Carmaker Tesla has opened a store and repair shop on Native American land for the first time, marking a new approach to its yearslong fight to sell cars directly to consumers and cut car dealerships out of the process.

The white-walled, silver-lettered Tesla store, which opened last week, sits in Nambé Pueblo, north of Santa Fe, on tribal land that's not subject to state laws.

World leaders will have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus to speak at the U.N. General Assembly's big meeting next week, the assembly leader and New York City officials have said, prompting swift objections from at least one nation.

With the diplomatic world's premier event being held in person for the first time during the pandemic, city International Affairs commissioner Penny Abeywardena told the assembly in a letter last week that officials consider the hall a "convention center" and therefore subject to the city's vaccination requirement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says dozens of his staff have been infected with the coronavirus and that he will continue his self-isolation because of the outbreak.

The Kremlin announced earlier this week that he would self-isolate after someone in his inner circle was infected although Putin had tested negative for the virus and he's fully vaccinated with Russia's Sputnik V. But Putin said Thursday the infections were extensive.

After a few weeks of desultory campaigning but months of relentless official moves to shut down significant opposition, Russia is holding three days of voting this weekend in a parliamentary election that is unlikely to change the country's political complexion.

There's no expectation that United Russia, the party devoted to President Vladimir Putin, will lose its dominance of the State Duma, the elected lower house of parliament. The main questions to be answered are whether the party will retain its current two-thirds majority that allows it to amend the constitution; whether anemic turnout will dull the party's prestige; and whether imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Smart Voting initiative proves to be a viable strategy against it.

Lawyers for two Palestinians who were captured after escaping from an Israeli prison last week have said their clients were badly beaten during their arrest, with the most well-known of the prisoners suffering a broken jaw and two broken ribs while in handcuffs.

Six Palestinian prisoners, five of whom have been accused of deadly attacks against Israelis, tunneled out of a maximum-security prison in northern Israel on Sept. 6 in the first mass prison break in decades. Four were recaptured around five days later, apparently while hiding outdoors.

Iran acknowledged on Wednesday that it had removed several surveillance cameras installed by U.N. nuclear inspectors at a centrifuge assembly site that came under a mysterious attack earlier this year.

The chief of the country's nuclear program, Mohammad Eslami, sought to portray the removal of cameras as Tehran's response to world powers reneging on their commitments under the tattered 2015 nuclear deal.

Qatar resumed its distribution of aid to Gaza on Wednesday for the first time since the May war between Israel and the territory's militant Hamas rulers, this time through a new mechanism that does not involve suitcases full of cash.

The Hamas-run government's official news agency said the money is being disbursed through supermarkets, money exchange shops and other retail stores in a process that will continue over the coming days. The U.N. has said the funding amounts to $40 million.

North Korea said Thursday it successfully launched ballistic missiles from a train for the first time and was continuing to bolster its defenses, after the two Koreas test-fired missiles hours apart in dueling displays of military might.

Wednesday's launches underscored a return of the tensions between the rivals amid a prolonged stalemate in U.S.-led talks aimed at stripping North Korea of its nuclear weapons program.

Human rights and refugee groups appealed Thursday to the European Union to step up its help for people trying to flee Afghanistan, accusing the bloc of failing to do enough to assist those living in fear of Taliban rule.

More than 100,000 people were airlifted out of Kabul in a chaotic exodus late last month after President Joe Biden announced that U.S. troops would withdraw, and the Taliban seized control of strife-torn Afghanistan in just a few weeks. Thousands more Afghans want to leave.

Environmentalists in Sri Lanka are challenging a court order issued earlier this month that would allow the return of 14 illegally captured wild elephants to people accused of buying them from traffickers.

Rights groups and lawyers say the Sept. 6 court order is based on a government decree that violates Sri Lankan environmental laws. They fear the order could encourage a resurgence of trafficking of wild elephants, putting them at risk.