NATIONAL

Russian troops are engaged in heavy fighting supported by widespread artillery fire as they launch a major offensive for Ukraine's Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said, a day after Moscow declared victory in the neighbouring province of Luhansk.

A wild storm system has moved away from Sydney after pounding Australia's largest city with four days of torrential rain, satellite images showed on Wednesday, although river waters stayed above danger levels, forcing more evacuations.

Britain's Boris Johnson defied pressure from senior ministers and a mounting rebellion within his party to quit on Wednesday, vowing to stay on as prime minister and fight off any attempts to oust him.

Britain's Boris Johnson vowed on Wednesday to fight on and not give in to a chorus of calls for him to resign, but his defiant pledge to keep going was met with derision and disregard from a mounting number of his own lawmakers.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will expedite its review of Eisai Co Ltd's and Biogen Inc's experimental Alzheimer's drug lecanemab, with a decision due by Jan 6, 2023, the companies said on Tuesday.

As Karen Britten relaxed and enjoyed the annual Independence Day parade in the upscale Chicago suburb where she has lived for nearly 40 years, about 10 gunshots suddenly rang out, shattering the festive atmosphere and sending a crowd of hundreds running for their very lives.

The Powerball jackpot grew for the second week in a row following the recent $366.7 jackpot winner.

The U.S. government on Tuesday reassigned 16 peak-hour runway timings at congested Newark Airport in New Jersey to Spirit Airlines from Southwest Airlines, saying this would boost competition and help reduce costs for travelers.

A wildfire in California of the 4th of July trapped around 85 to 100 people at an electric company facility until it was safe to be evacuated.

Thousands of people held a vigil on Tuesday evening outside a shopping mall in Copenhagen where three people were shot dead two days earlier in a rare shooting incident that has rocked this normally peaceful Nordic country.

A former Colorado funeral home owner pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a federal charge of defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting their family members' corpses and selling the body parts without permission, a practice exposed in a 2018 Reuters investigative report https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-funeral.

Ukraine has asked Turkey to help investigate three Russian-flagged ships as part of Kyiv's efforts to probe what it alleges is the theft of grain from Russian-occupied territory, according to official documents.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan loosened his state's restrictions on carrying concealed firearms on Tuesday, citing the U.S.

R&B singer R. Kelly, who was sentenced last week to 30 years in prison following his sex trafficking conviction, was removed from suicide watch on Tuesday morning at the Brooklyn jail where he is being held, federal prosecutors said.

The Chicago suburb of Highland Park was reeling on Tuesday morning, the day after a gunman rained down gunfire from a rooftop overlooking a Fourth of July parade, killing six people and wounding dozens more in the latest outburst of mass gun violence in the United States.

Charges are expected to be filed on Tuesday against the suspected gunman in the shooting at a July 4 parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park where six people were killed and dozens more wounded, Mayor Nancy Rotering said.

The man accused of killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade near Chicago had planned the attack for weeks and had come to authorities' attention at least twice before on reports that he threatened suicide or harm to others, local officials said on Tuesday.

The man accused of opening fire on a July Fourth parade near Chicago was charged on Tuesday with seven counts of murder, as police revealed they had reported him as posing a "clear and present danger" after alleged threats to his family in 2019.

The man accused of attacking a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb bought his rifle legally, fired more than 70 rounds from a roof and dressed in women's clothing to blend into the fleeing crowd afterwards, local officials said on Tuesday.

The man accused of opening fire with a rifle from a rooftop onto a crowd of people watching a July Fourth parade near Chicago, turning the holiday celebration into another national tragedy, was charged on Tuesday with seven counts of first-degree murder.

The man accused of attacking an Independence Day parade in a Chicago suburb bought his rifle legally, fired more than 70 rounds from a roof and dressed in women's clothing in order to blend into the fleeing crowds afterwards, local officials said on Tuesday.

The suspected shooter who attacked an Independence Day parade in a Chicago suburb bought his gun legally, fired more than 70 rounds into the crowd from a roof and dressed in women's clothing in order to blend into the crowd afterwards, local officials said on Tuesday.

"He was up on the roof, and had the rifle in front of him. I saw most of the gun. Then, we saw the bullets hitting the tree in front of us, which was insane," the father recalled.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will call on G20 nations this week to put pressure on Russia to support U.N.

The S&P 500 and the Dow fell on Tuesday, with investors fretting about the possibility of a recession as central banks across the world take aggressive actions to stem a surge in inflation.

A motorist who passed by initially mistook the child for a baby doll and called up the police when he realized it was an abandoned infant.

As Chilean school kids start winter vacation, they leave behind a semester marked by violence.

More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency oil reserves release aimed at lowering domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month -- even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices touched record highs.

More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S.