Renewing its strikes on Gaza on Saturday, the Israeli military said it was prepared for a "week of operations," while the Islamic Jihad group continued to fire rockets from the enclave towards southern and central Israel.
The big picture: At least 24 Palestinians, including several children and two senior Islamic Jihad officials, have been killed and over 120 wounded since the fighting began on Friday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said without differentiating between civilian and militant casualties.
Taiwan said Saturday that recent military drills from China appear to simulate an attack, the Associated Press reports.
Driving the news: Multiple Chinese warships and aircraft crossed into the Taiwan Strait earlier this week following Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's visit to the self-governing island, which angered Beijing.
The leader of Amnesty International’s Ukraine arm resigned Friday amid fallout from a scathing report the human rights organization issued criticizing the Ukrainian military’s tactics amid the ongoing Russian invasion.
Driving the news: The report accused Ukraine of endangering its own civilians and allegedly violating international law. It prompted Oksana Pokalchuk, the leader of the watchdog organization’s Ukrainian arm, to resign, saying in a Facebook post the report had become “a tool of Russian propaganda."
Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Friday killed at least 10 Palestinians, including a 5-year-old girl and a commander of the Islamic Jihad group.
The latest: Air raid sirens went off in central and southern Israel late Friday local time. The Israeli military said that 80 rockets were fired from Gaza. About 46 reached Israeli territory and 33 of these were intercepted. No casualties were reported.
The inauguration on Sunday of Gustavo Petro as Colombia's president represents a major test for U.S. influence in Latin America as a leftist tide sweeps through the region.
Why it matters: Petro, an ex-guerrilla fighter and former mayor of Bogotá, will be the first left-wing president of a country that had moved in lockstep with the U.S. in recent years on Venezuela, the drug trade, and other regional challenges.
Moscow is "ready to discuss" a prisoner swap for WNBA star Brittney Griner and Marine Corps veteran Paul Whelan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.
Why it matters: Lavrov's comments come a day after a Russian court found Griner guilty on drug charges and sentenced her to nine years in prison. Her sentence came nearly six months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport in February for possession of a vape cartridge with hashish oil.
China imposed undefined sanctions on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her immediate family members on Friday after she infuriated Beijing with an overnight trip to Taiwan earlier this week.
Why it matters: China's Foreign Ministry also announced it was ending talks with the U.S. on climate change, military issues, anti-drug measures and other matters in retaliation for Pelosi's visit.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday responded to China's live military drills around Taiwan by saying that Beijing won't succeed in isolating the self-governing island nor stop U.S. officials from visiting Taipei.
Driving the news: Pelosi made the comments after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo as she wrapped up this week's congressional delegation trip to Asia that included a visit to Taiwan, which triggered the drills that Beijing plans to last for several days.
Taiwan reported multiple Chinese "warships and warplanes" near the island Friday as China's military conducted live ammunition drills for a second day in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei this week.
The big picture:Pelosi responded Friday to the Chinese military firing missiles into the sea near Taiwan on the first day of drills by declaring that Beijing couldn't stop U.S. officials from visiting the self-governing island. Taiwan's Defense Ministry described Beijing's actions as "highly provocative."
FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed concern at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday at growing violence in the U.S. related to politically divisive domestic issues that are now "almost a 365-day phenomenon."
Details: "I feel like everyday I'm getting briefed on somebody throwing a molotov cocktail at someone for some issue," he said. "It's crazy," added Wray, noting that there had been an "uptick" in violence related to abortion rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Meta announced Thursday that it shut down a troll farm with links to a sanctioned Putin ally and Russia's Internet Research Agency that spread disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.
The big picture: The action was part of a wider social media crackdown on cyber espionage operations and other bad actors detailed in the Facebook and Instagram owner's Quarterly Adversarial Threat Report.
While global attention is fixed on a potential crisis between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, another tug of war between the superpowers is unfolding 3,500 miles to the southeast.
Zoom in: Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy will travel this weekend to the Solomon Islands, a small South Pacific archipelago that's become a hotspot for U.S.-China competition.
