EXPLAINER: What to know about the U.N. General Assembly

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — After two years of virtual and hybrid summits, the world’s leaders will reconvene on the river’s edge in New York this coming week at the U.N. General Assembly, an exercise in multilateralism born from the hope for lasting peace that followed World War II.

The opening of the 77th session comes as the planet is beset with crises on nearly every front. Russia's war in Ukraine, inflation and economic instability, terrorism and ideological extremism, environmental degradation and devastating floods, droughts and fires and the ongoing pandemic are just a few of the rampant perils.

The high-level meeting opens Monday with a summit on education, whose thorough disruption during the coronavirus pandemic will reverberate for decades to come. Speeches from the scores of attending leaders begin Tuesday and run through Monday, Sept. 26.

While this year is billed as something of a return to the way things were, certain concessions to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic have been made. In addition to basic health protocols, few side events will take place on the U.N.'s midtown Manhattan campus.