From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Jonathan Smith reporting.

President Trump has imposed new economic sanctions on North Korea. The sanctions target individuals and businesses.

He made the announcement Thursday alongside South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, both of whom praised the action.

This is U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin: "Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward they can choose to do business with the United States or with North Korea, but not both."

Also Thursday, President Trump praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a friend who gets high marks for "running a very difficult part of the world."

His praise for the Turkish leader came at the U.N. General Assembly despite tensions between the two countries over the conduct of Turkish security officials toward American protesters.

Hours before, Trump met Erdoğan for talks. Erdoğan supporters punched and kicked three protesters who interrupted his speech at a hotel in New York.

Voice of America Television footage shows audience members pummeling a man as American security officers tried to hustle him to safety. Soon after he was gone, a second man also protested and also was repeatedly punched and hit over the head with Turkish flags as he was led outside by U.S. security.

Hurricane Maria strengthened Thursday as it approached the Turks and Caicos islands, while continuing to dump more heavy rain on Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Maria is now a Category 3 storm. It was a Category 4 when it knocked out power throughout Puerto Rico Wednesday and flooded many areas.

This is VOA news.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the United Nations on Thursday that his country has failed its indigenous people. He said his government would do better to improve the lives of aboriginal Canadians.

He called Canada's colonization a great shame and promised to do more to help the nation's 1.4 million indigenous people.

Rescue efforts continue in Mexico City and in neighboring states following Tuesday's powerful earthquake. VOA Latin America correspondent Celia Mendoza has the latest.

Two hundred seventy-three people is the new death toll given by authorities to the public as their efforts to try to find anyone and any of the collapsed building continue.

One of the astonishing announcements made today by one of the members of the rescue teams, the head of the navy, the assistant secretary Ángel Enrique Sarmiento, says that there is no missing children at a collapsed Mexico City school. That has been the focus of most of the efforts as well as the media attention.

Celia Mendoza, for VOA news, from Mexico City.

The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously to establish an investigative team to help Iraq secure evidence of atrocities committed by Islamic State militants "that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide."

Britain drafted a resolution. It said the team would bring some justice to those who had experienced atrocities at the hands of the terrorists.

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, called the resolution a landmark that would provide an indispensable record of the scope and scale of ISIS atrocities.

The United States is increasing aid to Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia to help millions of people affected by food insecurity and violence.

An additional $575 million in humanitarian aid will be provided to the four countries.

And Facebook said it will share with congressional investigators the 3,000 advertisements on the social media site that were found to be linked to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement in a live broadcast Thursday and [reated] reiterated, that is, the company's cooperation with investigations by the Department of Justice and congressional committees.

He said, "When we recently uncovered this activity, we provided that information to the special counsel," and, "We also briefed Congress, and this morning I directed our team to provide the ads we've found to Congress as well."

There is more on these and other stories, from around the world, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Jonathan Smith reporting from the world headquarters of the Voice of America in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.