After a walkover and an in-match retirement, 10-time Australian Open winner Novak Djokovic will meet two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner in the semifinals.

Djokovic dropped the first two sets of his quarterfinal 6-4, 6-3 Wednesday to fifth-seeded Lorenzo Musetti but was up a break in the third when the 23-year-old Italian retired with an injured right leg.

Three Texas siblings who perished in an icy pond were among several dozen deaths in U.S. states gripped by frigid cold as crews scrambled Tuesday to repair hundreds of thousands of power outages in the shivering South and forecasters warned the winter weather is expected to get worse.

Brutal cold lingered in the wake of a massive storm that dumped deep snow across more than 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) from Arkansas to New England and left parts of the South coated in treacherous ice.

The ambitious free trade agreement between the European Union and India underscores the EU's efforts to ink new global partnerships at a time when the Trump administration has rattled a continent deeply tied to Washington on trade, defense and diplomacy.

The agreement announced Tuesday reflects a new priority for the 27-nation EU, the world's largest trading bloc, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs because of opposition to American control of Greenland, only to back off days later. It follows trade deals struck or pending over the past year with India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and the five Mercosur nations of South America.

Iranian officials reached out to the wider Middle East on Wednesday over the threat of a possible U.S. military strike on the country, a month since the start of protests in Iran that soon spread nationwide and sparked a bloody crackdown.

Two nations, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have signaled they won't allow their airspace to be used for any attack. But America has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided missile destroyers into the region, which can be used to launch attacks from the sea.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday toured a southern town in Sicily where days of heavy rains from a cyclone triggered a massive landslide that cleaved off the town's edge, collapsing houses and forcing the evacuation of over 1,500 people.

The area of the landslide spanned 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) and civil protection crews created a 150-meter-wide (150-yard-wide) "no go zone." At the edge of Niscemi, some cars and structures had already tumbled 20 meters (yards) off the cliff while other homes remained perched perilously on the edge of the continuously shifting ground.

Israel has pledged an investigation after two Italian security officers were held up by an Israeli soldier with an automatic weapon in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli ambassador to Italy, Jonathan Peled, made the pledge Monday in Rome after he was summoned by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani over the incident, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.

An international media association expressed disappointment after Israel's supreme court again postponed ruling on a petition seeking free and independent press access to Gaza, in a statement sent to media on Wednesday.

Since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by an attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Israeli government has barred foreign journalists from independently entering the blockaded territory.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans on Wednesday to warn that the Trump administration is ready to take new military action against Venezuela if the country's interim leadership strays from U.S. expectations.

In prepared testimony for a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio says the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela and that its interim leaders are cooperating, but he notes that the Trump administration would not rule out using additional force if needed following a raid to capture former President Nicolás Maduro early this month.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrives in Beijing on Wednesday for a four-day visit to China aimed at repairing ties and expanding opportunities for British businesses in the world's second-largest economy.

He is the first British leader to come to Beijing since Theresa May in 2018. The relationship has deteriorated in recent years over growing concern about Chinese spying and surveillance, China's support for Russia in the Ukraine war and Beijing's crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong, the former British colony.

For more than two years, Israelis wore yellow ribbons to remember the hostages abducted during the deadliest day in the country's history. On Tuesday, they finally could remove those ribbons and shut down a haunting clock in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, marking the end of a painful chapter.

The return of Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, fulfilled nationwide hopes to return all the hostages, living or dead.