BANGKOK — Pacific Rim leaders were striving to find common ground on the war in Ukraine and other dire threats to humankind in an annual meeting that began Friday at a heavily guarded venue in Thailand’s capital.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will not seek a leadership position in the new Congress, ending a historic run as the first woman with the gavel and making way for a new generation to steer the party after Democrats lost control of the House to Republicans in the midterm elections.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japanese territorial waters Friday, its neighbors said, the second such major weapons test this month that shows its determination to perfect weapons systems targeting the U.S. mainland.

Twitter continued to bleed engineers and other workers on Thursday, after new owner Elon Musk gave them a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian airstrikes targeted Ukraine’s energy facilities again Thursday as the first snow of the season fell in Kyiv, a harbinger of the hardship to come if Moscow’s missiles continue to take out power and gas plants as winter descends.

KONOMIE ISLAND, Australia — Below the turquoise waters off the coast of Australia is one of the world’s natural wonders, an underwater rainbow jungle teeming with life that scientists say is showing some of the clearest signs yet of climate change.

WASHINGTON — An Obama Foundation program that has trained hundreds of young leaders across Africa, the Asia-Pacific and Europe is being expanded to include the United States.

Starbucks workers at more than 100 U.S. stores are on strike Thursday in their largest labor action since a campaign to unionize the company’s stores began late last year.

PHOENIX — Refusing to concede, Kari Lake, the defeated Republican candidate for Arizona governor, said Thursday she is assembling lawyers and collecting evidence of voters having trouble casting ballots on Election Day as she considers her next move. Lake made no mention of giving up in her most extensive public comments since losing the election. Before the election, she had refused to say that she would concede if she lost the race to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

WASHINGTON — WNBA star Brittney Griner has begun serving her nine-year sentence for drug possession at a Russian penal colony, her lawyers and agent said Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) — The man who had to clean up the mess at Enron says the situation at FTX is even worse, describing what he calls a “complete failure” of corporate control. The filing by John Ray III, the new CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency firm, lays out a damning description of FTX’s operations under its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, from a lack of security controls to business funds being used to buy employees homes and luxuries.

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s longtime finance chief choked up on the witness stand Thursday, saying he betrayed the Trump family’s trust by scheming to dodge taxes on $1.7 million in company-paid perks, including a Manhattan apartment and luxury cars.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration plans to ask the Supreme Court to reinstate the president’s student debt cancellation plan, according to a Thursday legal filing warning that Americans will face financial strain if the plan remains stalled in court when loan payments are scheduled to restart in January.