The court has agreed to hear arguments about the Biden administration's vaccine or testing requirement for large employers, and a separate vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

The German foreign minister said more needs to be done to help Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover. Some 15,000 people which Germany vowed to take in are still stranded there.

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan on Sunday gave new guidance to taxi drivers, advising them against taking fares from women who do not follow a strict Islamic dress code by wearing the hijab, or Islamic headscarf.

2021 began with the promise of vaccines to the rescue. But as one variant begets another, rich nations talk of boosters and jabs for kids while much of the developing world still waits for first doses.

US President Joe Biden is expected to offer Russian leader Vladimir Putin a "diplomatic path" to defusing tensions over Ukraine. The West is alarmed at a buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine.

Thousands of journalists have lost their jobs in Afghanistan over the past few months, with many media outlets ceasing operations due to increasing security and financial challenges.

Thousands of journalists have lost their jobs in Afghanistan over the past few months as many media outlets ceased operations due to increasing security and financial challenges.

The United Nations is seeking more than $5 billion from international donors this year to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. It's the largest ever UN appeal for a single country, to avert what it describes as a "catastrophe". More than half of Afghanistan's population will need emergency assistance this year, with the UN estimating that 55 percent of Afghans are suffering from acute hunger. FRANCE 24's Business Editor Stephen Carroll has the details.

The UN made the "biggest ever appeal" for humanitarian aid for a single country on Tuesday. It wants $4.4 billion (€3.9 billion) for Afghanistan to prevent the "world's most rapidly growing humanitarian crises" from deteriorating further.

Two voting rights bills are currently being blocked from debate by Republican senators. The legislation would represent the biggest overhaul of the US electoral system in a generation.

Afghanistan is the world's top producer of opium and the illegal drug trade has helped finance the ruling Taliban. Over the past decades, millions of Afghans have fallen into drug addiction. The Taliban now claim they want to eradicate the use of narcotics. When they were in power from 1996 to 2001, the fundamentalists had banned poppy cultivation. But the intervention of US-led troops in 2001 relaunched opium production. Today, it remains permitted and is even intensifying in a country on the brink of economic collapse. Our team on the ground reports.

A total of 150 Taliban soldiers on Thursday graduated from the first brigade of the 203rd Mansoori Corps in the southeastern zone after three months of training in the southeastern Khost province. Officials at the brigade say the graduates are well-trained and will strongly defend Afghanistan.