AFP news

US job growth slowed drastically in October, hit temporarily by hurricanes and labor strikes, in a final major economic snapshot at the end of a razor-edge presidential election campaign where cost-of-living worries dominated voter concerns.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris hold dueling campaign rallies Friday in Wisconsin's largest city Milwaukee, as both candidates make frantic last-ditch appeals to wavering voters with Election Day just around the corner.

North Korea will stand by Russia until its victory in Ukraine, Pyongyang's foreign minister said in Moscow Friday, as the US has warned thousands of North Korean troops could be sent to combat in the Ukraine conflict in the coming days.

The World Health Organization said Friday that the necessary second round of child polio vaccinations in northern Gaza would begin on Saturday, after Israeli bombing had halted the drive.

North Korea's latest weapons test "perfected" its newest and most advanced solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, state media said Friday, as global criticism mounts over Pyongyang's purported deployment of troops to Russia.

French brushmakers are shifting to luxury and niche markets to survive rising costs and redundancy, as they see their craft --- handed down through the generations --- threatened with extinction.

At least 10 strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs early Friday, after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for buildings in Hezbollah's stronghold to evacuate.

With a showman's flair and an outlaw's moustache, the Pakistani gangster dials the hotline on his own most wanted notice -- taunting the authorities who put a bounty on his head.

One year after world leaders issued the landmark call for a global move away from fossil fuels, nations are failing to turn that promise into action, say climate diplomats, campaigners and policy experts.

Dozens of Facebook groups bill themselves as Kamala Harris fan pages but mount racist attacks, criticize her record on immigration and promote her rival Donald Trump, in what disinformation researchers call a "bait-and-switch" tactic aimed at deceiving voters in a tight US election race.

Cattle farmer Khairallah Yaacoub refused to leave south Lebanon despite a year of Hezbollah-Israel clashes.

In Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state prize in the US presidential election, renters -- whether still working or retired -- are struggling.

Kamala Harris clapped back Thursday at Donald Trump over what she called his "very offensive" remarks about women, returning reproductive rights to the fore as the rivals take their knife-edge White House race to western battleground states.

In an extraordinary twist that has upended an already unpredictable election, the world's richest man has become Donald Trump's most influential supporter in his bid to return to the White House.

The US and South Korean defense chiefs called Wednesday for North Korea to withdraw its troops from Russia, where Washington says some 10,000 of them have been deployed for possible action against Ukrainian forces.

Microsoft delivered solid quarterly results on Wednesday, beating analyst expectations with revenue jumping 16 percent to $65.6 billion, but questions were raised about the company's big spending on the AI boom.

Facebook owner Meta saw net income and revenues top expectations on Wednesday as the company said it would expand investments into artificial intelligence, drawing nervousness from investors.

Papua New Guinea on Thursday declared a boycott of next month's UN climate summit, branding the global warming negotiations a "waste of time" full of empty promises from big polluters.

Before the strike on his neighbourhood in eastern Ukraine, Volodymyr had planned to brave what promises to be the worst winter of the war yet with just a heavy blanket and two electric heaters.

The eurozone's annual inflation rate rebounded more than expected in October due to rising food costs, official data showed on Thursday, but remains in line with the European Central Bank's two-percent target.

Senior US officials were to meet their Israeli counterparts Thursday to discuss a possible deal to end the conflict in Lebanon and secure Israel's northern border from Hezbollah attacks.

The banks of the Rio Grande river separating Mexico and the United States look almost deserted, and formerly overcrowded migrant shelters are half empty -- a consequence of tougher US immigration policies in an election year.

A hermit crab trundles across a beach in Japan's Okinawa, carrying its home on its back: not a shell, but a disintegrating plastic yellow measuring spoon.

The Los Angeles Dodgers produced a stunning fightback to defeat the New York Yankees and clinch the World Series on Wednesday with a dramatic come-from-behind 7-6 victory.

North Korea said Thursday it had test-fired one of its newest and most powerful missiles to boost its nuclear deterrent, Kim Jong Un's first weapons test since being accused of sending soldiers to Russia.

The British charity Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) "transformed" Natasha Baker's life, she told AFP, teaching her "the tricks of the trade" that led her to become one of the greatest Paralympic dressage riders of all time.

Georgia's pro-European president on Wednesday refused a summons by prosecutors to give evidence after she accused the ruling party of fraud in the weekend's disputed parliamentary election.

Progress has been slow but it is relentless. "We have seen an acceleration in this progression, with the feeling that it cannot be stopped," he added, describing a "Russian strategy of pressure everywhere, all the time, while waiting for (the defence) to crack, crumble or collapse."