World

Joe Biden makes his presidential debut at the G7 on Friday as America's partners re-focus their collective heft on pandemic recovery and climate change after the psychodramas of the Trump era.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, this year's chair of the club of wealthy nations, will convene the virtual talks at 1400 GMT, vowing to free up any surplus coronavirus vaccines for poorer countries at a future date.

After seven months in space, NASA's Perseverance rover overcame a tense landing phase with a series of perfectly executed maneuvers to gently float down to the Martian soil Thursday and embark on its mission to search for signs of past life.

"Touchdown confirmed," said operations lead Swati Mohan at 3:55 pm Eastern Time (2055 GMT), as mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena erupted in cheers.

To realise his dream of satellite-powered internet, tech billionaire Elon Musk needs to install antennas around the world. In northern France, a village hopes he'll decide to keep those antennas far away.

Saint-Senier-de-Beuvron, population 350, is none too thrilled to have been picked as a ground station for Musk's Starlink project for broadband from space.

Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing became a rallying point for hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in towns and cities across Myanmar when video went viral of her being shot in the head by security forces while protesting against a military coup.

Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing died on Friday while in intensive care at a hospital in the capital Naypyitaw, where she had been on life support for 10 days since she was shot by police cracking down on demonstrators.

Indonesia's Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanoes, erupted on Friday, belching out fiery red lava.

The volcano, close to Indonesia's cultural capital Yogyakarta on Java island, had already spewed lava almost two dozen times over the two last days and caused hundreds of minor volcanic quakes, according to a report by Indonesia's geological agency.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was ridiculed online after a "friend" leaked Cancun trip text messages to The New York Times.

"Text messages sent from Ms. Cruz to friends and Houston neighbors on Wednesday revealed a hastily planned trip. Their house was 'FREEZING,' as Ms. Cruz put it — and she proposed a getaway until Sunday. Ms. Cruz invited others to join them at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún, where they had stayed "many times," noting the room price this week ($309 per night) and its good security. The text messages were provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the thread, who declined to be identified because of the private nature of the texts," the newspaper reported.

The Biden administration says it's ready to join talks with Iran and world powers to discuss a return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

The State Department said Thursday the U.S. would accept an invitation from the European Union to attend a meeting of the participants in the original agreement.

NASA's science rover Perseverance, the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another world, streaked through the Martian atmosphere on Thursday and landed safely on the floor of a vast crater, its first stop on a search for traces of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet.

Mission managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles burst into applause and cheers as radio signals confirmed that the six-wheeled rover had survived its perilous descent and arrived within its target zone inside Jezero Crater, site of a long-vanished Martian lake bed.

Dutch prosecutors said Thursday they want to drop charges against a father who isolated his children in a remote farmhouse because he is mentally unfit for trial.

Gerrit Jan van D., 68, was arrested in October 2019 for allegedly keeping his children in a room on his farm in the village of Ruinerwold for around 10 years.

Seven months after blast-off, NASA's Mars 2020 mission will have to negotiate its shortest and most intense phase on Thursday: the "seven minutes of terror" it takes to slam the brakes and land the Perseverance rover on a narrow target on the planet's surface.

Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) begins when the spacecraft carrying Perseverance strikes the Martian atmosphere at nearly 12,500 miles per hour (20,000 kilometers per hour).

US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid any tensions to rest Wednesday by finally holding their first phone call since the change of administration in Washington.

Netanyahu was one of the last foreign leaders to get a call from Biden, who took office on January 20, despite Israel's special relationship with the United States.