MEXICO CITY — The environmentalist group Sea Shepherd said Thursday the Mexican government will allow it to return to the Gulf of California to help efforts to save the critically endangered vaquita marina porpoise, but won’t allow the group to remove illegal gill nets.

A camp where more than 14,000 migrants had waited along the Texas border just days ago was dramatically smaller Thursday, while across the river in Mexico, Haitian migrants in a growing camp awoke surrounded by security forces as a helicopter thundered overhead.

At the United Nations this week, the pandemic-era rules of engagement for General Assembly week are strict. Entourage sizes are tightly regulated, and there are no exceptions for kings, presidents or other “excellencies.” Yet somehow, in the middle of it all, the U.N. made room to fully embrace the diplomatic soft power of seven young Korean pop stars.

Roger Michell, the British stage, television and film director whose movies include the indelibly popular romcom “Notting Hill,” has died, his family said Thursday. He was 65.

The Biden administration is imploring Iran to quickly return to talks on its nuclear program after a three-month hiatus caused by its government transition, warning that the window for negotiations may soon close.

Serbia has raised its troops' combat readiness on the border with Kosovo amid increasing tensions with its breakaway former province, the Serbian defense minister said Thursday.

The Biden administration’s special envoy to Haiti resigned in protest of "inhumane" large-scale expulsions of Haitian migrants to their homeland as it is wracked by civil strife and natural disaster, U.S. officials said Thursday.

TODOQUE, Canary Islands  — The advance of lava from a volcanic eruption on one of Spain’s Canary Islands has slowed significantly, raising fears Thursday that the molten rock might fan out further in coming days and wreak more destruction instead of just flowing out into the sea.

One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.

As wealthy countries begin to consider whether to offer their populations a third COVID-19 shot, African nations still waiting for their first gave this stark reminder to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday: “No one is safe unless we are all safe.”

With increasingly strong talk in support of Taiwan, a new deal to supply Australia with nuclear submarines, and the launch of a European strategy for greater engagement in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. and its allies are becoming more assertive in their approach toward a rising China.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban’s newly appointed envoy to the United Nations on Wednesday urged quick world recognition of Afghanistan’s new rulers even as the World Health Organization raised the alarm of an impending health care disaster in the war-wracked country.

France will send its ambassador back to Washington next week after French President Emmanuel Macron and President Joe Biden agreed in a phone call Wednesday to meet next month over a submarine dispute.

The U.N. General Assembly pledged Wednesday to redouble efforts to combat racism around the world, commemorating a landmark but contentious 2001 anti-racism conference by holding an anniversary meeting once again riven with divisions.

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the United States is doubling its purchase of Pfizer's COVID-19 shots to share with the world to 1 billion doses as he embraces the goal of vaccinating 70% of the global population within the next year.

JOHANNESBURG — The corruption trial of former South African President Jacob Zuma was postponed until Oct. 26 while the judge considers a plea from Zuma's lawyer that the prosecution team be dismissed from the case for being biased.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell world leaders at the United Nations that humanity has to “grow up” and tackle climate change, saying humans must stop trashing the planet like a teenager on a bender.

A wall of lava up to 40 feet high bore down on a Spanish village Wednesday as islanders scrambled to save what they could before the molten rock swallowed up their homes following a volcanic eruption.

Russia's ruling party will get 324 of the 450 seats in the next national parliament, election authorities announced Tuesday. The number is less than the pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, won in the previous election but still an overwhelming majority.