Facebook on Monday said it was combining specialists from across its hardware, gaming and virtual reality units to build an immersive digital world known as the “metaverse.”

President Joe Biden declared US relations with Iraq would enter a new phase with American troops exiting combat operations in the country by year-end as he held talks with Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi.

Thousands of US firefighters were battling a blaze in California yesterday that has grown so big it is generating its own weather system, with authorities warning conditions could worsen.

The United Nations warned yesterday that Afghanistan could see the highest number of civilian deaths in more than a decade if the Taliban’s offensives across the country are not halted.

A lagoon in Argentina’s southern Patagonia region has turned bright pink in a striking, but frightful phenomenon experts and activists blame on pollution by a chemical used to preserve prawns for export.

Another presidential candidate was arrested in Nicaragua on Saturday, police said -- the seventh potential contender detained by Daniel Ortega’s government in the lead-up to elections on November 7.

About 60 Cubans have been prosecuted so far for participating in unprecedented demonstrations against the government earlier this month, a senior official said Saturday.

President Joe Biden plans to nominate Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President John F Kennedy, as US ambassador to Australia, CNN reported on

The United States and Russia will hold high-level talks next week in the second bid in as many months to encourage stability in the tense relationship, officials said Friday. 

Elon Musk’s private rocket company SpaceX was awarded a $178 million launch services contract for Nasa’s first mission focusing on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa and whether it may host conditions suitable for life, the space agency said on Friday. 

Afghan authorities yesterday imposed a night-time curfew across 31 of the country’s 34 provinces to curb surging violence unleashed by a sweeping Taliban offensive in recent months, the interior ministry said. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel next week to India, an important partner in US efforts to counter China and in vaccine diplomacy that is hobbled by its own Covid-19 crisis. 

The United States imposed sanctions on Cuba’s defense minister and a special forces unit Thursday for repressing peaceful protests, a step President Joe Biden warned is “just the beginning” of punitive measures against Havana.

Ecuador on Thursday declared a state of emergency in its penitentiary system after riots at two prisons left 22 dead and 57 wounded. 

About 100 of the 613 US athletes descending on Tokyo for the Olympics are unvaccinated, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s medical chief said hours before Friday night’s opening ceremony.

Two shootings in downtown Milwaukee as crowds celebrated the Milwaukee Bucks first NBA championship in 50 years left three people wounded, police said.

US life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the largest one-year decline since World War II, public health officials said. 

Jason Lilley was a special operations forces Marine Raider who fought in multiple battles in Iraq and Afghanistan during America's longest war.

The United States yesterday led allies in a fierce condemnation of China over allegedly “malicious” cyber activity, accusing it of criminal extortion, issuing ransom demands to private firms and threatening national security.

Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Saturday denounced what he said was a false narrative over unrest on the Caribbean island, as the Communist regime vigorously pushed back against suggestions of historically widespread discontent.