Forty workers are trapped in a collapsed road tunnel in northern India for a seventh day as rescuers wait for a new machine to drill through the rubble so they can crawl to their freedom. The workers have been trapped since Sunday, when a landslide caused part of the tunnel to collapse. Relatives from various states have spent nights near the tunnel, seeking updates. On Friday, officials said the drilling was interrupted when some machine bearings became damaged by the breaking of rocks and clearing of debris. A new machine was expected to reach the accident site later Saturday, allowing rescuers to start drilling again.

In the run-up to the tightly contested Argentina presidential election runoff Sunday, right-wing populist Javier Milei is following former President Donald Trump's playbook, alleging electoral fraud without evidence. The claims have spread like wildfire on social media and are a common talking point at Milei's rallies. Milei has used the claims to mobilize his base to be poll monitors for the vote. Although some issues like the stealing of ballots are common in every election, experts insist the Argentine voting system has multiple checks and balances. While reminiscent of Trump, Milei lacks the power to overturn results. But there’s concern the legitimacy of the election process and the future government could be at risk.

Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue was illuminated with a welcome to Brazil message for Taylor Swift. It was thanks to an act of charity by Swift fans orchestrated by the Catholic sanctuary that manages the world’s most famous Christ statue. The colossal monument donned a projected white “Welcome to Brazil” T-shirt honoring the singer’s latest leg of her Eras Tour. The initiative was launched after a request from Taylor Swift fans. The priest who runs the Christ statue then dared Swifties to donate for a good cause in return for their request. The statue was lit Thursday night after Swifties met the goal and helped fundraise for 20,000 panettones and water for the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Poor, which will be marked on Sunday.

One of the signature broad, black bicorne hats that Napoleon Bonaparte wore when he ruled 19th-century France and waged war in Europe is expected to fetch more than half a million euros (dollars) at auction. The felt hat is the star of the sale on Sunday of Napoleonic memorabilia. A French industrialist spent more than half a century assembling the collection before his death last year. Other exceptional items on sale from Jean-Louis Noisiez’s collection include a silver plate looted from Napoleon’s carriage after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Also on auction is a vanity case he owned, with razors, a silver toothbrush, scissors and other personal belongings.

Author A.S. Byatt, whose books include the Booker Prize-winning novel “Possession,” has died at the age of 87. Byatt’s publisher, Chatto & Windus, says that the author died “peacefully at home surrounded by close family.”  Byatt wrote two dozen novels, starting with “The Shadow of the Sun” in 1964. “Possession,” published in 1990, follows two modern-day academics investigating the lives of a pair of Victorian poets. It was adapted as a 2002 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Germany for a short visit overshadowed by the two countries’ very different stances on the war between Israel and Hamas. Erdogan was welcomed by Germany’s largely ceremonial president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ahead of an evening meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Turkey is viewed as an awkward but essential partner in Germany, which is home to more than 3 million people with Turkish roots. It’s a NATO ally that also is important in efforts to control the flow of refugees and migrants to Europe, but there have been tensions in recent years over a variety of issues.

Communications systems in the Gaza Strip were down for a second day with no fuel to power the internet and phone networks, causing aid agencies to halt cross-border deliveries of humanitarian supplies even as they warned people may soon face starvation. The World Food Program says nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people need food. The war, now in its sixth week, was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel in which the militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel's military continued operating overnight into Friday in the northern Gaza Strip, but has said it is now consolidating its control of the area.

Asian stocks are mostly lower after Wall Street drifted to a mixed finish as momentum slowed following a strong rally in the first half of November. U.S. futures and oil prices edged higher. Hong Kong sank 2.2% with a 9.8% slump in Hong Kong-traded shares of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba following its cancellation of a plan to spin off its cloud computing unit. On Thursday, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite both rose 0.1%, while the Dow slipped 0.1%. Oil companies also fell sharply after crude dropped to its lowest price since July. Wall Street is still on track for its best month in a year.

Rescuers drilled deeper into the rubble of a collapsed road tunnel in northern India to fix wide pipes for 40 workers trapped underground for a sixth day to crawl to their freedom. A disaster management official said Friday that drilling with a new machine has covered a stretch of 78 feet so far and it may require up to 195 feet to enable the trapped workers’ escape. The first machine used was slow in pushing pipes through the debris. Nuts, roasted chickpeas, popcorn and medicine are being sent to the workers via a pipe, and their condition hasn't deteriorated. The workers have been trapped since Sunday, when a landslide caused part of the tunnel to collapse.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged leaders of developing nations to unite in the face of growing challenges due to the Israel-Hamas war. He said in a speech convening a virtual summit that: “This is the time when the countries of the Global South should unite for the greater global good." India sees itself as a leader of the Global South, a term referring to developing countries, and says the world should make progress on issues important to them. Climate finance, the debt burden of developing countries, and affordable energy transition are among the topics to be discussed at the summit Friday.

Karol G, Bizzarap, Shakira and Natalia Lafourcade, won big at the Latin Grammy Awards held Thursday. Karol G’s “Mañana será bonito” was crowned best album of the year and best urban music album. Argentine producer Bizarrap took home the awards for song of the year and best pop song for “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” with the Colombian star. Natalia Lafourcade, who holds the title for most Latin Grammys in history, added another award to her record-breaking list with record of the year. Relocating the show to Seville for the first time meant that flamenco was present throughout the entire night.

One of Haiti's most vulnerable and impoverished communities is recovering from a gang attack that targeted a hospital serving as a lifeline for many. The latest attack in the capital of Port-au-Prince was a show of defiant force and violence that continues to overwhelm a crumbling government that requested the immediate deployment of an international armed force more than a year ago and has yet to arrive. But the attack that forced the evacuation of an entire hospital under gunfire also was a rare triumph for police who rescued dozens and work for a department that is understaffed, under resourced and outmatched by gangs.

As Argentina heads for a presidential runoff election on Sunday, the decades-old populist movement known as Peronism is on shaky ground. Its candidate has lost some traction, even among longtime loyalists living in a suburb of the capital named after former first lady María Eva Duarte de Perón, better known as Evita. The Peronist candidate, Economy Minister Sergio Massa, is working overtime to keep once-steadfast supporters from straying to his opponent, right-wing populist Javier Milei. Massa has kicked the Peronist vote-getting machine into overdrive and has pulled out all stops from his ministerial post, providing cash benefits for workers, retirees and unemployed people, to the chagrin of political opponents and fiscal hawks.

Rescuers in Gaza don’t have the equipment to search properly for the living, let alone the dead. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands. They are looking for the bodies of loved ones killed in Israeli missile strikes. More than five weeks into Israel’s war against Hamas, some streets are now more like graveyards. U.N. humanitarian monitors say at least 2,700 people, including 1,500 children, are missing and believed buried under the rubble. More than 11,200 are dead.

Internet and telephone services have collapsed across the Gaza Strip for lack of fuel, the main Palestinian provider says, bringing a potentially long-term communications blackout. Residents say Israeli forces dropped leaflets Thursday warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza. That signals a possible expansion of their operations to the zone where most of the territory’s population has fled to escape Israel’s bombardment and ground assault. Meanwhile, soldiers continue searching for traces of Hamas in Shifa Hospital in the north. They displayed guns they say were found hidden in one building, but have yet to release any evidence of the central Hamas command center Israel has said is concealed beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital deny the allegations.

FETE FORROU, Senegal (AP) — The Fulani people — also known as the Peuhl — are believed to be the largest seminomadic ethnic group in the world…

ANNDIARE, Senegal (AP) — The planet is changing, but pastoralists here in the Sahel region of Africa are in many ways still raising livestock …

Saving the remaining Amazon rainforest in Brazil will require ensuring that the 28 million people who live there can sustainably make a living. An AP analysis of data derived from satellite images showed that a vast area of the Amazon -- larger than the size of Portugal -- has been cleared for agriculture, then abandoned because of poor soil quality. Simple low-cost farming practices, such as planting legumes to enrich soil with nitrogen, can help farmers get more out of already cleared areas. And developing sustainable supply chains for rainforest fruits can help people derive money from standing forest.

Pastoralists in Senegal and Mongolia draw on millennia of experience to raise livestock in harsh, volatile climates. But they and other pastoralists around the world face mounting pressures from deteriorating environments, shrinking rangelands, and new generations who seek a less grueling and tenuous life. At the same time, pastoralism is modernizing, with groups leveraging new technology to better care for their animals. In fact, the practice has survived for so long because it is designed to adapt to changing environments. Experts say it provides lessons that could help those who raise livestock at much larger scales adapt to climate change.

Britain’s medicines regulator has authorized the world’s first gene therapy treatment for sickle cell disease, in a move that could offer relief to thousands of people with the crippling illness in the U.K. In a statement on Thursday, the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency said it had approved Casgevy, the first medicine licensed using the gene editing tool CRISPR, which won its makers a Nobel prize in 2020. The medicine was approved for patients with sickle cell and thalassemia. Both diseases are caused by mistakes in the genes that carry hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carry oxygen.

A Russian court has convicted an artist and musician for replacing supermarket price tags with antiwar slogans and sentenced her to seven years in prison. Sasha Skochilenko, 33, has been held in her home city of St. Petersburg since April 2022 on charges of spreading false information about the military. She was arrested a month after Russia adopted a law effectively criminalizing any public expression about the war in Ukraine that deviates from the Kremlin’s official line. The legislation has been used in a widespread crackdown on opposition politicians, human rights activists and ordinary Russians critical of the Kremlin, with many receiving lengthy prison terms.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his first overseas trip in his new job and pledged to continue providing military support for Ukraine’s war effort for“however long it takes.” Cameron, a former prime minister who was appointed this week in a Cabinet shuffle, says he wanted to make the trip to Kyiv his first diplomatic visit. Cameron says he admires the strength and determination of the Ukrainian people. He told Zelenskyy the U.K. would continue to provide moral and diplomatic support "but above all, the military support that you need not just this year and next year but however long it takes.”

Perhaps just shaking hands and sitting down together can be enough sometimes. At their meeting Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping didn’t resolve any of the major geopolitical issues dividing the world’s two largest economies and chief rivals for influence, particularly among developing nations. But it did seem to put a floor beneath a relationship that had been in free-fall over issues from trade to investment to U.S. support for Taiwan, along with human rights in regions from Tibet to Sichuan and the Asian financial hub of Hong Kong, which China administers as a semi-autonomous region while gutting its civil liberties handed over from the former British administration.

Asian shares have retreated after Wall Street added a bit more to its big rally from a day before. Oil prices and U.S. futures also were lower. Any lift in sentiment following a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping appeared to vanish after Biden, when asked by a reporter if Xi was a dictator, conceded that he was, “in a sense.” On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.2% and the Dow industrials added 0.5%. The Nasdaq composite edged up 0.1%. Treasury yields rose after one report said inflation was easing at the wholesale level in the United States, while another indicated sales at retailers were stronger than expected.

Entire generations of Palestinian families in the besieged Gaza Strip have been killed in airstrikes in the ongoing Hamas-Israel war. They include infants to elderly grandparents, killed in attacks the Israeli army says aim to root out the militant group from the densely populated coastal territory. The unprecedented violence has raised troubling questions about Israeli tactics. Ahmed al-Naouq says none of his 21 family members, including 13 children, killed in an Israeli strike on his family's home belonged to Hamas. He is just one among many who say the same thing, and ask why their relatives were killed.

More than 236,000 people have entered European Union borders irregularly so far this year, according to International Organization for Migration figures, up 60% from the same time last year. Despite decades of efforts to reform it, Europe’s asylum system remains messy and ineffective. Attitudes toward migrants and refugees are hardening throughout the continent, in a difficult balance between protecting borders and respecting human rights. Badly advised by relatives and friends, misled by insufficient official information or poor translation services, many migrants make hasty and often irreversible decisions. They can end up in legal limbo for years, cut off from government aid.

Hotels in Argentina and Uruguay have reportedly rejected reservations for Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters over accusations of antisemitism leveled at the British singer known for his pro-Palestinian views. The Argentine newspaper Pagina 12 says Waters was due to stay in Buenos Aires ahead of shows Nov. 21-22 as part of his “This is Not a Drill” tour, but the reservations fell through. The paper quotes Waters as saying that hotels in neighboring Uruguay also refused to host him. Waters has long been dogged by accusations of antisemitism, including the U.S. State Department saying earlier this month that he uses "antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people.” Waters denies that, telling Pagina 12 that he is attacked for speaking out in support of the Palestinians.

Israeli troops stormed into Gaza’s largest hospital, searching for traces of Hamas inside and beneath the facility filled with hundreds of patients, including newborns, who have gone for days without electricity and with little food as fighting raged around them. Details from the Wednesday raid remained sketchy, but officials from Israel and Gaza presented different narratives about what was happening at the hospital: The Israeli army released video showing soldiers carrying boxes labeled as “baby food” and “medical supplies,” while Gaza health officials talked of terrified staff and patients as troops moved through the buildings. Israel faces pressure to prove its claim that Hamas had transformed Shifa Hospital into a command base.

After raiding the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital, Israel appears close to completing its takeover of the besieged territory’s northern sector. It has described the area, including Gaza City, as the headquarters of the ruling Hamas militant group. But as the military sets its sights on southern Gaza in its campaign to stamp out Hamas, key challenges loom. International patience for a protracted invasion has begun to wear thin. And with some 2 million displaced Gaza residents staying in crowded shelters in the south in dire conditions, a broad military offensive there could unleash a new humanitarian disaster during the cold, wet winter.

A hospital director in Haiti says a heavily armed gang burst into the facility and took hostage women, children and newborns. Jose Ulysse, founder and director of the Fontaine Hospital Center in the Cite Soleil slum, pleaded for help via social media. He confirmed has confirmed the incident in a brief message exchange with The Associated Press, saying the hospital is in “great difficulty.” No further details were immediately available, and it was not clear why the assailants may have taken patients hostage. Ulysse did not respond to further questions. The hospital has been considered an oasis in a community overrun by gangs that have unleashed increasingly violent attacks against each other and civilians.

The U.N. Security Council has approved a resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip” after four failed attempts to respond to the Israel-Hamas war. The vote was 12-0 with the United States, United Kingdom and Russia abstaining. The final draft watered down language from a “demand” to a “call” for humanitarian pauses. It also watered down a demand for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups.” And the resolution makes no mention of a cease-fire or Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

A day after Palestinian authorities called for an evacuation of Gaza’s biggest hospital, Israeli soldiers have raided it and say they were accompanied by medical teams bringing baby food, incubators and other equipment. But health officials on Wednesday said extra supplies and equipment don't solve the question of a safe evacuation. Experts say moving newborns and other vulnerable patients is fraught, even under the best circumstances. Doing so requires trained personnel, proper equipment and a transportation plan — requirements that are hard to meet as people trapped in Shifa Hospital navigate dwindling supplies, no electricity and no clear path out.

For years, the Houthi rebels controlling northern Yemen have chanted slogans at their mass rallies calling for the destruction of Israel. But they never acted on it until the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7. Since then, the Iran-backed Shiite Muslim force has launched at least six drone and missile attacks toward southern Israel, causing little to no damage. Most have been intercepted by Israeli air defenses on their journey from northern Yemen. The Houthis said the barrage is in retaliation for the Israeli army’s bombardment of Gaza and will continue until “Israeli aggression stops.” Here’s a look at what threat the attacks pose.

A woman has gone on trial in St. Petersburg in the bombing at a cafe that killed a prominent Russian military blogger after he was given a bust of himself that then exploded. Darya Trepova is charged with carrying out a terrorist attack, illegal trafficking of explosive devices and forging documents in the April 2 blast at the cafe in which Vladlen Tatarsky was killed and 52 others were injured. She was arrested shortly after the bombing and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, according to Russian news reports. Tatarsky was an ardent supporter of the Kremlin’s military action in Ukraine and filed regular reports on the fighting from the front lines.

Asian shares are mostly higher, cheered by a rally on Wall Street that was one of the best days of the year following a surprisingly encouraging report on inflation. Benchmarks climbed across the region and U.S. futures also rose. Oil prices nudged higher. Investors appeared to shrug off news that Japan's economy contracted at a worse than expected 2.1% annual rate in July-September. On Tuesday, the government reported that U.S. inflation slowed last month, raising the odds the Federal Reserve may refrain from further market-crunching interest rate hikes. The S&P 500 jumped 1.9% for its best day since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 1.4%, and the  Nasdaq composite gained 2.4%.

Britain’s highest court is set to rule on whether the government’s plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda is legal. Wednesday's judgement will be a boost or a blow to a contentious central policy of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s administration. The government says it has prepared “options for possible scenarios" after the ruling. Britain and Rwanda signed a deal in April 2022 that would see some migrants who arrive in the U.K. sent on a one-way trip to the East African country. No one has been sent to Rwanda as the plan has been argued in the courts.

A German thinktank has reported that to prevent global warming from surpassing the critical threshold of 1.5 Celsius, major Asian economies must ensure they can get half of their total electricity from renewables by 2030. The report by researchers of Agora Energiewende released Wednesday says that 30% of that renewable energy should come from wind and solar power, compared to current levels below 6%. The study reviewed energy plans of Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Taiwan. The gist of the findings is that those countries need to phase out their dependence on fossil fuels to help the world attain even the minimal goal for limiting global warming.

Dozens of tiny grocery stores have sprung up around Cuba in recent months. The locals call them “mipymes” (MEE-PEE-MEHS). The name derives from the small- and medium-sized businesses that the government first allowed in 2021. They sell everything from cooking oil and cookies to shampoo, jam and toilet paper. They even stock less basic, yet desirable items like Nutella or bubbly wine. But the prices are so high they are far from affordable for everyone. Their customers are Cuban families who receive remittances from abroad, tourism workers, diplomats, employees of other small and medium-sized businesses, artists or high-performance athletes.

Batman and the Joker, a man decked out in a full-body lion costume, another whose head and arms have been replaced by chainsaws. This isn’t Carnival or Comic-Con, but an outlandish campaign rally for presidential candidate Javier Milei in Argentina. His candidacy started as a made-for-television spectacle, and his followers picked up the baton and often turn rallies into opportunities to show their devotion to their candidate using props that go viral on social media. Milei will face Economy Minister Sergio Massa in a Nov. 19 runoff, with polls indicating a tight race.

Some of the 40 construction workers trapped in a collapsed road tunnel for a fourth day were sick as falling debris and technical glitches delayed the work to free them. Wide pipes are set to be drilled through excavated rubble to create a passage to free the workers trapped since Sunday when a portion of the under-construction road collapsed in mountainous northern India. That is testing the patience of the relatives and friends of the trapped workers gathering outside the tunnel. A magistrate said some workers have sent messages that they are suffering from fever, body aches, and nervousness. Medicine has been sent through pipes that were set up earlier to get water and food to the workers.

After four failed attempts, the U.N. Security Council is trying for a fifth time to come up with a resolution on the Israel-Hamas war. But it remains to be seen if serious divisions can be overcome to produce wording that could be adopted. The current draft under negotiation would demand “immediate extended humanitarian pauses” throughout the Gaza Strip to provide civilians with desperately needed aid. It also would demand that “all parties” comply with international humanitarian law that requires protection for civilians, calls for special protections for children, and bans hostage-taking. But the draft, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, makes no mention of a ceasefire, or Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel, or Israel’s retaliation against Hamas.

Passenger numbers at Dubai International Airport this year will eclipse the pre-pandemic passenger figures in 2019, showing the strong rebound in travel after the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns that grounded aircraft worldwide. The airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, has had 64.5 million passengers pass through its cavernous concourses through the third quarter. That puts it on track to reach 86.8 million passengers for the full year, which would exceed its 2019 figure of 86.3 million passengers. It had 66 million passengers last year. The airport’s busiest year was 2018, when it had 89.1 million passengers.

European Union nations have acknowledged that they may fail to fulfill a promise for ammunition Ukraine needs to stave off Russia's invasion and to win back occupied. With much fanfare early this year, EU leaders promised to provide 1 million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine’s front line by spring 2024. That would amount to a serious ramp-up of production. But the bloc is finding it tough to come up with the goods. Some 300,000 rounds have been delivered from existing stocks in the EU so far. “The 1 million will not be reached, you have to assume that,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday.

Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show that Israeli tanks and armored vehicles pushed further into the Gaza Strip late last week as part of an offensive squeezing Gaza City as fighting raged between its forces and Hamas militants. Images from Planet Labs PBC taken Saturday showed Israeli forces just south of the marina in Gaza City, with over three dozen vehicles positioned on the beach. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War attributed those vehicles as belonging to an Israeli push that saw troops cut off Gaza City to the south before reaching the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and moving north.

The BBC says two more people have come forward to complain about Russell Brand since the broadcaster launched a review into the actor and comedian’s behavior. The BBC was giving an update to its investigation after British media outlets in September published claims by four women that they were sexually assaulted by Brand between 2006 and 2013, at the height of his fame. The 48-year-old denies the allegations. The comedian worked as a BBC radio presenter from 2006 to 2008. The broadcaster said it recorded a total of five complaints against Brand. The BBC news website reported that the latest allegations are “understood to relate to his workplace conduct, and are not of a serious sexual nature.”

A Moscow court has fined Google for failing to store personal data on its Russian users, the latest in a series of fines on the U.S. tech giant amid tensions with the West over the fighting in Ukraine. A magistrate at Moscow’s Tagansky district court on Tuesday fined Google about $164,200 after the company repeatedly refused to store personal data on Russian citizens in Russia. Google was previously fined over the same charges in August 2021 and June 2022 under a Russian law that obliges foreign entities to localize the personal data of Russian users. The company was also fined $32,800 in August for failing to delete allegedly false information about the conflict in Ukraine.

The head of the Catholic church in China has begun a trip to Hong Kong at the invitation of the city’s pope-appointed Roman Catholic cardinal, marking the first official visit by a Beijing bishop in history. Joseph Li, who was installed by China’s state-controlled Catholic church as an archbishop, visited the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Tuesday morning. Li’s five-day tour came after the city’s newly installed Cardinal Stephen Chow invited him to visit Hong Kong during a landmark trip to Beijing in April — the first visit to the Chinese capital by the city’s bishop in nearly three decades. Experts said the invitation was a symbolic gesture that could strengthen the fragile relationship between China and the Vatican.

The U.N. humanitarian office says another 200,000 people have fled northern Gaza in less than 10 days. Israeli ground forces have been battling Palestinian militants around hospitals in the north where patients, newborns and medics are stranded with no electricity and dwindling supplies. The U.N. says only one hospital in the north is capable of receiving patients. All the others — including Gaza’s largest, Shifa, which has been at the center of a dayslong standoff — are no longer able to function. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which is struggling to provide services to more than 600,000 people sheltering in the south, says it may run out of fuel by Wednesday.

Asian shares are trading mostly higher ahead of potentially market-moving developments, including a U.S.-China summit and data releases in the U.S., Japan and China. Benchmarks rose Tuesday in most Asian markets but but fell in Hong Kong. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is set to meet with President Joe Biden on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim summit in California later this week. It will be the first face-to-face encounter in a year between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies. Wall Street drifted to a mixed finish to open a week that could bring more action in financial markets.

Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press show that the World Health Organization has paid $250 each to at least 104 women in Congo who say they were sexually abused or exploited by Ebola outbreak responders. That amount is less than what some U.N. officials are given for a single day’s expenses when working in Congo. That amount covers typical living expenses for less than four months in a country where the WHO notes many people survive on less than $2.15 a day. In interviews, recipients told the AP the money was hardly enough, but they wanted justice even more.

When Hurricane Otis roared into Acapulco Bay on Oct 25 with 165 mph winds, sailor Ruben Torres recorded a 10-second audio message from a yacht called the Sereno. He says he doesn’t want to exaggerate but he asks his family members to pray.  The Sereno was one of 614 boats that Mexico’s Navy says  were in the bay that night and ended up damaged or on the ocean floor. Of those aboard the Sereno, one person survived, while Torres and the boat’s captain remain missing. Otis killed at least 48 people officially, most drowned, and some 31 are missing. Sailors, fishermen and their families believe there are many more.

Thousands have marched in Mexico’s capital demanding justice for an influential LGBTQ+ figure who was found dead at home in the city of Aguascalientes after receiving death threats. Jesús Ociel Baena was the first openly nonbinary person to assume a judicial post in Mexico, becoming a magistrate in state electoral court, and broke through other barriers in a country where LGBTQ+ people are often targeted with violence. Prosecutors confirmed Baena was found dead Monday morning next to another person. A suggestion that suicide was a possibility touched off widespread anger, with LGBTQ+ groups calling it an attempt by officials to brush aside violence against their communities. Thousands gathered in Mexico City lighted candles over photos of Baena and other victims of violence.

Author Sarah Bernstein has won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novel “Study for Obedience.” The author born in Montreal accepted the award remotely from Scotland, where she had a baby just 10 days ago. Her novel is about a young woman moving to the remote north where after her arrival, a series of inexplicable events occur. The $72,000 prize honors the best in Canadian fiction. Past winners have included Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler and Alice Munro.

Gaza’s Shifa Hospital has become the focus of a days-long stalemate in Israel’s war against Hamas. Shifa is Gaza’s largest hospital. But Israel claims Hamas uses the facility for military purposes and has built a vast underground command center below the hospital. Since Israel declared war against Hamas in response to a bloody cross-border attack by the Islamic group on Oct. 7, its forces have moved in on Shifa. But hundreds of doctors and patients remain inside. It remains unclear how and when the sensitive standoff will end.