Scott Neuman

Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said Friday he would step down following weeks of violent protests and a call for his ouster by the country's top Shia Muslim cleric.

"In response to this call, and in order to facilitate it as quickly as possible, I will present to parliament a demand (to accept) my resignation from the leadership of the current government," the prime minister said in a statement translated by Reuters.

Nearly a month ago, Abdul-Mahdi indicated his agreement in principle to resign, but didn't give an exact date.

SpaceX successfully launched 60 communications satellites on Monday using a single rocket.

It's the second time in less than a year that Elon Musk's company has made such a launch, marking a dramatic increase in the number of satellites in orbit.

Mercury is tiny. But it's a big deal for thousands of amateur astronomers in the Western hemisphere who will be watching the planet on Monday as it makes a transit across the disk of the sun.

It may not be as spectacular as the solar eclipse two years ago, or even the 2012 transit of Venus. But beauty is in the eyepiece of the beholder.

Fiat Chrysler and Groupe PSA, the owner of Peugeot, agreed on Thursday to combine forces to create the world's fourth-largest carmaker by production volume.

Fire swept through a train in Pakistan early Thursday, killing more than 65 people after a natural gas cylinder being used by a passenger to cook breakfast suddenly exploded, officials said.

Some of the deaths were caused as passengers leaped from the moving railway cars to escape the spreading flames, according to multiple railway officials.

A fire at Okinawa's Shuri Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site and a popular tourist attraction on the southern Japanese island, has destroyed a large portion of the historic compound.

Television video showed firefighters on Thursday trying to contain the blaze at the wooden castle. The compound's main, north and south buildings were destroyed in the fire.

"The cause of the fire has not been determined yet, but a security company alarm went off at around 2:30 in the morning," said Ryo Kochi, a spokesman with the Okinawa Prefectural Police.

Updated 8:12 a.m. ET

Christopher Anderson, a career foreign service officer in the State Department, will tell House impeachment investigators on Wednesday that President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani stood in the way of the White House strengthening ties with Ukraine, according to a copy of Anderson's opening statement obtained by NPR.

Actor and comedian John Witherspoon, whose first roles were on 1970s TV shows such as Barnaby Jones and The Richard Pryor Show but who was best known for his role as the crotchety dad in the Friday films, has died at 77.

Witherspoon's family confirmed his death in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Pope Francis is hoping to give the Vatican Secret Archive an image makeover by changing the name of the ancient collection to something less mysterious.

Francis declared that the collection, which dates back centuries and contains millions of documents, will now be known as the Vatican Apostolic Archive.

The new name is a better reflection of the archive's "service to the church and the world of culture," the pontiff said.

Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been barred from running in local district council elections after an official said his calls for "self-determination" in the territory were inconsistent with pledging an oath of allegiance to the city and its constitution.

Wong, who has been arrested twice since mass protests in the city began in early summer, is the only candidate to have been disqualified from the Nov. 24 poll on grounds of his politics.

After a record-breaking 780 days circling the Earth, the U.S. Air Force's mysterious X-37B unmanned space plane dropped out of orbit and landed safely on the same runway that the space shuttle once used.

It was the fifth acknowledged mission for the vehicle, built by Boeing at the aerospace company's Phantom Works.

The driver of a refrigerated truck container that was found to contain the bodies of 39 migrants in southeastern England last week is set to appear in court on Monday to face charges of manslaughter, trafficking and money laundering.

Maurice Robinson, 25, of Craigavon, Northern Ireland, was arrested last week when the bodies were first discovered in Grays, England. He was charged on Saturday.

Updated at 12:30 p.m.

Argentina's center-left swept to victory in general elections on Sunday, ousting conservative President Mauricio Macri, as voters thumped the incumbent for failing to deliver on a promise to create more jobs and raise the country's standard of living.

President-elect Alberto Fernández owes his victory in large part to former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who masterminded a comeback for herself but chose to run for vice president rather than the top job. The two are no relation.

Updated at 5:20 a.m. ET

A series of failures and missteps on the ground and in the cockpit resulted in the crash of a Boeing 737 Max in Indonesia last year that killed all 189 passengers and crew aboard, a new report released Friday concludes.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will carry on with his progressive agenda despite the rebuke voters delivered in a national election this week that robbed his Liberal Party of its parliamentary majority.

Saying he hoped to move beyond the "divisive and challenging" campaign, Trudeau ruled out a coalition, saying he would instead govern from a minority position while working with other parties. He also pledged a tax cut for the middle class as "the very first thing" his new administration would put forward.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales looked set to win reelection without a runoff, declaring outright victory as he pushed back against critics who dispute the results, accusing them of trying to stage a coup.

Preliminary results released after Sunday's vote suggested that Morales would face a runoff election with his main rival, former President Carlos Mesa. But as the counting has continued, Morales' lead has mounted.

Updated at 3:25 a.m. ET

Canada's Liberals appear to have won the most seats in Parliament — a result likely to hand Justin Trudeau a second term as prime minister despite a series of scandals that have rocked his government.

Updated at 10 a.m. ET

Heavily armed gunmen went on a shooting rampage through the city of Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state on Mexico's Pacific coast, battling security forces after authorities attempted to arrest a son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

The gunfire from what appeared to be sniper rifles and truck-mounted machine guns sent residents of the western city scrambling for cover. Burning vehicles littered the streets as the gunmen faced off against the National Guard, army and police.

President Trump fired him (after he submitted his resignation) and earlier this week reportedly called him "the world's most overrated general," but former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had a few barbs of his own to sling in a speech he gave in New York on Thursday.

Delivering the keynote address at the 74th Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Mattis — a retired four-star U.S. Marine general — said he felt he had finally "achieved greatness."

"I'm not just an overrated general, I am the greatest, the world's most overrated," he said to laughter.

Updated at 11:10 a.m. ET

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Baltimore attorney and civil rights advocate who served in Maryland's legislature before representing the state in the U.S. House, where he took on a lead role in investigating President Trump, has died. He was 68.

Cummings, the head of the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Reform, died early Thursday at Johns Hopkins Hospital from complications related to longstanding health challenges, according to The Associated Press.

Updated at 9 a.m. ET

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he has reached an agreement with the European Union on a new Brexit deal that would allow the EU to continue collecting value-added tax from Northern Ireland and allow special treatment for certain goods going over the Irish border.

Johnson hailed the "new deal that takes back control," and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called it a "fair and balanced agreement."

A brutal attack on one of Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy leaders, who was reportedly beaten with hammers by a group of unknown assailants, is being widely condemned by the territory's government, opposition lawmakers and Amnesty International.

Jimmy Sham, who leads the Civil Human Rights Front and has been actively involved in the months-long anti-government protest movement, was left bloodied and dazed after the attack Wednesday evening in Hong Kong's congested Mong Kok district.

Updated at 5:28 p.m. ET

Two businessmen who allegedly conspired with associates of President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to illegally funnel foreign money into Republican campaigns pleaded not guilty Thursday in a federal court in New York.

David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin are alleged to have worked with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman to make illegal campaign contributions with money from foreign donors.

NASA has unveiled prototypes of its next-generation spacesuits to be worn inside the Orion spacecraft and on the surface of the moon when American astronauts return there as soon as 2024.

Hong Kong's embattled chief executive was forced to cut short an annual policy address when pro-democracy lawmakers shouted her out of the chamber – a further sign that months of anti-government protests in the city were taking a toll on her ability to govern.

Carrie Lam – Hong Kong's Beijing-appointed leader who has been the target of protesters' ire for nearly five months – spoke only briefly before protesting lawmakers forced her to step away from the podium.

Updated at 11:10 a.m. ET

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned on Tuesday of a "prolonged" impact from one of the most destructive typhoons in decades to hit the country. The death toll has now risen to at least 74, according to public broadcaster NHK.

Typhoon Hagibis brought record-breaking rainfall and caused extensive flooding and power outages, forcing the government to approve a special budget for disaster response.

Updated at 4 p.m. ET

Turkish-backed militias carrying out attacks in northern Syria came very close to American forces on the ground on Tuesday, putting them and their base "directly at risk," a U.S. official in Syria tells NPR.

A pair of missiles hit an Iran-flagged oil tanker steaming off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, causing an explosion and oil spill, Iranian officials said Friday.

Iran's state-run IRNA identified the tanker as the Sabiti, and Iranian state television says the explosions damaged two storage tanks and caused an oil spill that is now reportedly under control.

The Iranian media reports did not assign responsibility for the incident.

Updated at 6:30 a.m. ET

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation" in resolving the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea, the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo said Friday.