Spotlight
U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to criticize Russia's lack of movement on stopping the Ukraine war Friday as his envoy met with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
"Russia has to get moving," Trump wrote on his Truth Social app, as the Kremlin said envoy Steve Witkoff's meeting with Putin started in Moscow.

European countries vowed Friday to sends billions of dollars in further funding to help Ukraine keep fighting Russia's invasion, as a U.S. envoy pursued peace efforts in a trip to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid growing questions about the Kremlin's willingness to stop the more than three-year war.
After chairing a meeting of Ukraine's Western backers in Brussels, British Defense Secretary John Healey said that new pledges of military aid totaled over 21 billion euros ($24 billion), "a record boost in military funding for Ukraine, and we are also surging that support to the frontline fight."

China announced Friday that it will raise tariffs on U.S. goods from 84% to 125% — the latest salvo in an escalating trade war between the world's two largest economies that has rattled markets and raised fears of a global slowdown.
While U.S. President Donald Trump paused import taxes this week for other countries, he raised tariffs on China and they now total 145%. China has denounced the policy as "economic bullying" and promised countermeasures. The new tariffs begin Saturday.

Once again, some of the highest stakes in Middle East geopolitics will be discussed in this quiet coastal city without skyscrapers.
Here in Muscat, the capital of Oman nestled against the sheer stone heights of the Hajar Mountains, Iran and the United States will meet for talks over Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program for the time time since President Donald Trump began his second term.

President Donald Trump delivered another jarring reversal in American trade policy Wednesday, suspending for 90 days import taxes he'd imposed barely 13 hours earlier on dozens of countries while escalating his trade war with China. The moves triggered a powerful stock market rally on Wall Street but left businesses, investors and America's trading partners bewildered about what the president is attempting to achieve.
The U-turn came after the sweeping global tariffs Trump announced last week set off a four-day rout in global financial markets, paralyzed businesses and raised fears the U.S. and world economies would tumble into recession.

Two videos, two different stories about Russia's war in Ukraine. In one of them, the prisoners appear to live. In the other, they die.
The Associated Press has obtained a video from a Ukrainian drone showing soldiers with Russian uniform markings killing Kyiv's forces who had surrendered to them. It also has discovered a second video, recorded by a Russian drone, of the same incident that sheds light on how Moscow is framing it.

The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to use a 1798 wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelan migrants it accuses of being gang members, ending the temporary halt on deportations ordered by a federal district judge.

Sudan told the United Nations' top court on Thursday that the United Arab Emirates is breaching the genocide convention by arming and funding the rebel paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, in a case vigorously contested by the UAE.
The northeast African country is asking the International Court of Justice to issue emergency orders, known as provisional measures, including telling the UAE to do all it can to prevent the killing and other crimes targeting the Masalit people during Sudan's two-year civil war.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was "wrong" to suggest Russia was dragging China into the Ukraine conflict, after Kyiv claimed many Chinese citizens were fighting for Moscow.
"Partner, friend, and comrade. China has always taken a very balanced position, so Zelensky is wrong," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including AFP, in a briefing call.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday issued new sanctions targeting Iran's nuclear program, just days before senior American and Iranian officials are expected to hold talks in the Middle East sultanate of Oman.
Five entities and one person based in Iran are cited in the new sanctions for their support of Iran's nuclear program. The designated groups include the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and subordinates Iran Centrifuge Technology Company, Thorium Power Company, Pars Reactors Construction and Development Company and Azarab Industries Co.
