VIDEO: As millions across Southeast Asia suffer a blistering heatwave that is melting railway tracks, a Thai village resorted to an unusual method to seek rain: parading a Japanese cartoon cat u.afp.com/5PME

Uruguay’s leftist ex-leader Jose Mujica, once known as the world's 'poorest president' for giving away most of his salary and driving an old Volkswagen Beetle, will receive treatment for cancer of the esophagus, his doctor said u.afp.com/5PMD

From condemning abortion bans to wooing Black voters, US Vice President Kamala Harris is taking a starring role in Biden's campaign to win a second term by again defeating Donald Trump u.afp.com/5PMz

Russian energy giant Gazprom said it suffered a record annual loss last year as the European market was practically shut to its gas exports due to sanctions over Moscow's military operation in Ukraine u.afp.com/5PMr

Singer and model Carla Bruni was questioned as a suspect in a witness tampering case against her husband, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, two sources said u.afp.com/5PMV

Apple said its quarterly profit ebbed but topped market forecasts as it announced an unprecedented $110 billion share buyback u.afp.com/5PQk

US antitrust authorities cleared ExxonMobil's acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources under the condition that the shale producer's former CEO be barred from the company's board, regulators announced u.afp.com/5PMt

Kenya and Tanzania were bracing for a cyclone on the heels of torrential rains that have devastated East Africa, killing more than 350 people and forcing tens of thousands from their homes u.afp.com/5PMj

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the country's south where floods and mudslides caused by torrential rains have killed 13 people, with the toll likely to rise u.afp.com/5PMB

Italy is allowed to confiscate an ancient Greek bronze fished from the Adriatic in the 1960s and now in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Europe's top rights court ruled u.afp.com/5PM7

The United Nations said that the post-war reconstruction of Gaza would require an international effort unseen since the aftermath of World War II, estimating it could cost up to $40 billion u.afp.com/5PMi

A modest wooden school in the middle of the Colombian Amazon preserves the memory of atrocities perpetrated against Indigenous people by rubber industrialists more than a century ago u.afp.com/5PMU

The lawyer who negotiated a hush money payment from Donald Trump to a porn star was grilled on Thursday by the former US president's defense attorney, who suggested his activities bordered on 'extortion' u.afp.com/5PMJ

VIDEO: The Kenya Red Cross rescues a man it says was stranded by floodwaters and forced to take shelter up a tree for five days in Garissa

Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry joined a group of US senators to announce new legislation that would provide tens of millions of dollars towards menopause research and education u.afp.com/5Pgu

Dozens of overturned tents, 'Free Palestine' signs strewn on the lawn, keffiyehs and flashlights discarded in haste: not much of the pro-Palestinian protest encampment was left Thursday morning at the University of California, Los Angeles u.afp.com/5PgE