AFP news

Reigning Ballon d'Or Aitana Bonmati scored one goal and helped create another as World Cup holders Spain beat Japan 2-1 in their first game of the women's Olympic football tournament on Thursday, while record four-time gold medallists the United States beat Zambia 3-0.

Paris was on Thursday counting down the hours to the most ambitious Olympics opening ceremony in history on the river Seine, as tennis icon Rafael Nadal was fighting an injury battle which could shatter his gold medal dreams.

Kamala Harris launched a blistering attack on Donald Trump and his "extremist" Republicans as she addressed teachers Thursday, seeking to rally a key part of the Democratic coalition behind her bid to take on the billionaire for the presidency.

The United States sees no need to negotiate an international agreement on taxing the super-wealthy, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday, highlighting divisions on a plan that is top of the agenda at a G20 finance ministers' meeting in Rio de Janeiro.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and CEO of Meta, has become an unexpected evangelist for open source technology when it comes to developing artificial intelligence, pitting him against OpenAI and Google.

Comic-Con returns in full force to San Diego this week, where a hugely anticipated Marvel superhero film event is among the draws for tens of thousands of hyped-up fans dressed as fantasy heroes and sci-fi villains.

Joe Biden will press Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to seal a Gaza ceasefire deal, despite the US president's shock election exit threatening to limit his leverage over the Israeli premier.

Israeli forces retrieved the remains of five Israelis, killed during Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel, whose bodies had been taken to the Gaza Strip, the military said Thursday.

President Vladimir Putin held talks with Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in Moscow amid calls for Russian mediation to cool tensions between Turkey and Syria.

The death toll from landslides in a remote region of southern Ethiopia has risen to 257, the United Nations said Thursday, warning that the number of victims could soar to up to 500.

The foreign ministers of Russia and China met on Thursday on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers talks in Laos, Moscow and AFP journalists said.

US economic growth blew past expectations in the second quarter, boosted by consumer spending and inventory building despite high interest rates, government data showed Thursday, after a slow start to the year.

French oil heavyweight TotalEnergies on Thursday reported slumping profits in the second quarter, blaming lower margins in refining and falling sales and prices for natural gas.

Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Thursday, causing deaths and injuries according to Palestinian medical sources, as a group supporting Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militants alleged "sabotage" of efforts to free them.

Far north of iconic wine regions like Bordeaux and Tuscany, Sweden is seeing a burgeoning industry of vineyards and a first generation of winemakers trying to carve out a niche.

Heavy selloffs among tech firms hammered equities Thursday, tracking a plunge on Wall Street as disappointing earnings caused traders to panic that a months-long rally in the sector may have been overdone.

Anton Yushyn spent four years studying Italian at university in Kyiv but the outbreak of war taught him the most valuable lesson of his student life: to prioritise what matters most.

It started with a raid on a Chinese-run online gambling centre north of Manila where hundreds of foreigners and Filipinos were forced to run scams or risk torture.

Keita Suzuki leads a group of young analogue photography fans around a coastal city in Japan, stopping to snap pastel hydrangea blooms with bulky vintage film cameras.

The sporting programme at the Paris Olympics endured a chaotic start on Wednesday as men's football kicked off and a huge police operation was put in place for Israel's first appearance at the Games.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked for unity from lawmakers Wednesday as he addressed a US Congress divided by his military campaign in Gaza, with a rift between the nations deepening over the conflict's humanitarian toll.

Google-parent Alphabet on Tuesday reported profit and revenue that beat expectations as its AI-amped cloud and search ads businesses thrived.

US President Joe Biden will give what could be his final Oval Office speech Wednesday to explain why he dropped out of November's election and deny that he will spend six months as a lame duck.

Rescuers aided by drones were continuing a desperate search on Wednesday for possible survivors of devastating landslides in an isolated area of southern Ethiopia that have killed 229 people and affected thousands more.

The tired troops moved through the forest in east Ukraine at dawn, imitating assault rifle fire while searching for non-existent Russians between the trees.

Toxic "forever chemicals" are increasingly being used in US pesticides, threatening human health as they contaminate waterways and are sprayed on staple foods, a study said Wednesday.

Asian markets fell on Wednesday following a mixed batch of US earnings that did little to boost enthusiasm as investors look for the tech sector to continue filing blockbuster profits after pumping billions into artificial intelligence.

At the end of a narrow suburban street north of Paris, a giant structure shrouded in a skin of mesh and steel looks like a football stadium, but is in fact a vast data centre.

Soaring high across a gorge in the rugged Himalayas, a newly finished bridge will soon help India entrench control of disputed Kashmir and meet a rising strategic threat from China.