More than a million have cast their votes in Hong Kong's district elections viewed as a barometer of support for the anti-government protests.
A record 4.1 million residents have been registered to vote, with more than 400 councillors due to be elected to Hong Kong's district council.
Beijing-backed leader Carrie Lam, who cast her vote early Sunday, pledged that her government would listen "more intensively" to the views of district councils.
"I hope this kind of stability and calm is not only for today's election, but to show that everyone does not want Hong Kong to fall into a chaotic situation again, hoping to get out of this dilemma, and let us have a fresh start," she said.
Pro-democracy protest groups have urged people not to cause disruption and are hoping to increase their representation on the council.
Meanwhile, the standoff between protesters and riot police at the Polytechnic University campus entered the seventh day today.
South Korea and the United States will cut short annual joint military drills to five days from 11 and scale back some field training, the allies said on Wednesday, after President Donald Trump ordered a substantial reduction in US participation.
Thai schools conducted active shooter drills on Wednesday, as authorities moved to strengthen security measures two weeks after a 14-year-old opened fire at a school and killed at least eight people.
At least 21 people have died and four others injured in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck in the BR-373 highway in Brazil's southern state of Parana, the road operator said on Wednesday in an X post.
A Russian drone strike on a minibus in Ukraine's southern city of Kherson has killed four people on Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities said, in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as a "vicious" attack.