WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Congress passed a stopgap funding bill late on Saturday with overwhelming Democratic support after Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy backed down from an earlier demand by his party’s hardliners for a partisan bill. The Democratic-majority Senate voted 88-9 to pass the measure to avoid the federal government’s fourth partial shutdown in […]

In Xi Jinping’s strategy for securing China’s rise, the Communist Party keeps a firm grip on the economy, steering it out of an old era dependent on real estate and smokestack industries to a new one driven by innovation and consumer spending. But he may have to relinquish some of that control, as that strategy […]

When a staff member fell ill at Australia’s Antarctic research station and couldn’t be treated locally, the team tasked with rescuing them faced a daunting endeavor rife with obstacles. For one, the Australian Antarctic program had never attempted a rescue mission so close to winter, when temperatures on the continent can fall to minus 40 […]

China indicated on Monday that its top leader, Xi Jinping, will skip the Group of 20 summit meeting in New Delhi this weekend, dealing a blow to India, the event’s host nation, and raising questions about Mr. Xi’s profile as a global statesman. China will send the premier, Li Qiang, to the event, said Mao […]

For Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, a rare trip to Russia this month to discuss military aid for President Vladimir V. Putin’s Ukraine war effort could provide two things the North has wanted for a long time: technical help with its weapons programs, and to finally be needed by an important neighbor. North […]

Typhoon Saola, a powerful tropical cyclone with wind speeds approaching those of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes, was passing close to Taiwan on Wednesday. It was also edging northward toward Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. Saola was about 111 miles southwest of Taiwan on Wednesday morning and producing some rain there, according to the island’s […]

An appeals court in Pakistan ordered former Prime Minister Imran Khan released from custody on Tuesday, the latest twist in a political showdown between Mr. Khan and leaders of the powerful military establishment who appear intent on sidelining him from politics. Mr. Khan had been arrested earlier this month after a trial court sentenced him […]

At least nine people were killed inside a Himalayan temple that collapsed on Monday after heavy rains set off landslides and flash floods, the latest in a series of disasters this monsoon season that have brought death and ruin to many parts of South Asia. Rescue workers were struggling to pull bodies from the mud […]

On the 70th anniversary of the armistice that halted the Korean War, one American received a special honor in South Korea: former President Harry S. Truman, in whose memory a new, nearly 14-foot-tall statue was unveiled on Thursday. Although not all South Koreans were happy to see another monument for the war or a new […]

Typhoon Doksuri, a tropical cyclone moving through the Pacific Ocean with wind speeds equivalent to that of a Category 4 hurricane, was forecast to potentially hit the northern Philippines on Tuesday before passing near Taiwan and making landfall in China later this week. As of late Tuesday morning, the storm was about 167 miles east […]