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Paris - Australia and France opened a "new chapter" in their relations Friday as the new Australian prime minister seeks to heal wounds from a secret submarine contract that infuriated France. President Emmanuel Macron warmly shook hands with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese outside the French presidential palace, showing a thumbs-up before putting his arm around the Australian leader's back as they headed inside for talks. Source

In Arizona, Republicans are fighting among themselves over whether a 121-year-old anti-abortion law from the pre-statehood Wild West days, when Arizona was still a frontier mining territory, should be enforced over a 2022 version. In Idaho, meanwhile, it is not clear whether a pair of laws from the early 1970s making it a felony to "knowingly aid" in an abortion or to publish information about how to induce one will be enforced alongside the state's newer, near-total ban. Source

GENEVA - Lesbian and gay couples in Switzerland rejoiced as they legally tied the knot Friday when the rich Alpine nation formally joined many other western European countries in allowing same-sex marriage, with some saying better late than never. Source

LONDON - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has appealed against the British's government decision last month to order his extradition to the U.S. The appeal was filed Friday at the High Court, the latest twist in a decade-long legal saga sparked by his website's publication of classified U.S. Source

A lack of programs to certify lifeguards is contributing to the industry-wide shortage seen in Canada, a Toronto city official says. "The key contributor to this issue is a couple years of lack of certification programs, where the industry hasn't been able to really keep up with the development," Aydin Sarrafzadeh, interim director of management services at parks, forestry and recreation for the City of Toronto, told CTV News Channel on Friday. Source

TAPACHULA, Mexico - Some 2,000 migrants, most Venezuelans, walked out of this southern Mexico city early Friday en masse to pressure authorities into allowing them to continue to the United States border at a time attention is focused on immigration. Source

OTTAWA - The Assembly of First Nations says an Ontario court has rejected a bid by National Chief RoseAnne Archibald to overturn her recent suspension. The organization has issued a statement saying an Ontario Superior Court judge declined to take action on Archibald's request for a hearing prior to the start of an annual general meeting next week in Vancouver. Source

The number of new coronavirus cases across Britain has surged by more than 30 per cent in the last week, new data showed Friday, with cases likely driven by Omicron subvariants. Data released by Britain's Office for National Statistics showed that more than three million people in the U.K. Source

ROME - The Vatican said Friday it had finalized the sale of a London property that is the focus of a criminal trial in the Vatican courts, offloading the former Harrods warehouse for 186 million pounds (215 million euros, US$223 million). Source

Thousands of pilgrims started arriving in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia on Friday, among some one million Muslims expected to attend the 2022 hajj pilgrimage season after two years of major disruption caused by the COVID pandemic. Source