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KABUL, Afghanistan — A 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Afghanistan overnight, killing as many as 280 people and injuring more than 600 others, the country’s state-run Bakhtar news agency said on Wednesday. The quake struck early Wednesday morning about 28 miles southwest of the city of Khost, a provincial capital…

LONDON — For Boris Johnson, Britain’s embattled and scandal-ridden prime minister, nowhere is safe. On Thursday, that may become inescapably clear. Two local elections — one in a traditional Tory area in South Devon that the party has controlled almost continuously since 1885, the other in a postindustrial seat in…

The four Republican candidates for governor of New York made their closing pitch to voters on Tuesday night, voicing devotion to President Trump and his policies, disdain for gun control and abortion, and worries about crime and immigration. The debate, at Kodak Center in Rochester, N.Y., was hosted by Newsmax,…

SEOUL, South Korea — When the United States and European Union moved to curtail purchases of Russian fossil fuels this year, they hoped it would help make the Russian invasion of Ukraine so economically painful for Moscow that President Vladimir V. Putin would be forced to abandon it. That prospect…

This article will be updated. Deshaun Watson, the Cleveland Browns quarterback, has reached settlements with 20 of the 24 women who have filed sexual misconduct lawsuits against him, the lawyer Tony Buzbee announced Tuesday morning. In a statement, Buzbee, who represents Watson’s accusers, said that the terms and amounts of…

Broadway theaters will be allowed to drop their mask mandates starting July 1, the Broadway League announced Tuesday. The League described the new policy as “mask optional,” and said it would be re-evaluated monthly. Broadway had maintained fairly restrictive audience policies since theaters reopened last summer. The theaters required patrons…

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Maine may not exclude religious schools from a state tuition program. The decision, from a court that has grown exceptionally receptive to claims from religious people and groups in a variety of settings, was the latest in a series of rulings…

Voters in Alabama and Georgia will make their final selections on Tuesday in congressional runoffs — including a particularly hard-fought battle for the Senate in Alabama — and Virginia primary voters will select party nominees for two of the most closely watched House races in the country. Here is what…

LONDON — Britain was crippled on Tuesday morning by its largest railway strike in three decades, halting trains across the country, throwing travel plans for tens of millions of Britons and visitors into chaos, and setting off what union leaders warned could be the beginning of a summer of labor…

Former Vice President Mike Pence has emerged from the Jan. 6 hearings in a peculiar position. To some Democrats in Congress, he has become something of a hero for resisting Donald J. Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election at a time when American democracy seemed to teeter on…