Israeli airstrikes hit two buildings in a densely populated area of central Beirut on Thursday, Lebanon said, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack in the Lebanese capital in more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The strikes killed at least 22 people and wounded at least 117 others, Lebanese officials said.

Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported that one of the strikes had targeted an eight-story building in the Ras el-Nabaa neighborhood, while the other had leveled a four-story building in the Basta neighborhood. Videos verified by The New York Times showed that the building in Basta had been destroyed and adjacent buildings had been damaged. Two plumes of thick, acrid smoke could be seen rising above the city skyline.

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The Ukrainian Parliament voted on Thursday to approve its biggest tax hike since Russia’s full-scale invasion began more than two years ago, resorting to a politically unpopular move to raise funds for its grueling war effort.

The bill increases a tax on personal income that raises money for military expenditures, raising the rate to 5 percent, from 1.5 percent. It also retroactively doubles taxes on bank profits, to 50 percent for this year, and raises taxes on the profits of other financial institutions to 25 percent, from 18 percent, among other provisions.

The tax increase approved on Thursday will help to fund a $12 billion military spending increase for this year. Yaroslav Zhelezniak, deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy, called it a “historic tax increase.”

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The Dahiya, a collection of neighborhoods on the southern outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, was in ruins, smoke still rising from the rubble of destroyed buildings.

The Israeli military has warned Lebanese civilians to evacuate many areas as it pursues its campaign to eliminate the leaders of the militant group and political party Hezbollah, who live among the general population. Dahiya has been a stronghold for the militant group.

The women made their way up the narrow stone steps in a winding line, the rolling green fields of the English countryside stretching out across the valley below. The steep climb, which had begun in the early morning, brought them high above an elevated rail line, its imposing Victorian arches rising in the distance.

But the 15 women had their sights set on the mist-covered peak above, one of three summits they would tackle that summer day as part of a hiking challenge in the Yorkshire Dales, a national park in northern England.

Near the back of the line, Rhiane Fatinikun called out encouragement as the group trudged upward. She was the reason these women had come together to take on this demanding trek.

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As political turmoil churns India’s immediate neighborhood, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been using a relatively new asset to compete with China for influence: the financial wherewithal that comes with a fast-growing economy.

When Sri Lanka suffered economic catastrophe in 2022, India stepped in with over $4 billion in aid. In tiny neighboring Bhutan, which has boundary disputes with China, Mr. Modi this year doubled India’s assistance, to $1 billion over five years. In Bangladesh, he provided billions for infrastructure projects to back that country’s autocratic leader, who promoted India’s interests until she was ousted in August.

The latest beneficiary is the Maldives. Its new president, Mohamed Muizzu, campaigned last year on an “India Out” platform, demanding that Mr. Modi withdraw a small military contingent from the archipelago nation. But that seemed forgotten on Monday, when Mr. Muizzu arrived in New Delhi for a state dinner, a photo opportunity at the Taj Mahal with his wife, and over $750 million in Indian aid, in the form of currency swaps, to bail his government out of extreme fiscal stress.

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Weeks after the mass shooting of 18 members of one family in South Africa left a town reeling, prosecutors charged one man with the murders on Wednesday.

The shooting, which took place on Sept. 28 in a rural village in the Eastern Cape Province, brought to the fore an increasing number of mass shootings in South Africa. The country has for years recorded high rates of violent crime, but in recent years, gunmen have started targeting taverns, family gatherings and even a birthday party, in assassination-style hits.

Police officers arrested Siphosoxolo Myekethe, 45, at his home on Monday, eight miles from the village still stunned by the shooting. He appeared briefly in a court in Eastern Cape Province on Wednesday and was charged with 18 counts of murder. Mr. Myekethe, who is being represented by a legal aid attorney, has not entered a plea. Prosecutors said that he had previous convictions for murder and escaping legal custody, and at the time of his arrest was on parole.

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