(AP) --- The Russian military said Tuesday it fended off a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow that prompted authorities to briefly close one of the city’s airports.

The attack, which follows previous similar raids on the Russian capital during the previous months, comes after a mutiny launched by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, which saw his Wagner troops approach Moscow in the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in more than two decades of his rule.

MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/: Russian air defense forces shot down two Ukrainian Su-25 ground attack planes, intercepted five rockets of the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system and destroyed 14 enemy drones over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, July 4 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin reassured Asian leaders of Russia's stability and unity on Tuesday in his first appearance at an international forum since the country was rocked by a brief armed mutiny last month.

"The Russian people are consolidated as never before," Putin told a virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group that also includes China and India.

MANILA, Jul 4 (NNN-PNA) – The erupting Mayon volcano, approximately 500 km south-east of the Philippine capital, has increased seismic activities, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology warned, today.

The institute said that, alert level 3 on a scale of 5, remains, at the most active volcano in the country, despite the persistence of “a continuous tremor-like series of weak volcanic earthquakes that steadied and increased in strength.”

FRANKFURT, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Joachim Nagel, president of the central bank of Germany (Deutsche Bundesbank), on Monday said that inflation in the eurozone remains too high and that the European Central Bank (ECB) still has "a way to go" to bring it down to the target level.

Addressing the 2023 edition of the Euro Finance Summit here, Nagel defended the ECB's decision to aggressively hike interest rates in a bid to tame the eurozone's "stubborn" inflation.

July 2 (Reuters) - A mass shooting early on Sunday at an outdoor neighborhood block party in Baltimore, Maryland, left two people dead and 28 others injured, about half of them children, as investigators sought the public's help in tracking down multiple suspects, police said.

Authorities offered no motive for the gun violence, which erupted at about 12:35 a.m. local time in a courtyard of grass and pavement between a pair of two-story rowhouse structures in South Baltimore's Brooklyn Homes community.

03 July 2023; MEMO: Hundreds of former members of the Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet) yesterday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of promoting the "conspiracy theory" that spread following the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in his autobiography, and supporting the theory that the Shin Bet is responsible for inciting extreme right-wing elements which paved the way for the assassination.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Beijing Thursday as part of an ongoing Biden administration effort to thaw U.S.-China relations, a senior Treasury official said Sunday.

LONDON (AP) — The head of the United Nations called Monday for maritime nations to agree on a course for the shipping industry to reduce its climate-harming emissions to net zero by the middle of the century at the latest.

The appeal by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres came at the start of a meeting of the International Maritime Organization in London that’s seen as key for helping achieve the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

NEW DELHI (AP) — President Vladimir Putin will participate this week in his first multilateral summit since an armed rebellion rattled Russia, as part of a rare international grouping in which his country still enjoys support.

Leaders will convene virtually on Tuesday for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security grouping founded by Russia and China to counter Western alliances from East Asia to the Indian Ocean.

02 July 2023; MEMO: Israel has approved the purchase of a third squadron of F-35 stealth fighter jets in a deal worth $3 billion, the Ministry of Defense said on Sunday, reports Reuters.

The additional 25 aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin LMT.N will bring the number of F-35s in Israel's air force to 75, the ministry said, adding that the deal will be financed through the defense aid package Israel receives from the United States.

WASHINGTON, July 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Joe Biden has scheduled a diplomatic trip to Europe this month with stops in the United Kingdom, at the NATO summit in Lithuania and to attend meetings in Finland, the White House said.

Biden is set to depart July 9 for Britain, where he will meet with King Charles III and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the White House said in a statement. He will then continue to the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11-12, followed by a one-day visit to Helsinki for the US-Nordic Leaders Summit.