Far over budget but still less costly than some recent Games, Italy’s Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics opened over the weekend, with athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus competing only under a “neutral” designation amid continuing fallout from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Portuguese voters headed to the polls Sunday in a high-stakes presidential runoff despite deadly storms that have battered parts of the country, with left-leaning former Socialist leader António José Seguro projected to defeat nationalist challenger André Ventura, according to exit polls.

U.S. forces carried out five sets of precision strikes against Islamic State targets across Syria between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2, the U.S. military’s U.S. Central Command announced Wednesday.

U.S. forces carried out five sets of precision strikes against Islamic State targets across Syria between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2, the U.S. military’s U.S. Central Command announced Wednesday.

U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff announced on Feb. 5 that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to exchange 314 prisoners, marking the first such swap in five months and the most tangible outcome yet from U.S.-brokered talks held in Abu Dhabi. The exchange followed multiple days of trilateral negotiations involving delegations from Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran has entered negotiations with the United States because it fears potential military action, as both sides prepare for high-stakes talks expected to take place in Oman. Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Trump said Tehran “doesn’t want us to hit them,” adding that a U.S. naval fleet is in the region as pressure increases.

Ukraine has signaled readiness to reach an acceptable agreement with Russia during renewed talks in Abu Dhabi, but Russian missile and drone attacks have cast doubt on Moscow’s intentions, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and other officials said.

A provincial leader in eastern Indonesia on Wednesday acknowledged deep government failures after a 10-year-old boy apparently took his own life when his family could not afford a pen and a notebook he needed for school.

The last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between Washington and Moscow expired Thursday, ending more than a decade of legally binding limits and verification measures that offered rare transparency into the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. The lapse of New START marks the first time in over half a century that the United States and Russia are operating without any active treaty governing their strategic nuclear forces.

Planned nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran unraveled this week after Tehran demanded changes to both the format and location of the talks, U.S. and regional officials said. The meetings, initially set for Friday in Turkey, were called off after Washington rejected Iran’s insistence on moving the venue to Oman and limiting discussions to the nuclear file alone.

The United States has agreed to work with Japan, Mexico and the European Union to secure supply chains for critical minerals vital to defense, energy and advanced manufacturing, the Trump administration announced Wednesday.

U.S., Russian, and Ukrainian diplomats convened this week in Abu Dhabi for a second round of trilateral peace talks aimed at ending Moscow’s four-year war against Kyiv, marking a rare continuation of direct negotiations between the two sides.

Horrifying accounts continue to emerge from Iran after last month’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests, with activists and rights groups describing scenes of extreme brutality and alleging killings that reportedly continued even inside hospitals and detention centers.

Indonesia has pledged to crack down on alleged stock manipulation and accelerate financial reforms to restore investor confidence after a sharp market selloff raised concerns about transparency in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

Polish authorities on Tuesday detained a Defense Ministry official accused of spying for Russian and Belarusian intelligence services in one of the most significant espionage cases to surface within the government since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, officials confirmed.