Renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia on Thursday effectively shattered a peace pact that ended a devastating two-year war in 2022, with rebel forces mobilizing for an armed struggle they hope will lead to the removal of the federal prime minister.

The main combatants are Ethiopian federal troops and fighters loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front, or TPLF, an armed political group in Tigray, Ethiopia's northernmost regional state.

Turkey has agreed to gradually withdraw forces from a strategic military base in northern Iraq and hand over its control to the Iraqi government, following a meeting between the two countries' leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Iraq, meanwhile, pledged to remove armed groups that Turkey considers security threats from the region of Sinjar, in northwestern Iraq, according to a joint statement issued after the meeting late Wednesday between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

Hundreds of trucks idle along the road into Iran from Turkey's mountainous eastern border. Bustling even in normal times, the countries' largest crossing is now a make-or-break economic lifeline for Tehran as the U.S. navy blockades its ports.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has pressed to accelerate overland trade as the blockade limits the vast majority of imports while cutting off the oil and gas sales that largely keep the economy alive.

When Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the war, choking off sea passage for some 15 million barrels of oil a day, many feared that prices would skyrocket, cratering the world economy.

Instead, nearly seven months on, oil is expensive but not exorbitant, and analysts say there's enough oil available to meet current global needs, even as the higher prices cause political problems for U.S. President Donald Trump and others.

Powerful Hurricane Polo sent bands of heavy rain across Mexico's Pacific coast Thursday as a growing Tropical Storm Nolo approached Hawaii with the potential for catastrophic flooding.

Polo was forecast to maintain Category 5 strength as it skirts Mexico's coast over the next few days. Rain and strong winds had already started to pummel the coast, with waves crashing onto the normally pristine beaches.

A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's ban of three news outlets from the White House grounds, ordering early Thursday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored.

The ruling hands the outlets at least a temporary reprieve in what has been an extraordinary showdown between Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

A moderate earthquake shook southeast Turkey and parts of Syria on Thursday, sending people rushing out of buildings in panic. There were no immediate reports of any damage.

The magnitude 5.4 quake was centered in Sanliurfa province, near the border with Syria, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency.

A Hamas spokesman said the group is ready to move forward with the next steps of a peace agreement, after Trump’s Board of Peace unveiled a six-month, $2.45 billion plan for Gaza's reconstruction. The board announced the proposal in New York on Wednesday.

The Hamas spokesman, Hazem Qassem, expressed the Palestinian militant group’s “full readiness to implement the Board of Peace’s roadmap” but made no mention of any disarmament plans. Israel has said it will not allow reconstruction to move forward until Hamas disarms.

Israel's increasingly isolated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, but no meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump is planned.

The Israeli prime minister's brief stay in New York for his speech at the U.N. General Assembly includes meetings with several world leaders, according to his office — but not Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or any Arab leaders.

In the tangled greenery of a Ugandan national park, mountain gorillas sit among the leaves, calmly carrying on as tourists trek into their forest home.

Many gorilla families are used to people, but while their population grows, the forest available to them does not.