Australia decided to invest in U.S. nuclear-powered submarines and dump its contract with France to build diesel-electric submarines because of a changed strategic environment, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday had announced a new U.S. security alliance with Australia and Britain that would develop an Australian nuclear-powered submarine fleet.

The Afghan man who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last month was an enthusiastic and beloved longtime employee at an American humanitarian organization, his colleagues say, painting a stark contrast to the Pentagon's claims that he was an Islamic State group militant about to carry out an attack on American troops.

Signs have been mounting that the U.S. military may have targeted the wrong man in the Aug. 29 strike in Kabul, with devastating consequences, killing seven children and two other adults from his family. The Pentagon says it is further investigating the strike, but it has no way to do so on the ground in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, severely limiting its ability to gather evidence.

Pope Francis said Wednesday that Catholic bishops must minister with "compassion and tenderness," not condemnation, to politicians who support abortion rights and warned that clerics shouldn't let politics enter into questions about receiving Communion.

Francis was asked en route home from Slovakia about the debate in the U.S. church about whether President Joe Biden and other politicians should be denied Communion because of their stances on abortion. U.S. bishops have agreed to draft a "teaching document" that many of them hope will rebuke Catholic politicians, including Biden, for receiving Communion despite their support for abortion rights.

Yemen's southern separatists have resorted to emergency measures in a bid to put down growing protests over dire living conditions in areas under their control.

Aydarous al-Zubaidi, the head of the separatists' Southern Transitional Council, declared a state of emergency across Yemen's southern provinces, including the port city of Aden. The city serves an interim capital for the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday requested additional time to review a controversial ruling that could loosen protections of Indigenous lands, which may in effect leave the decision to Congress.

The top court is evaluating a ruling that invalidated a claim by some Indigenous people in Santa Catarina state to what they say is their ancestral territory. It has prompted thousands of Indigenous people to travel and stage protests in capital Brasilia, worried about the precedent upholding the lower court's ruling would set.

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.