Scott Neuman

A polar bear described as "starving and exhausted" and looking for food has strayed into a city in Russia's northern Siberia, hundreds of miles from the animal's natural Arctic range.

According to Reuters, the female bear who wandered into Norilsk, a major industrial town, was "visibly weak and seemly ill" and "lay despondently on the ground for hours ... its feet caked in mud."

Two members of Hong Kong's Executive Council have followed the territory's chief executive in issuing a public apology for supporting an extradition bill that continues to fuel massive demonstrations despite its suspension.

The remarks come as officials brace for the possibility of further protests in the Asian financial hub, where anger over the bill — which would allow Hong Kong people accused of certain crimes to be tried in mainland China courts — has already sparked clashes between protesters and police.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has given the green light for a second time to a $5.5 billion pipeline expansion that has attracted strong opposition from environmentalists and some indigenous groups.

Trudeau, an ardent supporter of green energy, has found himself defending the 620-mile Trans Mountain pipeline expansion since his government first approved it in 2016. The project is meant to bring petroleum from oil sands near Edmonton, Alberta, to tanks in Burnaby near Vancouver on Canada's Pacific Coast.

A North Miami police officer has been found guilty of culpable negligence but was acquitted by a jury on two more serious felonies in connection with a 2016 shooting that wounded the caretaker of an autistic man.

Officer Jonathan Aledda was found not guilty of two counts of attempted manslaughter in the shooting of Charles Kinsey, who was caring for Arnaldo Rios Soto, a severely autistic man who had wandered away from his group home for mentally disabled adults.

Four people were wounded in Toronto when gunfire broke out at a rally to honor the newly minted NBA champion Raptors.

The shootings, which occurred midafternoon, sparked a stampede from Nathan Philips Square, near City Hall, where tens of thousands of fans had gathered to celebrate the hometown professional basketball team.

A former Guatemalan first lady is the front-runner following Sunday's presidential election in the Central American country, where the electorate is hoping to find a candidate who can tackle its high unemployment, violence and corruption.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has lost its first mayoral contest, handing embattled Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) a solid victory.

In the small eastern town of Goerlitz, near the border with Poland, Octavian Ursu, a 51-year-old Romanian immigrant and classical musician, easily won Sunday's runoff vote against AfD's Sebastian Wippel, 36, who stood on an anti-immigrant platform.

A top Hong Kong adviser says he is recommending a reevaluation of the government's fast-track approach to a controversial extradition bill that has sparked mass protests and the territory's worst violence in years.

Meanwhile, authorities in the city prepared for more demonstrations planned over the weekend.

In a radio call-in program on RTHK on Friday, Executive Council convener Bernard Chan, who advises Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, acknowledged that he had underestimated opposition to the measure, particularly from the business community.

The man accused of killing 51 people in mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques in March has pleaded not guilty to terrorism, murder and attempted murder.

Brenton Tarrant, who appeared via video link from a maximum security prison in Auckland, smirked but did not speak and showed little other emotion as his lawyer entered not guilty pleas on multiple counts.

Audible gasps could be heard in the courtroom as the not guilty pleas were entered.

Updated at 10:18 p.m. ET

The Pentagon's Central Command says U.S. aircraft saw a Revolutionary Guard patrol boat and other Iranian vessels "in the vicinity" of the motor tanker Altair, one of two oil tankers attacked in the Gulf of Oman Thursday.

Another crew, from the motor tanker Kokuka Courageous, abandoned their ship, according to the statement, after discovering "a probable limpet mine on their hull following an initial explosion." Central Command says the Iranian patrol boat later approached the craft and was recorded removing an unexploded mine.

The World Health Organization is considering whether to declare the current Ebola outbreak in central Africa a global health crisis after new cases spread to Uganda from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the disease has already killed nearly 1,400 people.

Updated at 6:05 a.m. ET

Authorities in Hong Kong closed government offices in the city's Central district after violent clashes between police and protesters brought the bustling financial hub to a standstill.

The Southern Baptist Convention has voted to make it easier to expel churches that mishandle claims of sexual abuse.

Delegates representing some 47,000 Southern Baptist churches gathered at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, Ala., approved an amendment allowing individual churches to be expelled from the Convention if they mishandle or cover up sexual abuse cases. Delegates also established a special committee to evaluate abuse claims against churches.