Scott Neuman

Firearms manufacturer Colt says it is suspending production of its popular AR-15 semi-automatic assault-style rifle for the civilian market, saying it will concentrate instead on fulfilling contracts from the military and law enforcement.

Updated at 3 p.m. ET

Millions of young people raised their voices at protests around the world Friday in a massive display meant to demand urgent action on climate change. Scores of students missed school to take part, some joined by teachers and parents.

Some of the first rallies began in Australia, and then spread from Pacific islands to India and Turkey and across Europe, as students kicked off what organizers were calling a Global Climate Strike.

The United Arab Emirates said Thursday that it would join a U.S.-led maritime coalition aimed at protecting international shipping in and near the Strait of Hormuz following alleged Iranian attacks on oil tankers there.

The UAE joins neighbors Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, along with the United Kingdom and Australia, in the effort to protect vessels in the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf and the narrow Strait of Hormuz waterway that separates the gulfs and acts as a transit point for a fifth of the world's oil exports.

Emergency sirens wailed on Hawaii's Oahu and Maui islands Wednesday evening, warning of a tsunami, but the alert turned out to be a mistake. The error sparked anger from residents who recalled a similar false warning last year of an imminent ballistic missile attack.

Within minutes of the alarm going off shortly after 5 p.m. local time (11 p.m. ET), authorities were trying to calm the public by getting out word of the mistake.

Three former Japanese utility executives responsible for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant when it was smashed by a tsunami in 2011 were acquitted Thursday of negligence in connection with multiple reactor meltdowns at the station.

Israel's second election in less than six months looks unlikely to clear up its political impasse, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again falling short of a majority in parliament and forced to scramble for allies to retain power.

Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party is projected to win 30 to 33 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while the centrist Blue and White party led by former military chief Benny Gantz looked likely to get 32 to 34 seats.

Updated at 11:45 a.m. ET

President Trump said Wednesday his administration is revoking a waiver that allowed California to set its own standards for automobile emissions — a move that could derail a years-long push to produce more fuel efficient cars.

In a series of tweets Wednesday, Trump said the action will result in vehicles that are safer and cheaper, and that "there will be very little difference in emissions between the California standard and the new U.S. standard."

Veteran journalist Cokie Roberts, who joined an upstart NPR in 1978 and left an indelible imprint on the growing network with her coverage of Washington politics before later going to ABC News, has died. She was 75.

Roberts died Tuesday because of complications from breast cancer, according to a family statement.

Updated at 9:04 p.m. ET

The polls are closed in Israel and partial results will not be released until early Wednesday morning. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party faced voters for the second time in just five months in an unprecedented contest that has the potential to end his decade-long grip on power.

Opinion polls ahead of Tuesday's vote showed the race between Netanyahu's Likud and the Blue and White, led by former army chief Benjamin "Benny" Gantz, were once again a dead heat.

Updated at 5:22 p.m. ET

The price of oil saw a massive price spike Monday following what are believed to be drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities over the weekend that has shut off more than half of the kingdom's daily exports, or about 5% of the world's crude production.

Benchmark Brent crude briefly surged almost 20% in early trading before settling closer to 10%, up $6 to $66.28 per barrel. It rose again in the early afternoon, topping $70 for an increase of some 15%. The U.S. benchmark West Texas crude rose more than 10%.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday he will push for a ban on some electronic cigarettes amid a health scare linked to vaping — a move that would follow a similar ban enacted by Michigan and a call from President Trump for a federal prohibition on certain vaping products.

The leader of Britain's House of Commons on Thursday called lawmakers opposed to the suspension of Parliament "phony" and questioned whether they have the "courage or the gumption" to change the law or bring down the government to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

Speaking to the BBC, Jacob Rees-Mogg made the comments a day after Queen Elizabeth II approved an extraordinary request from Prime Minister Boris Johnson to suspend Parliament, known as prorogation.

China has said that it won't allow a U.S. Navy warship to visit its northeastern port of Qingdao, marking the second time in recent weeks that Beijing has rebuffed what is a routine request and underscoring trade tensions with Washington and accusations that the U.S. is behind unrest in Hong Kong.

In a statement on Wednesday, U.S. 7th Fleet public affairs officer Cmdr. Reann Mommsen said China had "denied the US Navy's request." She did not name the warship in question and referred questions about the reason for the decision to Beijing.

Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre appeared Tuesday outside a federal courtroom in Manhattan to reiterate her allegation that the financier, who killed himself earlier this month, ordered her to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew.

She called on him to "come clean" about it. Her remarks came after an extraordinary court hearing was called by the judge in the Epstein case as a way to give voice to alleged victims after the financier's death.

A day after what looked like a possible diplomatic breakthrough with the U.S., Iranian President Hassan Rouhani backed off the idea of direct talks with President Trump, saying Washington must first lift sanctions against Tehran.

At the conclusion of the Group of Seven summit in France on Monday, Trump had said that the leaders could meet "if the circumstance were correct or right." Rouhani initially seemed warm to such a meeting, remarking, "I would not miss it."

KFC is set to serve meatless chicken for the first time — testing the new menu items on Tuesday at a single restaurant in the Atlanta area.

A Chinese-born Australian writer detained for months in China has been formally arrested on charges of espionage, officials in Canberra confirmed on Tuesday.

Yang Hengjun, a former Chinese diplomat who reportedly became an Australian citizen in 2002 but retains a Chinese passport, has also lived and worked in the United States.

Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET

French President Emmanuel Macron says world leaders at the G-7 summit have come to an agreement to provide technical and financial help in combating massive fires that have swept through the Amazon rainforest.

Besieged Hong Kong police officers drew their side arms on protesters, with one of them firing a warning shot into the air as they were pushed back by thick crowds of stick-wielding demonstrators.

The gunshot incident was apparently the first of its kind since the protests began in early June. It came amid a night of violent protests that saw activists hurling gasoline bombs and paving stones and smashing shop windows.

Updated 11:20 a.m. ET Saturday

French President Emmanuel Macron is calling on world leaders to place the massive fires destroying Brazil's Amazon rainforest at the top of their agenda as they gather in France's southwest for the Group of Seven summit.

Google has suspended 210 YouTube channels it says were being used as part of a "coordinated" campaign to influence public opinion about the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Australia has agreed to join a U.S.-led naval contingent protecting commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman amid alleged attacks by Iran against vessels operating in the strategic waterways.

Australia will join Britain and Bahrain as part of a maritime security mission to escort commercial shipping in the region, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Wednesday. He said his government would lend a frigate, patrol plane and specialist defense force personnel.

Canberra's contribution was meant to be "modest, meaningful and time limited," Morrison said.

The World Health Organization says there's not enough evidence to conclude that microplastics — which exist nearly everywhere in the environment and show up in drinking water — pose any risk to human health, but it cautions that more research is needed to draw firm conclusions.

China's Foreign Ministry has confirmed that an employee of Britain's Hong Kong consulate was detained nearly two weeks ago during a business trip to the mainland.

Although consulate officials suspected he'd been detained by Chinese authorities, Cheng's exact whereabouts had been unknown to family and friends since he disappeared on Aug. 8 in Shenzhen, a city in China's Guangdong province just across the border from Hong Kong.

An Australian state appellate court on Wednesday upheld lower-court verdicts against Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Roman Catholic cleric to be found guilty of sexual abuse.

In a 2-1 ruling, the Court of Appeal of Victoria state rejected Pell's request to overturn his December conviction. The 78-year-old prelate, a former archbishop of Sydney who later became a top Vatican adviser, is serving a six-year prison sentence for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys.

Updated at 1:35 p.m. ET

President Trump has called the Danish prime minister's comments "nasty" after she rejected the idea of selling Greenland to the United States as "absurd" — in an escalation of diplomatic tensions that began suddenly last week.

Trump complained Wednesday at the White House that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's statement was "not nice" and showed disrespect.

"All she had to do was say 'No, we wouldn't be interested,' " he told reporters. "She's not talking to me, she's talking to the United States of America."

Updated at 9:25 a.m. ET

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appealed to the European Union to scrap a deal forged by his predecessor that's aimed at preventing the reestablishment of a hard border between Britain's Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, as a precondition for any Brexit deal.

The Pentagon says it has tested a U.S. missile that exceeds limits set down by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War agreement between Washington and Moscow that was officially scrapped less than three weeks ago.

An Iranian tanker detained in Gibraltar last month is again underway after a court in the British territory rejected a request from Washington to formally seize the vessel for violating international sanctions.

The Grace 1, now renamed Adrian Darya 1, was intercepted by British Royal Marines on July 4, allegedly because it was carrying its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of light crude oil to Syria.

Iran has denied the ship was headed to Syria.