AFP news

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen insisted Thursday her party can still win control of parliament despite the centre and left scrambling to block her way and football hero Kylian Mbappe urging fans to outvote "those people".

Novak Djokovic came through a testing Wimbledon workout to stay on course for a record-equalling eighth men's title on Thursday as Andy Murray prepared to launch his emotional farewell.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv has been pleading with its Western partners to provide the country with modern fighter jets.

In her constituency in northern France, former prime minister Elisabeth Borne is counting on support from left-wing voters to hold her seat, even if many refuse to forget her role in passing a controversial pension reform.

Threads, Meta's alternative to X (formerly Twitter), has hit 175 million monthly users a year after its out-of-the-blue launch.

The European Union on Thursday slapped extra provisional duties of up to 38 percent on Chinese electric car imports because of "unfair" state subsidies, despite Beijing's warnings the move would unleash a trade war.

Lebanon's Hezbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and explosive drones at Israeli military positions on Thursday as tensions have soared amid the almost nine-months-old war raging in Gaza.

Britons voted Thursday in a general election widely expected to emphatically return the opposition Labour party to power and end nearly a decade-and-a-half of Conservative rule.

Equities rose and the dollar slipped further on Thursday as investors welcomed more data pointing to a softening labour market that gives the Federal Reserve room to cut interest rates, with another key jobs report due later in the day.

Kylian Mbappe leads France into Friday's Euro 2024 quarter-final against Portugal having yet to find his best form at the tournament after months of speculation about his club future and then the broken nose which overshadowed his team's opening game.

Joe Biden is "absolutely not" pulling out of the White House race, his spokeswoman said Wednesday, as pressure mounted on the president following his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.

A magistrate Wednesday charged prominent film director Benoit Jacquot for allegedly raping actors Julia Roy and Isild Le Besco, prosecutors said, in a high-profile MeToo case that has rocked France.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled southern Gaza since Israel issued an evacuation order, amid fears of a new offensive in the area which came under Israeli bombardment on Wednesday.

Carlos Alcaraz raced into the Wimbledon third round on Wednesday as Japanese superstar Naomi Osaka was demolished on her return to Centre Court after a five-year absence.

France's prime minister on Wednesday urged voters to form a united front to block the far right in legislative elections, warning that the anti-immigration party of Marine Le Pen was within reach of winning an absolute majority.

Eurozone stock markets rallied Wednesday and the euro rose on hopes France could avoid a far-right majority in looming polls, while London also gained ground on the eve of its general election.

The US trade gap grew slightly less than expected in May, to the widest level since late 2022, government data showed on Wednesday, as exports and imports both slipped.

Far from her home in the tourist mecca of Tenerife, Cati Padilla is one of the growing number of travellers escaping heatwaves for cooler holidays in Nordic countries.

Iranians will vote on Friday in a presidential runoff pitting the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian against ultraconservative anti-Western former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

Russia said Wednesday its forces had captured a district in the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow has been pressing for months.

Microsoft is to invest 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in a huge data centre project in northeastern Spain, regional authorities said Wednesday as the area seeks to establish itself as a cloud storage hotspot.

The leaders of Russia and China were in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a regional summit, seeking to harden anti-Western alliances and press their influence in the strategic Central Asian region.

Georgian student Elene Deisadze was browsing TikTok in 2022 when she stumbled across the profile of a girl, Anna Panchulidze, who looked exactly like her.

Between the orange trunks of the acacia trees in the Chad savannah, a herd of elephants move through Zah Soo National Park, under the watchful eye of one of the only humans allowed to witness the scene.

Survivors of India's deadliest stampede in over a decade on Wednesday recalled the horror of being crushed at a vastly overcrowded Hindu religious gathering that left 116 people dead.

South Korea has declared its super-low birthrate a "national emergency" and poured billions into encouraging citizens to marry and reproduce, but one YouTuber has found happiness and success promoting the opposite ideal.

Labour leader Keir Starmer is a former human rights lawyer turned-state prosecutor whose ruthless ambition and formidable work ethic look set to propel him to Britain's highest political office.

Britain looks likely to see a change of government this week, swinging leftwards back to the centre ground and the Labour party after 14 years of right-wing Conservative rule.

Crowds in Kenya's capital Nairobi lobbed rocks and looted businesses as police officers fired tear gas in scattered violence during fresh anti-government protests Tuesday following last month's deadly demonstrations.