The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors

New coronavirus variants are to be named after star constellations when all the letters in the Greek alphabet are used, a senior World Health Organisation official has said.

Within days of the comments, Alabama threw out more than 65,000 expired coronavirus vaccines despite the state’s low rate of immunisation.

Tree projects helping companies such as BP and Microsoft reach climate targets have been hit by the massive blazes up the west coast of the US.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are making hearts flutter with a sweet new photo of their daughter Princess Charlotte.

The raid on the school in the north-eastern town in April 2014 in which hundreds of schoolgirls were kidnapped sparked an international outcry and a viral campaign on social media.

The US is now averaging 100,000 new COVID-19 infections a day, returning to a milestone last seen during the winter surge in another bleak reminder of how quickly the delta variant has spread through the country.

Two Myanmar citizens have been arrested in the US and charged with conspiring with a Thai arms dealer to oust the opponent to the junta by tampering with his car.

The White House said the Taliban’s actions would not win the group the international legitimacy it seeks.

The Italian ‘Green Pass’ is one of the toughest COVID-free passport in Europe, required to eat indoors, see tourist sites, travel locally and soon even to teach.

“The bleeding was stopped before it even began,” said a happy Taiwanese official, as export orders soared in the wake of the Chinese ban on the fruit.

Rising Delta infections compelled the Obamas to scale back lavish plans for the former president’s 60th - and many of his old staffers did not make the cut.

The space agency is looking for fit young scientists, engineers and pilots to live in Mars Dune Alpha, a red planet habitat built inside a Houston studio.

The woman, whose name has not been made public, was an executive assistant who told state investigators that in one incident Andrew Cuomo groped her breast.

The regional vaccine leader is preparing to establish quarantine-free corridors for fully inoculated passengers as it approaches coverage of 80 per cent of its population.

Hezbollah said the attack with dozens of rockets was in response to Israeli air strikes on Thursday.

China’s Foreign Ministry said Biden’s asylum offer “slandered and smeared Hong Kong’s national security law...and blatantly trampled on international law”.

Residents told reporters they had begged Ethiopian soldiers to stay and protect them “or at least give us their Kalashnikovs, but they refused”.

After one activist was hanged and another hijacked, Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wants dissidents trained in spycraft for self-protection.

There are some unusual duties linked to the role at The INNformer, a small independent newspaper in rural West Virginia, including manning the desk of a small Victorian hotel.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors.

Facebook said the ad data tool used by researchers violated its privacy standards by scraping data from the site without authorisation.

In a reference to expanding its power and influence, Ebrahim Raisi said Iran would stand by people “wherever there is oppression and crime in the world”.

“The world needs to learn how to co-exist with this virus,” wrote a prominent Shanghai doctor about the recent outbreak.

The man who wants to replace the Japanese PM next month says no amount of Olympic gold would compensate for “putting the lives of the Japanese people” at risk. 

Human-caused warming has led to an “almost complete loss of stability” in the system that drives Atlantic Ocean currents, a new study has found.

The new Moderna data comes from the company’s roughly 30,000-participant clinical trial used to support the vaccine’s emergency authorisation.

Fifty years ago, fierce controversy raged in Britain following the jail sentences imposed on the three editors of “Oz” magazine, convicted on obscenity charges.

The overnight airstrikes were a marked escalation at a politically sensitive time.

Thousands of residents of the town of Greenville had evacuated earlier under a warning from authorities that they were in imminent danger.

The rest of the military is being called on to cease invasive “two finger” examinations after the Army indicated it would abandon the decades-long practice.

The public register reveals Scott Morrison joined numerous other world leaders in giving former president Donald Trump a picture of himself.

In the last two weeks, fires in Turkey have burnt more than three times the area affected in an average year, while Greeks have been forced to evacuate beaches.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors.

On the Greek island of Evia, coast guard vessels helped with evacuations, where residents escaping fires had fled to a beach for safety.

Public health experts have stressed, repeatedly, that the unequal distribution of doses is not only unethical, but could extend the pandemic.

Many hope the traditional greeting, known as la bise, is in permanent demise and will never be revived even as the threat of COVID recedes. 

China is on the verge of toppling the US for the first time since Beijing 2008. But if it matched its squad with its territorial goals, it would have another 14 medals.

Klete Keller, a US gold medallist in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, faced seven riot-related charges, including civil disorder and witness tampering. 

Dr Anthony Fauci fears the virus is being given “ample” opportunity to morph even further into a deadlier strain that could diminish the effectiveness of vaccines.

The party for the nation’s 44th president will go on, but only for family and close friends.

As the Duchess of Sussex celebrates a significant birthday, many believe her next ambition is to take on Washington.

Enduring south-east Asia’s worst per capita COVID-19 outbreak, Malaysia’s political crisis has escalated but Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin refuses to give in.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was only the most prominent of many politicians and activists condemning Belarus’ ruthless approach to dissidents.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors

The assailant who stabbed an officer outside the military headquarters was also killed, but officials offered scant details about what had happened.

Air flight crews says mid-flight hostilities have been increasingly common in recent months.

Giraffes’ complex social networks are an anomaly in the animal kingdom, where an individual’s worth is based solely on their ability to reproduce and pass on their genes.

The governor’s response to the accusations is laughably feeble, but the polls will be closely watched - do regular New Yorkers really want Cuomo to go?

The cases are far more widespread than anything China has dealt with since the initial outbreak that devastated Wuhan in early 2020 and spread worldwide.