The blue-and-white Israeli flags flutter from hilltops and line the roads of the occupied West Bank, signaling the growing presence of Israeli settlements and the outposts they're building on Palestinian land.

For shepherds in the Jordan Valley, as well as in Masafer Yatta, a cluster of villages in the southern West Bank, the flags and expanding settlements have become inescapable features of the landscape, reminders of how daily life has narrowed.

Most Americans say the war in Iran has not been worth fighting, and President Donald Trump's approval rating on Iran has fallen slightly since last month, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

The results are a stark repudiation of Trump's approach to the conflict, which has dragged on far longer than he originally predicted.

FIFA lodged disciplinary charges against two Argentina players Wednesday for striking Spain opponents moments after the World Cup final and charged Argentina's soccer federation for players showing a political banner about the Falkland Islands after beating England in the semifinals.

A list of disciplinary cases opened by FIFA against Argentina also include "discriminatory chants and gestures" by fans, alleged assault by an assistant coach after the final and "throwing of objects by spectators in relation to several matches" at the World Cup.

From his vineyards in Bordeaux wine country, Edouard le Grix de la Salle can sometimes smell the burning forests far away. The smoke brings a whiff of hardship for the region's economic fortunes.

Wildfires that have burned an area four times the size of Paris and driven 220,000 people from homes and some of the region's tourist attractions promise to sting France's already squeezed economy.

The Mediterranean of our ancestors is no more.

Scientists say climate change, caused mainly by burning oil, coal and gas, is making the Mediterranean Sea hotter, bringing hundreds of new and invasive fish species that decimate indigenous populations.

As wildfires rage in France and Spain and a renewed heat wave is bearing down on Western Europe, a prolonged drought half a continent away is setting record low water levels on one of Europe's largest rivers, disrupting tourism and industry and confronting residents with the realities of climate change.

The Danube River, which runs through 10 countries from southwestern Germany to the Black Sea, has receded to never-before-seen lows along much of its course, exposing rocks, sand bars and old shipwrecks that have rarely been seen before.

Russian attacks across Ukraine overnight into Thursday killed at least eight people and wounded dozens of others, officials said, with the heaviest casualties and aftermath reported in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk and western Lviv regions.

The attacks were the latest in a series of large-scale Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities that Russia has intensified over the summer, now occurring on a nearly weekly basis.

French authorities gave the go-ahead Thursday for 84,000 evacuees forced out by a monster wildfire to go back to their homes in southwest France, the strongest sign yet that firefighters are turning a corner in their battle against the flames that have burned an area four times the size of Paris.

The authorized returns announced Thursday covered nine localities that had been evacuated. In all, more than 220,000 people were forced to flee their homes since last week.

Strikes launched by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia against Iran-allied fighters in Iraq have put Iraq's government in a delicate position — and not for the first time.

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraq has walked a tightrope between Washington and Tehran, seeking to avoid becoming a battleground for rival powers. The balancing act has only grown more fraught since the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran in February.

A Lebanese judge issued an order Wednesday that could lead to the arrest of prominent banker Antoun Sehnaoui if he returns to Lebanon over allegations of collaboration with Israel and violating laws prohibiting contact with Israelis, state media reported.

The order came days after Sehnaoui dined in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.