MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A stadium in violence-prone capital is hosting its first soccer tournament in three decades, drawing thousands of people to a facility that had been abandoned for years and later became a base for military — and even extremists — amid civil war.

Somali authorities have spent years working to restore the national stadium in Mogadishu, and on Dec. 29 Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre inaugurated the national soccer tournament. The competition is a milestone in efforts to revive public life even as al-Qaida

BEIJING (AP) — China, the world’s biggest exporter, says it is deeply concerned about tensions in the Red Sea that have upended global trade by forcing many shippers to avoid the Suez Canal.

China has been in “close communication with all parties concerned and making positive efforts to de-escalate” the situation in which Iran-backed Houthi rebels have attacked international ships with missiles, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing on Wednesday.

“China calls for a halt to the harassment and attacks

BRUSSELS (AP) — A surge in agricultural protests from the streets of Berlin to the flanks of the Pyrenees reached the European Union’s headquarters on Wednesday where farmers decried everything from petty bureaucratic meddling to the scourge of bankruptcy and worse.

With the political visibility of farming and food going to the heart and origins of the EU, the volatile sector could turn into a burning issue before the June 6-9 European Parliament election, pitting traditional political groups on the defensive against populist and far-right parties sensing an opportunity

A Russian military transport plane crashed Wednesday in a border region near Ukraine, and Moscow accused Kyiv of shooting it down, saying all 74 people aboard were killed, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war headed for a swap. Russia offered no evidence and Ukraine did not immediately confirm or deny it.

Video of the crash on social media from the Belgorod border region of Russia showed a plane falling from the sky in a snowy, rural area, and a massive ball of fire erupting where it apparently hit the ground.

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today…

Poll shows lack of faith in future of health care

A new survey suggests seven out of 10 Canadians worry they won’t be able to get good quality medical care if they or a family member need it.

The poll by Leger (LEH-zhay) comes nearly a year after the federal government signed a new health accord with the provinces to address the severe shortage of health-

Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants Wednesday near the main hospital in Gaza’s second-largest city, where medics said hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people were trapped by the fighting.

Israel has ordered residents to leave a swath of downtown Khan Younis that includes Nasser Hospital and two smaller medical facilities as the country pushes ahead with its 3-month-old offensive against Hamas. The United Nations humanitarian office said the area was home to 88,000 Palestinians and was hosting another 425,0

FORT SMITH, N.W.T. — People in a tight-knit Northwest Territories town were in mourning Wednesday as investigators began to probe a plane crash that killed six people — two crew members and four passengers headed for work at a diamond mine.

A lone survivor was taken to hospital.

“It’s very, very sad. It’s sombre here,” Kevin Antoniak, a longtime Fort Smith resident, said over the phone. The community of 2,500 lies along the territorial

Most Canadians don’t think the quality of health care in their province is likely to improve, a new survey suggests, despite new federal health accords with several provinces designed to quell the health-care crisis unfolding across Canada.

The poll by Leger comes nearly a year after the federal government offered a $196-billion health accord to the provinces to increase health funding and address a growing shortage of health-care workers.

“We know we need to do better. We need to move more quickly with

EDMONTON — Federal New Democrats spent Wednesday seeking guidance from Albertans, who the party said are on the front lines of Canada’s housing crisis, to help them form policies around addressing the needs of lower-income households.

NDP members of Parliament met with local housing experts in Edmonton seeking solutions for how Ottawa can respond. The city declared a state of emergency earlier this month amid a higher rate of homelessness following the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It reinforced something that we’ve really believed for a long time