World

With Thai lawmakers voting to legalize same-sex marriage Tuesday, we look at the situation across the globe.

While the right to marry has already been legalized in 35 other countries, homosexuality remains banned in many parts of the world.

Veteran British actor Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, was rushed to hospital late on Monday after falling from the stage during a London performance.

The 85-year-old actor was starring as John Falstaff in a production of "Player Kings" at the Noel Coward Theatre in London's West End when he lost his footing during a fight scene.

Music pounds through an empty hangar on the outskirts of Paris as dancers perform a few snatches of a top-secret routine in front of giant mirrors.

Audiences will get to see the fruits of their labours on July 26 when the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is held in Paris.

Thailand on Tuesday became the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise same-sex marriage, in a historic parliamentary vote hailed as a "victory" by campaigners.

The senate upper house gave final approval -- by 130 votes to four, with 18 abstentions -- to changes to the marriage law allowing same-sex couples to tie the knot.

More than a dozen people were missing in China on Tuesday after heavy rains and flooding struck swaths of the south, while the north baked under some of its highest temperatures this year.

State news agency Xinhua reported that four people were unaccounted for after a flash flood in Changji, in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where torrential rains triggered landslides and clogged roads.

Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin of Maryland says he may not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in July, as some other Democrats have already vowed to boycott the speech. “My main commitment at this point is to see a ceasefire to end the bloodshed, to get the hostages returned and to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza,” says Raskin. He says Israel had a right to retaliate after the October 7 attack led by Hamas, but “only within the constraints of international law,” and says there needs to be a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and end “the nightmare that has been going on for decades now.”

Despite all their political differences, pro-Donald Trump House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and liberal Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) joined forces in May for a bipartisan White House ethics bill.

But the bill, according to The Hill's Rebecca Beitsch, "fell apart" when three Democratic lawmakers withdrew their support for it. Porter believes that three Democratic lawmakers — Reps. Ro Khanna of California, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Kweisi Mfume of Maryland — turned against the bill because of the Biden White House.

A Russian nuclear-powered submarine and other naval vessels on Monday left the port of Havana after a five-day visit to Cuba, the communist state off Florida's coast.

Residents waved Russian flags as the vessels sailed towards the open sea after a busy few days for the island, which has also hosted a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine and a Canadian Navy patrol ship.

Saudi Arabia on Monday warned of a temperature spike in Mecca as Muslim pilgrims wrapped up the hajj in searing conditions, with more than a dozen heat-related deaths confirmed.

One of the world's largest religious gatherings unfolded during the oven-like Saudi summer again this year, and authorities recorded more than 2,700 cases of "heat exhaustion" on Sunday alone, the Saudi health ministry said.

Inuit hunter Hjelmer Hammeken spotted a ringed seal near its breathing hole on the Greenland ice. In his white camouflage, he slowly crept towards it then lay down in the snow and waited.

When the right moment came, Hammeken tapped his feet together. The seal lifted its head to look where the noise was coming from and the hunter fired.

A former Trump-era official said Sunday he doubts German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “really knows what he’s talking about" after he heaped praise on President Joe Biden, according to a new report.

Elbridge Colby, Trump's onetime Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, took to X Sunday to slam the German chancellor for praising Biden at the G7 summit, Politico was first to report.