Top Arab diplomats visited the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Monday, the latest in a string of diplomatic overtures by the international community as Syria emerges from years of isolation under President Bashar Assad.

The visits by ministers from Jordan and Qatar, just two weeks after Assad’s fall, suggest that Arab nations are eager for better relations with a country that had been a pariah and a source of instability in the region.

Syria’s new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, held “extensive talks” with Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, in Damascus on Monday, according to a statement from the Jordanian Foreign Ministry. Hours later, Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Mohammed al-Khulaifi, arrived in Syria and met with its new leadership, according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry.

They were among the first high-ranking Arab diplomats to visit Syria since Assad was toppled two weeks ago by the rebel coalition led by al-Sharaa. Top Arab diplomats vowed at a meeting in Jordan this month to “support a peaceful transition process” in Syria.

Man charged in fire that killed N.Y. subway rider

A man is facing murder and arson charges in New York City for allegedly setting a woman on fire inside a subway train and then watching her die after she was engulfed in flames, police said Monday.

The suspect, identified by police as Sebastian Zapeta, was taken into custody hours after the woman died on Sunday morning.

Zapeta, 33, is a Guatemalan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally after he had been previously removed in 2018, said Jeff Carter, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Surveillance video showed the suspect approach the woman, who was sitting motionless and may have been sleeping, on a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station in Brooklyn and set her clothing on fire.

The woman’s clothing ““became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,” said Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, while the suspect remained at the scene, watching her burn from a bench on the subway platform as police and a transit worker extinguished the flames.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have not yet released her identity.

Retired N.Y. cop guilty of Proud Boys leaks

A retired police officer in the nation’s capital was convicted Monday of lying to authorities about leaking confidential information to the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson convicted former Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Shane Lamond of obstructing justice and making false statements after a trial without a jury.

Sentencing was scheduled for April 3 after Lamond’s conviction on all four counts.

Lamond was charged with leaking information to then-Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was under investigation in the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner.

Trump renews call for renaming Mount Denali

President-elect Donald Trump has once again suggested he wants to revert the name of North America’s tallest mountain — Alaska’s Denali — to Mount McKinley, wading into a sensitive and decades-old conflict about what the peak should be called.

Former President Barack Obama changed the official name to Denali in 2015 to reflect the traditions of Alaska Natives as well as the preference of many Alaska residents. The federal government in recent years has endeavored to change place-names considered disrespectful to Native people.

“Denali” is an Athabascan word meaning “the high one” or “the great one.” A prospector in 1896 dubbed the peak “Mount McKinley” after President William McKinley, who had never been to Alaska. That name was formally recognized by the U.S. government until Obama changed it over opposition from lawmakers in McKinley’s home state of Ohio.

Trump suggested in 2016 that he might undo Obama’s action, but he dropped that notion after Alaska’s senators objected. He raised it again during a rally in Phoenix on Sunday.

Foundering Macron appoints new Cabinet

French President Emmanuel Macron appointed a new Cabinet on Monday, less than three weeks after the previous government collapsed over a bitter budgetary stalemate.

It was unclear how long the government might last or whether it would be able to assuage broader concerns about political instability in Europe at a time when the region faces significant security and economic challenges.

The center-right orientation of the new French government roughly mirrors that of the previous one, which lasted less than three months after coming under attack from the left and the far right in parliament. It demonstrates that Macron and his new prime minister, François Bayrou, remain committed to the idea that France can be governed from the center, even amid a period of intense political polarization. But choosing another government with a rightward slant may make it hard to bring left-leaning lawmakers in on a much-needed deal to fund the government next year.

Romania backs new pro-EU government

Romanian lawmakers on Monday voted narrowly in favor of a new pro-European coalition government led by incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.

The move could usher in an end to a protracted political crisis in the European Union country following the annulment of a presidential election by a top court. Parliament approved the new administration in a 240-143 vote in Romania’s 466-seat legislature.

The new coalition is made up of the leftist Social Democratic Party, or PSD, the center-right National Liberal Party, PNL, the small ethnic Hungarian UDMR party and national minorities. It caps a month-long period of turmoil in which far-right nationalists made significant gains in a Dec. 1 parliamentary election, a week after a first-round presidential race saw the far-right outsider Calin Georgescu emerge as the front-runner.

Bill Clinton hospitalized after running fever

Former President Bill Clinton was admitted Monday to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington after developing a fever.

The 78-year-old was admitted in the “afternoon for testing and observation,” Angel Urena, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement.

“He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Urena said.

Clinton, a Democrat who served two terms as president from January 1993 until January 2001, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer and campaigned ahead of November’s election for the unsuccessful White House bid of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

N.C. officer fatally shot in supermarket

A police officer responding to a report of a man with a gun inside a North Carolina supermarket was fatally shot Monday and a suspect was later taken into custody, authorities said.

Police announced the death of Greensboro police officer Michael Horan at a news conference, saying Horan was responding to the report when he was shot shortly before midday at a Food Lion store in Greensboro in the central part of the state.

Authorities said Monday afternoon that the circumstances of the shooting remain under investigation and they did not immediately release further details about how it unfolded. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the state’s lead law enforcement agency, is continuing the investigation.

N.M. prosecutors won’t appeal Baldwin ruling

New Mexico prosecutors won’t pursue an appeal of a court’s decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting on a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie, the Santa Fe district attorney’s office announced Monday.

Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey withdrew the appeal of a July decision at trial to dismiss the charge against Baldwin in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on set for the movie “Rust” outside Santa Fe in October 2021.

“Today’s decision to dismiss the appeal is the final vindication of what Alec Baldwin and his attorneys have said from the beginning — this was an unspeakable tragedy but Alec Baldwin committed no crime,” said defense attorneys Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro. “The rule of law remains intact in New Mexico.”

The state attorney general’s office could not be be reached for comment.

1 dead as storm batters coastal California

A major storm pounded California’s central coast on Monday, bringing flooding and high surf that was blamed for fatally trapping a man beneath debris on a beach and later partially collapsing a pier, tossing three people into the Pacific Ocean.

The storm was expected to bring hurricane-force winds and waves up to 60 feet as it gained strength from California to the Pacific Northwest. Some California cities ordered beachfront homes and hotels to evacuate early Monday afternoon as forecasters warned that storm swells would continue to increase throughout the day.

“We are anticipating that what is coming toward us is more serious than what was there this morning,” said Fred Keeley, mayor of the city of Santa Cruz, where the pier collapsed.

Kilauea erupts again on Hawaii’s Big Island

Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, erupted early Monday on Hawaii’s Big Island, sending out glittering torrents of lava.

The U.S. Geological Survey said its Hawaiian Volcano Observatory spotted signs of an eruption in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park around 2:30 a.m., after there was elevated earthquake activity beneath the volcano’s summit.

The main hazard posed by the eruption was the potential for an increase of volcanic gas to move downwind from the closed area of the park, the agency said.

Volcanic ash from the eruption was expected to spread over parts of the island through at least 6 p.m., the National Weather Service said

— News service reports