U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pledged to deepen cooperation with a group of four Central and Eastern European nations, including Hungary and Slovakia, despite concerns over their leaders’ perceived authoritarian style and refusal to provide military aid to war-torn Ukraine.

Bulgarian President Iliana Yotova has appointed a senior central bank official as interim prime minister in a bid to steady the European Union nation after years of chronic political instability.

Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, continued providing banking services to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein years after his 2008 conviction and months before his 2019 arrest, according to U.S. Justice Department documents released Thursday.

Hungary’s main opposition leader, 44-year-old Péter Magyar, said Thursday that he has become the target of what he described as a “Russian-style smear campaign” after he was secretly filmed during a consensual sexual encounter with a former girlfriend in 2024.

The Trump administration has finalized a sweeping reciprocal trade agreement with Taiwan, confirming a 15 percent U.S. tariff rate on Taiwanese imports while securing broad new market access and purchase commitments for American goods.

Christian rights activists have condemned Chinese and Hong Kong authorities after Catholic publisher and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison under Hong Kong’s sweeping National Security Law.

Mourners in a remote Canadian town grappled Thursday with the aftermath of one of the country’s deadliest school shootings in decades, as families, survivors and leaders reacted to the tragedy that left eight victims — most of them children — dead, along with the 18-year-old suspect.

A gunman who opened fire at a school in southern Thailand’s Hat Yai city on Wednesday wounded a teacher and a student before being detained, authorities said, in a rare attack that sent students and staff into panic.

The Trump administration covertly delivered roughly 6,000 Starlink satellite internet terminals into Iran following last month’s violent government crackdown on nationwide protests, according to U.S. officials cited in a Wall Street Journal exclusive.

A Russian drone slammed into a home in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region overnight, killing a father and his three small children and wounding their pregnant mother, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday, in one of the deadliest single-family attacks in recent months.

Tropical Cyclone Gezani collapsed houses in Madagascar’s main port city of Toamasina and left at least 31 people dead as it tore across the Indian Ocean island with powerful winds and heavy rain, authorities said Wednesday.

Iran warned Wednesday that its missile capabilities are “non-negotiable” as tensions increased with the United States, which appears to be preparing military options, even as the Islamic Republic faces unrest at home following a deadly nationwide protest crackdown.

As diplomatic talks continue between Washington and Tehran, new reports from inside Iran describe intensifying repression and widespread fear among ordinary citizens.

The Pentagon has instructed a second aircraft carrier strike group to prepare for potential deployment to the Middle East as the United States increases military readiness in response to rising tensions with Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Nine people were killed Tuesday in a mass shooting in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, and at least 27 others were injured, authorities confirmed late Tuesday, marking one of the deadliest attacks in Canada in recent years.