The IRS announced Thursday that it has collected $1 billion in back taxes from high-wealth tax cheats — a milestone meant to showcase how the U.S. agency is making use of the money it received as part of the Biden administration's signature climate, health care, and tax package signed into law in 2022.

Part of the push for public awareness of high-wealth tax collections is a growing recognition by agency officials that a potential Republican takeover of the White House and Congress could mean massive future budget cuts for the IRS. Showing the public how much work the IRS is getting done is meant to give the much-maligned agency a more sympathetic image.

The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday declared 2025 to 2034 the United Nations Decade on Combating Sand and Dust Storms — extreme weather events that are increasing and threatening health and economies from central Africa to northern China.

Uganda's U.N. Ambassador Godfrey Kwoba, who introduced the resolution on behalf of the Group of 77, a powerful U.N. group of 134 developing countries and China, told the 193-member assembly the initiative aims to "halt and mitigate the negative effects of sand and dust storms " through "international and regional cooperation."

The Biden administration is awarding nearly $2 billion in grants to help restart or expand electric vehicle manufacturing and assembly sites in eight states, including the presidential battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

The Energy Department will issue grants totaling $1.7 billion to create or retain thousands of union jobs and support auto-based communities that have long driven the U.S. economy, the White House said Thursday. Besides the three battleground states, grants also will go to EV facilities in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland and Virginia.

Germany will bar the use of components made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from core parts of the country's 5G networks, in two steps starting in 2026, the nation's top security official said Thursday.

Germany, which has Europe's biggest economy, has long mulled what to do about components made by Chinese suppliers in its new-generation cellphone networks.

The 32-members of NATO on Wednesday formally declared Ukraine on an "irreversible" path to membership in the Western military alliance, offering a bare but more binding assurance of protection once its war with Russia ends.

NATO member countries individually and in Wednesday's joint statement from their summit in Washington announced a series of steps aimed at bolstering Ukraine's defenses. That includes the U.S., the Netherlands and Denmark announcing that the first NATO-provided F-16s would be in the hands of Ukrainian military pilots by this summer.

China accused NATO on Thursday of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same "chaos" to Asia, a reflection of its determination to oppose strengthening ties between NATO members and Asian nations such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

The statement by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson came a day after NATO labeled China a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war against Ukraine.

A slight majority of Israelis supports ending the war in Gaza as part of a cease-fire deal that would free all hostages held by Hamas, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think-tank, found that 56% of Israelis favor a complete cease-fire to return all the hostages and Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. That figure stands in contrast to a key position of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in ongoing cease-fire talks – that Israel won’t commit to ending the war as part of any deal.

The United Nations is warning that Israel’s order for Palestinians to leave Gaza City will fuel mass suffering and is insisting that civilians must be protected and their needs must be met whether they flee or stay.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday that this warning from the U.N. humanitarian office means that all parties involved in the conflict in Gaza must respect international humanitarian law at all times. Protection of civilians and the infrastructure for their survival are key requirements of the law.

The U.S. has agreed to send Israel hundreds of 500-pound bombs from a shipment that the Biden administration withheld because of concerns about Israeli operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, according to three U.S. officials.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced in May that he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah over concern for the well-being of hundreds of thousands civilians sheltering there.

President Joe Biden's imperiled reelection campaign hit new trouble Wednesday as House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said merely "it's up to the president to decide" if he should stay in the race, celebrity donor George Clooney said he should not run and Democratic senators and lawmakers expressed fresh fear about his ability to beat Republican Donald Trump.

Late in the evening, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw from the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. Welch said he is worried because "the stakes could not be higher."