Australia on Sunday activated disaster relief for residents impacted by wildfires that have burnt properties, infrastructure and thousands of hectares of bushland in the country's most populous state.

Hong Kong's citizens votes on Sunday in an election where the focus is on turnout, with residents grieving and traumatized after the city's worst fire in nearly 80 years and the authorities scrambling to avoid a broader public backlash.

The government has confirmed 607 deaths, with another 214 people missing and feared dead, in what President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has called the country's most challenging natural disaster.

The former TV reality show host dominated the scene at Washington’s Kennedy Center on Friday, placing himself squarely at the center of one of the biggest events in the sporting world in a glitzy, celebrity-studded affair that bore the unmistakable stamp of the president.

The national security paper, meant to flesh out Trump's norms-shattering "America First" worldview, signals a sharp reorientation from longstanding US calls to refocus on Asia, although it still identifies China as a top competitor.

The G20 website now simply has a picture of Trump in black and white that says "Miami 2026" and "The Best Is Yet to Come," the title of the song popularized by Frank Sinatra.

The monarch made the apology back in 2023 but it was accepted during a meeting and ceremony behind closed doors Monday in Paramaribo, the Surinamese capital, according to the state-run Suriname Communication Services (CDS). 

Since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, US strategies have designated Moscow as a major threat. However, the updated US policy, announced on Friday, adopts a softer tone, urging limited cooperation.

Three days of talks between Ukrainian and US officials produced no apparent breakthrough Saturday, with President Volodymyr Zelensky committing to further negotiations toward "real peace," even as Russia launched another series of drone and missile strikes on its neighbor.

The UN reported on Feb. 14 that Ukrainian authorities said a drone with a high explosive warhead struck the plant, caused a fire and damaged the protective cladding around reactor Number Four, which was destroyed in the 1986 disaster.

Negotiations on consolidating the US-backed truce in the war in Gaza are at a "critical" moment, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani has said.

Israel said it would open the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt exclusively to allow residents to exit the Palestinian territory "in the coming days", a claim denied by Egypt which insisted that the key crossing be opened in both directions.

The United States this month took over the year-long presidency of the group of leading economies after largely boycotting South Africa's tenure, including the November summit, in an escalation of its attacks on Pretoria.

"The Iron Beam laser system is expected to fundamentally change the rules of engagement on the battlefield," Daniel Gold, head of defence ministry research and development, told a defence summit in Tel Aviv.