International News

Despite the threat of dislocated fingers and strained muscles, over 150 Bavarian men came together Sunday to compete in Germany’s unique national championship of “Fingerhakeln,” or finger wrestling. The “finger wrestlers” met in a big beer tent in the small southern village of Bernbeuren. Around 1,000 visitors cheered on the all-male contestants as they gulped down their national beer and world-famous German sausages while Bavarian live music filled the air. Finger wrestling, a well-known competitive sport in Germany’s Alpine region and neighboring Austria, originated as a way to settle disputes. In each round, two competitors sit on opposite sides of a solid table and each hooks one finger — usually the middle finger — through opposite sides of a small leather loop. As soon as a referee signals the start, a contestant tries to pull the other across the table swiftly. The whole thing usually lasts a few seconds, and digits put out of their joints are common. The winner moves to...

Russia's state-run TASS news agency said at least five people had been injured.

Thousands more civilians have fled Russia’s renewed ground offensive in Ukraine’s northeast that has targeted towns and villages with a barrage of artillery and mortar fire

An apartment block has partially collapsed in the Russian border city of Belgorod, leaving at least 19 injured

A fourth Indian national living in Canada has been charged in the slaying of a Sikh separatist leader last June that became the center of a diplomatic spat with India

Victims of the devastating floods in northern Afghanistan are burying the dead and looking for the loved ones still missing

A protest against rising costs of food, fuel and utility bills has turned violent in Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir, leaving a police officer dead and dozens of people injured

Israeli forces are battling Palestinian militants across the Gaza Strip, including in parts of the devastated north that the military said it had cleared months ago

Heavy rains and torrents of cold lava and mud flowing down a volcano's slopes on Indonesia’s Sumatra island have triggered flash floods that killed at least 15 people and injured several others

A fire broke out in a vast shopping center housing 1,400 shops and service outlets in the Bialoleka district in Poland’s capital

Canadian authorities are urging all remaining residents in a town in British Columbia to leave immediately, despite improving weather conditions, after thousands were evacuated due to a fast-growing wildfire

There can be lifelong challenges for people with sickle cell disease in rural Uganda, where it remains poorly understood

Memorial Day is always a somber occasion in Israel

One of greatest climbing guides on Mount Everest has scaled the world’s highest peak for the 29th time, again extending his record for most times to the summit

Indonesian officials say a bus slammed into cars and motorbikes after its brakes apparently malfunctioned in West Java province, killing at least 11 people, mostly students, and injuring dozens of others

Knife crimes are on the rise in England and Wales, and a string of deadly attacks in recent years has stoked public anxiety and led to calls for the government to do more

Old foes Turkey and Greece are set to test a five-month-old friendship initiative when Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visits Ankara

Catalonia is holding a regional election whose outcome will reverberate in Spain’s national politics

A quota law in Argentina that promotes the inclusion of transgender people in the workforce has helped many find jobs, including a former sex worker who was hired in the country’s Foreign Ministry

Lithuanians are casting votes in a presidential election on Sunday at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears about Moscow’s intentions

Switzerland’s Nemo wins 68th Eurovision Song Contest with “The Code” after event roiled by protests over Gaza war

The Grand Final is scheduled for Saturday.

Police say eight people have been killed in a shooting attack on a birthday party in a bar in Ecuador, which has suffered an escalating wave of gang-fueled violence

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, says it’s been “humbling” to find out through a genealogy test that she is partly Nigerian

A growing number of civilians and police officers are demanding the dismissal and arrest of Haiti’s police chief as heavily armed gangs launched a new attack in the capital of Port-au-Prince

The Grand Final is scheduled for Saturday.

Holding umbrellas and pink paper lotus flowers, thousands of South Koreans joyously filled the wet streets of Seoul in an annual festival anticipating Buddha’s birthday the coming week. Despite the rain, organizers expected a turnout of around 50,000 people for Saturday’s Yeon Deung Hoe, or Lotus Lantern Festival, whose evening parade draws huge crowds out to see the featured floats, some carried and others rolled on wheels along the downtown area of the capital, Seoul. The festival — which began more than 1,000 years ago and was registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020 — aims to spread the enlightenment of the founder of Buddhism all over the world. Thousands of people gathered Saturday at Seoul’s Dongguk University, the parade’s starting point, to head to the Jogyesa Temple where thousands of colorful lanterns were hung at the temple’s grounds, forming the sentence: “It’s peaceful just the way it is,” which could be seen from the air. Dressed in...

The leader of a recently formed Cambodian opposition party has been charged with inciting social disorder in the third major legal action this month targeting critics of the government of Prime Minister Hun Manet

Sudan’s military and allied armed groups have staved off an attack by a paramilitary group and Arab militias on a major city in the western region of Darfur

Iran’s hard-liners have won most of the remaining seats in an election run-off to give them full control over the country’s parliament, authorities say

A Dutch public broadcaster has reacted angrily after the Netherlands’ contestant in the Eurovision Song Contest was dramatically expelled from the competition hours before Saturday’s final

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has visited the country’s border with Belarus and stressed that Poland will do more to strengthen security along its entire eastern frontier

UN World Food Program says more than 300 Afghans have died in flash floods

The Russian Defense Ministry says Moscow’s forces have captured five villages in a renewed ground assault in northeastern Ukraine

The U.N. food agency says more than 300 Afghans have died in flash floods that also destroyed more than 1,000 houses in the northern province of Baghlan

Winnie Makinda says she is facing the worst crisis and lowest moment of her life because of the Kenyan government’s response to floods that devastated her poor community in the capital of Nairobi

Swiss singer Nemo has won the 68th Eurovision Song Contest with “The Code,” an operatic ode to the singer’s journey toward embracing a nongender identity

Israel prepares to expand its military operation closer to Gaza’s last refuge.

A Danish Michelin-starred chef has teamed up with the Florida-based startup Space Perspective to take fine-dining to our upper atmosphere in late 2025

Panama is on the verge of a dramatic change to its immigration policy that could reverberate from the dense Darien jungle to the U.S. border

More heavy rain has started coming down in Brazil’s already flooded Rio Grande do Sul state

Mexico’s ruling party presidential candidate slipped up during a campaign speech Friday and said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was motivated by “personal ambition,” but later acknowledged the phrase could have been misinterpreted

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised another test firing of a new multiple rocket launch system the country plans to deploy to its forces starting this year as it bolsters its lineup of weapons targeting South Korean population centers

At least 113 people have died in the flooding.

The high-stakes report details the U.S. government's review of weapons used by Israel in combat. ABC News contributor Asma Khalid details what's inside the report.

An official in Congo says the death toll in the bombings of two camps for displaced people in the country's east last week has risen to at least 35

A new report from the State Department states the Biden administration does not have “complete information” that Israel used U.S. weapons to violate international law.

Kuwait’s emir has again dissolved the small, oil-rich country’s parliament amid continuing political deadlock

South Africa has urged the United Nations’ top court to issue more emergency measures to restrain Israel, saying its military incursion in Rafah threatens the “very survival of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Thousands of protesters angered by the government’s decision to hand over control of some border villages to Azerbaijan have demonstrated in the center of the Armenian capital for a second day to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan