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A New York court has dismissed a sexual assault lawsuit against the actor Kevin Spacey. The case was brought by Anthony Rapp, who says the actor inappropriately touched him at a party in 1986 when he was aged 14. Mr Rapp, now 50 and also an actor, filed the legal action in September 2020 and had been seeking around $40m (£36m) in damages. Mr Spacey, an Oscar winner, has denied the accusations against him. He is separately facing five charges in the UK of sexual assault, to which he has pleaded not guilty. That trial is due to begin in June 2023. On Thursday, following a three-week civil trial in a Manhattan federal court, a jury found that Mr Rapp had not proved his claim that Mr Spacey had made an unwanted sexual advance. ...

Iran has deployed military experts in Russian-occupied Crimea to help launch drone attacks on Ukraine, the White House says. The Iranians are trainers and tech support workers, a US spokesman said. The Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, was struck by so-called "kamikaze" drones on Monday, deployed by Russia but believed to be Iranian-made. The UK has announced sanctions on Iranian businesses and individuals responsible for supplying the drones. "We assess that Iranian military personnel were on the ground in Crimea and assisted Russia in these operations," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters. A "relatively small" number of Iranians are providing technical support and Russians are piloting the drones in Ukraine, ...

Australia has reversed a decision made four years ago to recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the 2018 move had undermined peace and "put Australia out of step with the majority of the international community". She stressed that Australia remained a "steadfast friend" to Israel. Its embassy will stay in Tel Aviv. Israel's government called the U-turn short-sighted and deeply disappointing, and summoned the Australian ambassador. "In light of the way in which this decision was made in Australia, as a hasty response to an incorrect report in the media, we can only hope that the Australian government manages other matters more seriously and professionally," Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in ...

A record number of voters turned out in the US state of Georgia on the first day of early voting, with the state the site of several key races in the November midterm elections. Almost double the number of people - 131,000 - cast their ballots than in the same period of the 2018 midterms. The figure nearly matches the number of voters on the first early voting day of the 2020 presidential election. Georgia is home to some of the country's most closely-watched races. The midterm elections on 8 November will determine seats in the two chambers of Congress - one-third of those in the Senate and all in the House of Representatives - as well as some governors and local officials. As the elections will decide control of Congress, they wi...

At least three people have been killed by Russian strikes in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, as Moscow continues to target key infrastructure across the country. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said that the victims of the latest Russian attacks were employees of "critical infrastructure", adding that two facilities in the city had been hit. Meanwhile, thousands of towns and cities across the country have been left without power and President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian strikes had destroyed about 30% of Ukraine's power stations over the past eight days. The latest attacks came 24 hours after "kamikaze" drones - believed to have been supplied by Iran - killed at least nine people in Kyiv and Sumy, in the north-east. Ukraine has identified the dr...

Despite historic gains in the past two congressional elections, women hold just 27% of the seats. As Americans prepare to reshape Congress in the midterms, could Bolivia inspire change? Bolivia is one of the few countries in the world where roughly 50% of lawmakers at every level of government are women. This is no accident, but the result of an electoral law which requires half of all party nominees must be female. Quotas were introduced in 1997 when just 9% of Bolivia's national parliament were women. Later on it was made part of the constitution. "Lately we've seen certain countries backslide on women's rights," said Adriana Salvatierra, who was a senator from 2015 to 2019, and became the youngest ever president of Bolivia's Senate. ...