Iranian missile and drone strikes reportedly caused billions of dollars in damage to U.S. intelligence sites and surveillance systems across the Middle East, according to NBC News, which cited four people familiar with the matter.

The director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Ratcliffe, traveled to Moscow earlier this week in part to warn Russia not to attack countries belonging to the NATO military alliance, sources familiar with the mission said Thursday.

Residents were awakened in the capital Kyiv as Russia hit Ukraine with drones and missiles in the early hours of Thursday, witnesses said.

Christians in Indonesia expressed concern Thursday as crowds gathered outside Parliament in Jakarta amid growing protests against corruption and government policies in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has expressed sorrow and ordered an immediate investigation after a fire erupted early Wednesday at a nursery for newborns in a major government hospital in Pakistan’s capital, killing more than a dozen babies.

A monk has been killed, and two other people seriously wounded after unidentified assailants attacked residents of one of Ukraine’s best-known Orthodox monasteries in the war-torn Donetsk region, church officials said.

Hungary’s new government has asked prosecutors to investigate suspected fraud and financial misconduct surrounding the previous administration’s purchase of nearly 17,000 Chinese ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, while dozens of senior diplomats are being removed from their posts.

Ukraine has dramatically widened drone attacks deep inside Russia, striking military aircraft, vessels, energy facilities and warehouses, while Russian troops edged closer to the strategic eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk amid reports that Moscow could mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers.

Residents were left grieving Thursday as massive flash floods in a border area of Nepal and China-ruled Tibet killed at least 160 people and left hundreds of tourists, workers and others missing, authorities confirmed.

A rare “Blood Moon” lunar eclipse will darken the skies over much of the world this week, closing out a striking season of celestial events that began near the opening of Elul, the Hebrew month of repentance and preparation before the Biblical fall feasts.

People in southern France tried to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives Wednesday after a rare tornado ripped through a small village, injuring dozens of people and damaging hundreds of homes, including many considered potentially uninhabitable.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unannounced trip to Moscow on Tuesday for meetings with Russian officials, according to U.S. media reports, marking one of the most sensitive known contacts between Washington and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

President Donald Trump sharply escalated his trade battle with Canada on Monday, threatening to raise tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel to 50% beginning Jan. 1, 2027, after trade negotiations between Washington and Ottawa collapsed late last week.

China pushed back Tuesday against the Trump administration’s expanding sanctions campaign on Iran, signaling that Beijing will not submit to Washington’s effort to isolate Tehran through what U.S. officials have described as a sweeping economic offensive.

Evangelical Christians in Tehran fear they will become further isolated after Iran’s parliament advanced legislation that would increase punishments for Iranians who interact with foreign media outlets, organizations, or individuals.