Love and bacon hovered in the air of the Smalley house one sunny morning when Annie, 7, came to breakfast.

A "baconaholic," according to her father, Annie spied the last remaining strips of the intoxicating salty meat on a plate. She could easily have inhaled them all. But incoming was Annie's sister, Murphy, 16, another bacon devotee. Annie paused and decided to offer one strip of crispy goodness to her sister. "Dad," she declared, ""I just laid down my life for Murphy."

The two animals chosen as the mascots of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are stoats, a weasel-like animal that's at risk because of climate change. One of the pair is brown and the other is white — because in cold climates, the tiny animals' fur changes from brown to white for winter, to blend in with the landscape.

However, stoats are increasingly turning white before there is any snow on the ground, leaving them vulnerable to predators — their snow-white coats amid dirt and rocks is like a target on their backs for sharp-eyed raptors.

The death toll from a crackdown over Iran's nationwide protests last month has reached at least 7,002 people killed with many more still feared dead, activists said Thursday.

The slow rise in the number of dead from the demonstrations adds to the overall tensions facing Iran both inside the country and abroad as it tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program. A second round of talks remains up in the air as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed his case directly with U.S. President Donald Trump to intensify his demands on Tehran in the negotiations.

A coalition of major trade unions and farmers' groups in India mounted a nationwide strike Thursday to protest an interim trade deal with the United States, saying the agreement undermines the interests of farmers, small businesses and workers.

In Parliament, lawmakers from opposition political parties demanded that the government scrap the trade deal and criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the slogan "Narendra Modi, surrender Modi."

China moves to curb auto price war after January passenger car sales drop 20%

China moved on Thursday to curb a fierce price war among automakers that has caused massive losses for the industry, after passenger car sales dropped nearly 20% in January from the year before, the fastest pace in almost two years.

Russia has blocked popular messaging service WhatsApp for failing to abide by Russian legislation, the Kremlin said Thursday.

"Such a decision was indeed made and implemented," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the reported ban.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading a large U.S. delegation this week to the Munich Security Conference where increasingly nervous European leaders are hoping for at least a brief reprieve from President Donald Trump's often inconsistent policies and threats that have roiled transatlantic relations and the post-World War II international order.

A year after Vice President JD Vance stunned assembled dignitaries at the same venue with a verbal assault on many of America's closest allies in Europe, accusing them of imperiling Western civilization with left-leaning domestic programs and not taking responsibility for their own defense, Rubio plans to take a less contentious but philosophically similar approach when he addresses the annual gathering of world leaders and national security officials Saturday, U.S. officials say.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog was due to end a contentious four-day visit to Australia on Thursday that brought comfort to Sydney's Jewish community traumatized by a recent antisemitic mass shooting, but also attracted large-scale demonstrations protesting the civilian toll of the Gaza war.

Herzog has been dogged by protesters who label him a war criminal as he visited Sydney, the national capital Canberra and Melbourne in the first Australian visit by an Israeli head of state in six years.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta's Instagram, testified Wednesday during a landmark social media trial in Los Angeles that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms.

The question of addiction is a key pillar of the case, where plaintiffs seek to hold social media companies responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Meta Platforms and Google's YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled.

Leaders from across the European Union are meeting Thursday in a Belgian castle as the 27-nation bloc faces antagonism from U.S. President Donald Trump, strong-arm economic tactics from China and hybrid threats from Russia — challenges that have prompted a rethink of Europe's approach to diplomacy and trade.

"We all know we must change course, and we all know the direction," Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told a meeting of some European leaders on Wednesday. "Yet it sometimes feels like we're standing on the bridge of the ship staring at the horizon without being able to touch the helm."