The death toll from a Russian drone strike on a crowded shopping center in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown rose to at least 16 Sunday, as Kyiv pleaded for more air-defense interceptors and France promised additional missiles amid mounting concerns that the conflict is increasingly affecting security across Europe.

Iran’s president has urged an end to the war with the United States in a daring pushback against Islamic hardliners who want to continue the armed conflict, which has also left minority Christians suffering in prisons and elsewhere.

Hungary said Saturday it had begun restarting one of three nuclear reactors shut down because of record-low water levels in the Danube River, while neighboring Romania and Bulgaria also struggled to maintain nuclear power production amid a severe regional drought.

A military airstrike on a Buddhist monastery in Myanmar, also known as Burma, killed at least 14 people and wounded 20 others who were taking part in a meditation retreat, opposition representatives and residents said Saturday.

Iran urged Qatar on Saturday to transfer three Iranian fighter pilots it claims are being detained “on water” to a hospital on land, saying they are in poor physical condition, amid mounting tensions over the war involving Iran, Israel and the United States.

Israel observed Shabbat on Saturday amid fresh diplomatic tensions with the European Union and several Western nations over plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, known biblically as Judea and Samaria, and a separate dispute over a deadly Israeli strike on an aid convoy in Gaza.

NATO’s chief has sought to reassure Bulgaria of the military alliance’s support amid reports that Iran has weighed attacking American military targets in Europe if U.S. President Donald J. Trump orders renewed or expanded strikes against the Islamic Republic.

New evidence has emerged suggesting that this week’s massacre of Christians in Nigeria’s Plateau State was part of coordinated attacks on several predominantly Christian communities, as questions mounted over why security forces allegedly failed to intervene despite advance warnings.

Kevin Rideout, an American Christian missionary who spent more than nine months in captivity after being abducted by suspected Islamic militants in Niger, and his wife thanked believers for their prayers after they were reunited.

Egyptian archaeologists say new discoveries in northeastern Egypt may help identify a long-lost ancient city that stood along one of the most important military roads of the ancient world — a route many scholars have connected to the biblical account of the Exodus.