Pope Leo XIV met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time on Thursday, and the two men discussed the urgent need to provide assistance to civilians in Gaza and to pursue a two-state solution to end the conflict in the region.

The meeting, which lasted about an hour and was described as "cordial" in a brief Vatican statement, comes nearly a month after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect in the Gaza Strip.

The U.N. Security Council voted Thursday to lift a series of sanctions on Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and members of his government days before he is set to arrive in the U.S. for a historic visit to the White House.

The U.S. resolution to drop U.N. sanctions tied to al-Sharaa and Syria's interior minister, Anas Hasan Khattab, stemming from their ties to the al-Qaida militant group, was adopted with 14 members in support. China abstained from the vote.

Kazakhstan is set to join the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab and Muslim majority countries in a symbolic move aimed at boosting the initiative that was a hallmark of President Donald Trump's first administration.

The action, announced Thursday, is largely symbolic as Kazakhstan has had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992 and is much farther geographically from Israel than the other Abraham Accord nations — Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

Senior North Korean and Russian military officials discussed strengthening cooperation in their latest talks this week in Pyongyang, North Korean state media said Friday, as the two countries continue to align over Russia's war in Ukraine.

The report came days after South Korea's spy agency, in a closed-door briefing to lawmakers, said it had detected signs of recruitment and training activities in North Korea, possibly in preparation for additional troop deployments to Russia.

Lebanese authorities lifted a travel ban and reduced bail for the son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi paving the way for his release, judicial officials and one of his lawyers said Thursday.

The decision by the country's judicial authorities came days after a Libyan delegation visited Lebanon and made progress in talks for the release of Hannibal Gadhafi.

Airports in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago along with hubs across the U.S. are among the 40 that will see flights cut starting Friday due to the government shutdown, according to a list distributed to the airlines and obtained by The Associated Press.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that it will reduce air traffic by 10% across 40 "high-volume" markets to maintain travel safety as air traffic controllers exhibit signs of strain during the ongoing government shutdown.

President Donald Trump has warned that the United States will be rendered "defenseless'' and possibly "reduced to almost Third World status'' if Supreme Court strikes down the tariffs he imposed this year on nearly every country on earth.

The justices sounded skeptical during oral arguments Wednesday of his sweeping claims of authority to impose tariffs as he sees fit.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared a state of emergency on Thursday after Typhoon Kalmaegi left at least 114 people dead and more than 100 missing in central provinces in the deadliest natural disaster to hit the country this year.

The deaths were mostly from drowning in flash floods and 127 people were still missing, many in the hard-hit central province of Cebu. The tropical cyclone blew out of the archipelago on Wednesday into the South China Sea.

Israelis celebrated the return of the last 20 living hostages who were held in Gaza under the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. But Hamas and Israel are now arguing over the release of the remains of the last eight hostages. Hamas says it has not been able to reach all of the remains because they are buried under rubble left behind by Israel's two-year offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israel has accused the militants of dragging their feet and threatened to resume military operations or withhold humanitarian aid if all of the remains are not returned.

Since the ceasefire began this month, Israel has released the remains of 225 Palestinians to Gaza in exchange for the remains of the hostages, many of whom were killed in Israel during the attack. Only around 80 of the 270 Palestinian bodies returned since the ceasefire began have been identified, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

Mona Ziade, who helped The Associated Press cover major events out of the Middle East during the 1980s and '90s, including the taking of Western hostages during Lebanon's civil war and Arab-Israeli peace talks, has died. She was 65.

Ziade died Tuesday morning at her home in Beirut from complications of lung cancer after undergoing treatment for months, her daughter Tamara Blanche said. Blanche said that her mother had been unconscious in the hours before she passed away.