave with a population of 4 million, many of them internally displaced — has more than doubled since the beginning of August to more than 61,000. In recent weeks, daily new infections have repeatedly shot past 1,500, and authorities reported 34 deaths on Sunday alone — figures that are still believed to be undercounts because many infected people don't report to authorities.

Russia's ruling party will get 324 of the 450 seats in the next national parliament, election authorities announced Tuesday. The number is less than the pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, won in the previous election but still an overwhelming majority.

Retaining the party's dominance in the State Duma was widely seen as crucial for the Kremlin ahead of Russia's presidential election in 2024. President Vladimir Putin's current term expires that year, and he is expected either to seek reelection or to choose another strategy to stay in power.

The ruling emir of Qatar, whose nation has played a pivotal role in Afghanistan in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal, urged world leaders gathered at the United Nations on Tuesday against turning their backs on the country's Taliban rulers.

Speaking from the podium of the U.N. General Assembly, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani stressed "the necessity of continuing dialogue with Taliban because boycott only leads to polarization and reactions, whereas dialogue could bring in positive results."

Iran's new president slammed U.S. sanctions imposed on his nation as a mechanism of war, using his first U.N address since his swearing-in to forcefully call out Washington's policies in the region and the growing political schism within America.

President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday delivered a far more critical and blunt take on American foreign policy than his moderate predecessor, Hassan Rouhani, had done in previous speeches to the U.N. General Assembly. Raisi, who was sworn in last month after an election, is a conservative cleric and former judiciary chief seen as close to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.