A U.S.-led statement approved by 10 of the 15 U.N. Security Council members Tuesday condemned a recent North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile launch and called on Pyongyang to return to negotiations and abandon its missile programs.

The statement follows a series of recent North Korean missile launches, including the test Thursday of the country’s newest ICBM that is designed to reach the United States.

The 10 Security Council members said that launch — in addition to more than 100 North Korean ballistic missile launches since 2022 — violates multiple Security Council resolutions prohibiting the North from using ballistic missile technology and jeopardizes international peace and security.

The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies also decried last week’s launch in a statement Tuesday, saying North Korea “continues to advance its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities and to escalate its destabilizing activities.” The G7 is Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

At the United Nations, U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood read the statement to reporters surrounded by diplomats from the nine other nations that signed on — Ecuador, France, Japan, Malta, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. They were joined by representatives from three countries that will join the council in January — Denmark, Greece and Panama.

Five Security Council nations didn’t support the statement — Russia, China, Algeria, Mozambique and Guyana.

Aid agencies seek donation for Lebanon

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Tuesday launched an international emergency appeal asking donors to provide resources for Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war.

IFRC also called on all parties to protect paramedics in the conflict that has left thousands of people dead and wounded, many of them over the past six weeks.

Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told The Associated Press in Beirut that “needs are just growing so fast.” He met with officials and toured shelters housing people displaced by the conflict.

The IFRC said its emergency appeal for 100 million Swiss Francs ($115.8 million) is aimed at helping Lebanon and the Lebanese Red Cross through the ongoing conflict.

89 missing after flooding in Spain

Spanish authorities said Tuesday that 89 people are confirmed to be missing one week after the catastrophic floods in the eastern Valencia region. It is the first figure of the missing to be made public.

The number only corresponds to the eastern Valencia region, where 211 of the 217 confirmed deaths took place.

The Superior Court of Valencia said that the figure was based on those cases whereby families had provided information and biological samples of their unlocated loved ones.

Russian court denies American’s appeal

A court in the Russian capital on Tuesday rejected an American citizen’s appeal against his sentence on drug-related charges.

In July, Moscow’s Ostankino District Court convicted Robert Woodland, a Russia-born U.S. citizen, of attempted trafficking of illegal drugs and sentenced him to 12 1/2 years in prison. The Moscow City Court on Tuesday upheld the verdict, rejecting Woodland’s appeal.

Russian media reported that his name matches a U.S. citizen interviewed in 2020 who said he was born in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains in 1991 and adopted by an American couple at age 2. He said he traveled to Russia to find his mother and eventually met her on a TV show. Russian media reports said that Woodland also holds Russian citizenship.

4 tornadoes touch down in Okla., Ark.

The National Weather Service on Tuesday said four likely tornadoes and possibly more touched down in northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas with no deaths or injuries reported.

Weather service investigators were in Muskogee, Sequoyah and Adair counties in eastern Oklahoma and Benton County in northwestern Arkansas, to confirm that tornadoes struck the areas on Monday night, according to meteorologist Joe Sellars.

Sellars said there have been no deaths or serious injuries reported.

The storms struck a day after tornadoes injured at least 11 people in the Oklahoma City area in central Oklahoma.

Keli Cain, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said assessments of the damage were underway, but no significant damage has been reported.

Cain said the department is working with the Okla

homa State Election Board and that the storms have not disrupted any polling places for Tuesday’s election.

Britain reports two more cases of mpox

Two new cases of the version of mpox that has fueled a deadly outbreak in central Africa have been detected in Britain, according to the country’s health authorities. But authorities say that the overall risk of a rapid spread in the country remains low.

Both people had been in close contact with someone in Britain who was confirmed last week to have the virus, and an mpox vaccine has been made available to all three infected people, the United Kingdom Health Security Agency said in a statement Monday. The three are being treated at London hospitals, the agency said.

“Mpox is very infectious in households with close contact, and so it is not unexpected to see further cases within the same household,” Susan Hopkins, the agency’s chief medical adviser, said in the statement.

The disease, formerly known as monkeypox, has been endemic in West and Central Africa for more than 50 years. A wider outbreak occurred in 2022, with the illness spreading to Europe, the United States and other parts of the world.

U.K. moves to slowly outlaw tobacco sales

Legislation intended to ban today’s British children from ever legally being able to smoke began its journey through Parliament on Tuesday.

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill would also bar smoking and vaping in some outdoor spaces such as playgrounds and the entrances to schools and hospitals. But a proposed ban on smoking in pub beer gardens has been dropped after opposition from bar owners.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the hospitality industry had “taken a real battering in recent years” and it is not “the right time” to ban smoking outside pubs.

The bill also proposes to restrict vape flavors and ban bright vape packaging aimed at children, to combat “a cynical industry that has sought to addict a new generation of children to nicotine,” Streeting said.

It also continues a plan by the previous Conservative government, which was ousted in July’s general election, to raise the minimum age for buying tobacco by one year each year, so that no one born after Jan. 1, 2009 will ever be able to buy cigarettes legally in Britain.

— From news services