Europe

ATHENS — A series of earthquakes near the Greek island of Santorini has led authorities to shut down schools, dispatch rescue teams with sniffer dogs and send instructions to residents including a request to drain their swimming pools.  Even though earthquake experts say the more than 200 tremors that have hit the area since early Friday are not related to the volcano in Santorini, which once produced …

ISTANBUL — Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Jordan will come together to fight the remnants of the Islamic State group, a move the Turkish foreign minister says would allow the United States to cut ties with Kurdish militants in Syria.  Washington’s decadelong relationship with Kurdish-led forces in Syria is opposed by Turkey. Ankara says the People’s Defense Units, or YPG, are tied to another Kurdish group listed …

KYIV — Competing claims emerged over a deadly attack on a boarding school in Sudzha, a city in Russia’s Kursk region that has been under Ukrainian control for five months, with Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of carrying out the strike. The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Saturday night that four people were killed and a further four seriously wounded in the strike, …

ROME — Pope Francis has long urged couples to marry and have babies rather than dogs. And he has long championed the rights of workers and held up labor itself as the foundation of human dignity. So it has come as something of a surprise to many in the Holy See that the Vatican bank fired a newlywed couple, with three young children between them, after …

LONDON — Britain will become the first country to introduce laws against AI tools used to generate sexual abuse images, the government announced Saturday. The government will make it illegal to possess, create or distribute AI tools designed to generate sexualized images of children, punishable by up to five years in prison, interior minister Yvette Cooper revealed. It will also be illegal to possess AI “pedophile …

NOVI SAD, SERBIA — Serbia’s students led a mass protest and blocked bridges over the River Danube in the northern city of Novi Sad on Saturday, drawing tens of thousands into the streets to express their anger with the country’s populist leadership and to call for change.  Saturday marked three months since a huge concrete canopy at Novi Sad’s main railway station collapsed, killing 15 people. …

SHENGJIN, ALBANIA — An Italian navy ship on Saturday took migrants to Italy from asylum processing centers in Albania following a court decision in Rome. It was the third failed attempt by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government to process migrants in the non-EU country. A coast guard ship took 43 migrants from the port of Shengjin, 66 kilometers northwest of the capital, Tirana. They were among the …

KYIV, UKRAINE — Russia said on Saturday it had captured a village flanking the eastern flashpoint city of Toretsk in Ukraine as Kyiv said four people had died in overnight Russian strikes. The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops seized the village of Krymske in the northeastern suburbs of Toretsk, located in the eastern Donetsk region and the scene of intense fighting in recent months. The …

The Arctic is one of the coldest and least populated regions on Earth, much of it covered by ice. But in recent years it has become one of the most important sites of geopolitical tensions — and a key focus of American policy. Despite its inhospitability, land north of the Arctic Circle has long been inhabited by Indigenous people like the Inuit, Sami and Yukaghir …

ATHENS — Three Greek opposition parties vowed Friday to challenge the country’s center-right government with a censure motion over its handling of a deadly rail disaster nearly two years ago. The pledge was prompted by mounting public anger over delays in the inquiry and allegations of a cover-up that the government strongly denies. Fifty-seven people were killed — including college students returning from a holiday — …

INDJIJA, Serbia — Hundreds of striking students marched through the Serbian countryside Friday as they took their anti-graft protest toward the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to blockade three bridges over the River Danube this weekend.  The bridge blockade planned for Saturday will mark three months since a huge concrete construction at the railway station collapsed in Novi said on Nov. 1, leaving …

KYIV, UKRAINE — Russia launched a barrage of drones on Ukraine in an overnight attack on Friday, injuring four people and damaging a hospital and a grain warehouse in the southern Odesa region, officials said. Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 59 of 102 Russian drones, the air force said. It said that 37 drones were “lost,” referring to the use of electronic warfare to redirect them. …

white house — Arms control advocates are hoping U.S. President Donald Trump’s fresh words of support for denuclearization will lead to talks with Russia and China on arms reduction. U.S. negotiations with the Russians and Chinese on denuclearization and eventual agreements are “very possible,” according to Trump, who addressed the World Economic Forum a week ago in Davos, Switzerland. “Tremendous amounts of money are being spent …

Visiting Spain this week, NATO’s secretary-general called for members to boost military spending in the face of the threat from Russia. Spain spends the least on defense relative to the size of its economy. And as Henry Ridgwell reports, US President Donald Trump has singled out Madrid for failing to meet the NATO target. Camera: Alfonso Beato …

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned an early Thursday morning Russian drone strike that killed at least nine people as a “terrible tragedy.” The drone, which struck an apartment building in the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, also injured 13 people, according to regional authorities. “This is a terrible tragedy, a terrible Russian crime. It is very important that the world does not stop putting …

Azerbaijan and Turkey are stepping up efforts to secure a land corridor between their countries through Armenia. Until now, Iran, a key ally of Armenia, has backed Yerevan’s opposition to what is known as the Zangezur corridor. With Iran weakened in the region, Ankara and Baku see an opportunity to secure a key strategic goal. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. …

Brussels, Belgium — The EU promised Thursday an “action plan” to help the bloc’s beleaguered auto sector, as it held talks with industry leaders who have sounded the alarm over emissions fines and Chinese competition.  The European Union is under pressure to help a sector that employs 13 million people and accounts for about seven percent of the bloc’s GDP, as it seeks to revamp the …

Ukrainian officials said Thursday a Russian drone attack killed at least four people in the northeastern city of Sumy. The regional state administration in Sumy said a drone hit a high-rise residential building, and that the attack also injured nine people. Ukraine’s military said it shot down 37 of the 81 drones that Russian forces launched overnight. Intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, …

The Russian lawmaker attributed to Trump a quote from a deepfake video created by Ukrainian bloggers and shared on the Telegram messaging platform. …

Russian disinformation narratives about illicit organ harvesting and biological experiments in Ukraine have no basis in fact. Russia intentionally distorts Ukrainian law intended to support vital medical procedures. …

BEIJING — Lunar New Year festivals and prayers marked the start of the Year of the Snake around Asia and farther afield on Wednesday — including in Moscow. Hundreds of people lined up in the hours before midnight at the Wong Tai Sin Taoist temple in Hong Kong in a bid to be among the first to put incense sticks in the stands in front of …

Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered government officials to report on the U.S. support programs whose funds are “currently suspended” under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. “These are humanitarian programs,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address Tuesday.  Nearly all of them were not channeled through Ukrainian government, he said. Instead, went “directly through our communities, through various organizations.”  “There are many projects. We will determine …

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that America needs to take control of Greenland from Denmark for, in his words, “international security.” But as Henry Ridgwell reports from the Arctic island, the global attention is driving a desire among many native Greenlanders to determine their own political future. …

U.S. President Donald Trump has promised repeatedly to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. But some Ukrainians are skeptical Trump can do anything to make President Vladimir Putin pull back his troops. The problem, as some analysts see it, is that the demands of Ukraine and Russia cannot be reconciled. Lesia Bakalets report from Kyiv. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets …