The U.S. Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet said Wednesday it will launch a new task force that incorporates airborne, sailing and underwater drones after years of maritime attacks linked to ongoing tensions with Iran.

Navy officials declined to identify which systems they would introduce from their headquarters on the island nation of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. However, they promised the coming months would see the drones stretch their capabilities across a region of chokepoints crucial to both global energy supplies and worldwide shipping.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday the al-Qaida extremist group that used Afghanistan as a staging base to attack United States 20 years ago may attempt to regenerate there following an American withdrawal that has left the Taliban in power.

Austin spoke to a small group of reporters in Kuwait City at the conclusion of a four-day tour of Persian Gulf states. He said the United States is prepared to prevent an al-Qaida comeback in Afghanistan that would threaten the United States.

The U.S. and Germany on Wednesday stepped up pressure on Iran to return soon to talks on its nuclear program, with Germany's foreign minister saying that a delay of two or three months floated by Tehran is too long.

The remaining parties to the 2015 accord with world powers meant to contain Iran's nuclear program held several rounds of talks in Vienna earlier this year on how to bring the U.S. back into the deal and how Iran can return to compliance with its terms.

President Joe Biden declared climate change has become "everybody's crisis" on Tuesday as he toured neighborhoods flooded by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, warning it's time for America to get serious about the "code red" danger or face ever worse loss of life and property.

Biden spoke after walking streets in New Jersey and then Queens in New York City, meeting people whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged by flooding when Ida barreled through. The storm dumped record amounts of rain onto already saturated ground and was blamed for more than a dozen deaths in the city.

One of the main candidates to be Japan's next prime minister said Wednesday the country needs a new type of capitalism to address income and social gaps caused by the pandemic.

Former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida is the only announced candidate so far in the race to lead the governing Liberal Democratic Party and succeed outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. Whoever wins the Sept. 29 party vote is almost certain to be the next government leader.

With Katie Holmes and Lil' Kim on his front row and singer Marina on the mic high above his runway, Christian Siriano helped kicked off New York Fashion Week's first big pandemic round of in-person shows Tuesday with a flurry of neon and lace inspired in part by all the Italian women in his life.

From ornate Gotham Hall, beneath a stained glass skylight 70 feet up, Siriano's commitment to size inclusivity was never stronger as he opened and closed the show with plus-size breakout model Precious Lee. She first walked in a stunning yellow trouser suit with wide loose pants and an asymmetrical jacket, a matching crossover bralette underneath.

Shares slipped in Asia and Europe on Wednesday after a lackluster session on Wall Street, where weak jobs data and pandemic concerns weighed on sentiment.

Tokyo's benchmark rose after economic growth for the April-June quarter was revised upward to an annualized 1.9% from an earlier estimate of 1.3%.

Filmmaker Cary Fukunaga has been waiting more than a year and a half for the biggest movie of his career, the James Bond film "No Time to Die," to arrive in theaters. It has been a strange and surreal wait. Months before the much-delayed movie is even released on Oct. 8, the film's theme song, by Billie Eilish, has already won a Grammy.

"I had a dream last night where Sam Mendes was there," Fukunaga said in a recent interview, referring to the director of the previous two Bond movies. "We were on vacation on some frozen lake. He was done with Bond films. And he was like, 'Oh, you finished one. Now you get a break.' Then we started, like, water skiing on a frozen lake."

Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken are set to meet at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base for talks on Afghanistan on Wednesday.

The two foreign ministers are first set to talk bilaterally and later hold a virtual meeting with other foreign ministers, the German foreign ministry said in a statement.

Standing outside the rundown public hospital in Bulgaria's northern town of Veliko Tarnovo, the vaccination unit's chief nurse voices a sad reality about her fellow citizens: "They don't believe in vaccines."

Bulgaria has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the 27-nation European Union and is facing a new, rapid surge of infections due to the more infectious delta variant. Despite that, people in this Balkan nation are the most hesitant in the bloc to get vaccinated against COVID-19.