RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed 76 members of an extended family, rescue officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel’s ongoing offensive is creating “massive obstacles” to the distribution of humanitarian aid.

BEIJING (AP) — The strong earthquake that hit northwest China this week, and killed at least 148 people, has caused economic losses estimated to be worth tens of millions in the agricultural and fisheries industries, state media reported Saturday.

LONDON (AP) — Detectives are investigating the alleged theft of a Banksy work of art after witnesses shot photos and video of a man removing a red stop sign adorned with three military drones, London police said Saturday.

The sign was taken less than an hour after the elusive street artist posted a photo of the work on his Instagram page Friday.

MOSCOW, Dec 22 (Reuters) - The head of a company that makes navigation systems for Russia's space programme was arrested in Moscow and charged with major fraud, state media reported on Friday.

TASS news agency quoted an unidentified law enforcement official as saying that Yevgeny Fomichev had been interrogated and charged with large-scale fraud, which carries a prison term of up to 10 years and a million rouble ($10,972) fine.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Friday that he is willing to help out with a surge of migrants that led to the closure of border crossings with the United States, but he wants the U.S. government to open talks with Cuba and send more development aid to migrants’ home countries.

The comments by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came a day after the U.S. announced that a delegation of top U.S. officials would visit Mexico for talks on how to enforce immigration rules at the two countries’ shared border.

BRIGHTON, Colo. (AP) — Two Denver-area paramedics were convicted Friday for giving a fatal overdose of the sedative ketamine to Elijah McClain in 2019 — a jury verdict that experts said could have a chilling effect on first responders around the country.

The case involving the 23-year-old Black man’s death was the first among several recent criminal prosecutions against medical first responders to reach trial, potentially setting the bar for prosecutors for future cases.

O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — A conservative-led Missouri school board has voted to drop elective courses on Black history and literature, five months after the same board rescinded an anti-discrimination policy adopted in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.

The Francis Howell School Board voted 5-2 Thursday night to stop offering Black History and Black Literature, courses that had been offered at the district’s three high schools since 2021. A little over 100 students took the courses this semester in the predominantly white suburban area of St. Louis.

ADEN, Dec 23 (Reuters) - The Saudi-backed Yemeni government and Iran-aligned Houthis have both committed to steps towards a ceasefire, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen said on Saturday.

The Houthis, which control north Yemen, have been fighting against a Saudi-led military alliance since 2015 in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and left 80% of Yemen's population dependent on humanitarian aid.

KABUL, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- About 800,000 Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland Afghanistan since October, Afghan caretaker government chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

"Since October, around 800,000 refugees have returned home, with half of them from Pakistan," the local television channel Tolonews quoted Mujahid as saying.

The majority of the remaining 400,000 others have returned from Iran and thousands of others from Türkiye, Mujahid said.

TEHRAN, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Iran and Azerbaijan have agreed to open a new transit passage at their shared border in the near future, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported Friday.

In a phone call with Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev, Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash discussed the latest developments in bilateral relations, especially in the economic, transportation and energy sectors, the report said.

PRAGUE, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- More than two decades after Western Balkan countries embarked on their journey of accession to the European Union (EU), their progress remains slow.

"We -- and I include here Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Montenegro, North Macedonia and Albania -- remain as a kind of hole in the middle of the EU. Because only when you leave Serbia do you see that there are no more borders in the EU, and that we are the ones who are surrounded by walls," Slobodan, a 52-year-old resident of Serbia's capital Belgrade, said.

MEXICO CITY, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Mexico on Friday launched operations on a train line that crosses the country's narrowest point from the Gulf coast to the Pacific Ocean, kicking off a flagship government project as the administration enters its last months in office.

The "Inter-Oceanic Train," which will carry both passengers and cargo on a three-hour trip from the coastal hub of Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz state to the Pacific port of Salina Cruz, is part of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's plan to bring investment to the country's poorer south.