A U.S. airstrike launched last week in northwest Syria killed a senior Islamic State leader, U.S. military officials announced Wednesday.

Red alerts were also in place in Britain, Germany, Austria and Switzerland as the extreme early summer heat forced school closures, travel disruption and alarm about climate change.

The global benchmark price has fallen below $76 a barrel – the price it was trading at before the war in Iran began as investors becoming increasingly encouraged that oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz could soon return to normal.

A independent U.N. commission said Tuesday that the Israeli military had deliberately targeted children in Gaza, amounting to genocide, and in the West Bank, amounting to war crimes. The commission of inquiry,

C.D. Donahue, the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan, is the latest in a long line of military departures.

NPR reports from Mongbwalu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The fight to contain the virus faces obstacles from lack of supplies to residents who doubt that the virus is real.

Shipping vessels are transiting the Strait of Hormuz with their satellite signals on, an indication of growing confidence among shipowners about their safe passage. Roughly a fifth of global oil supplies moved through the waterway prior to the conflict in Iran.

North Korea has entered a new era of naval power that will project its nuclear capabilities, Kim Jong Un said Tuesday as he unveiled a 5,000-ton destroyer.