In the end, it is the Kremlin’s plan playing out, and there appears to be little the White House will do about it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to send defense minister Rustam Umerov to meet with a low-level Russian delegation in Istanbul was a difficult choice forced by necessity. Its audience is one man: US President Donald Trump. Kyiv ...

A controversial new American-backed organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has announced it will begin delivering aid to the besieged territory within two weeks and says it has Israel’s approval. The move would provide some relief for Gazans facing acute hunger from 19 months of war and a two-and-half month Israeli blockade of all food, water, medical and humanitarian supplies. ...

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Washington is “very close” to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran after Tehran “sort of” agreed to its terms. “Iran has sort of agreed to the terms: They’re not going to make, I call it, in a friendly way, nuclear dust. We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran,” ...

The United States and United Arab Emirates will partner to build a massive data center complex in Abu Dhabi to advance artificial intelligence capabilities with 5-gigawatts of capacity — enough to power a major city. The agreement, announced Thursday during US President Donald Trump’s visit to the UAE, will mark the largest data center deployment outside of the United States, ...

After five days of confusion over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal for direct talks with Ukraine, the day they were supposed to begin initially brought only more of the same: a seven-hour stakeout on the banks of the Bosphorus, an unruly scrum at the Russian consulate, and finally a decision from Ukraine’s president that may open a new chapter in ...

An American basketball player for the Indonesian league was arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle illegal drugs to the country, police said Thursday. The Southeast Asian country has extremely strict drug laws, and convicted smugglers are sometimes executed by firing squad. Jarred Dwayne Shaw, 34, from Dallas, Texas, was arrested May 7, after police raided his apartment in Tangerang regency, ...

A Thai court has issued arrest warrants for 17 people including a high-profile construction tycoon, police said on Thursday, over their alleged involvement in the building of a skyscraper that collapsed and killed scores of workers during a powerful March earthquake. Search teams recovered 89 bodies in a six-week operation in the rubble of the partially constructed 30-story State Audit ...

Police in Thailand have arrested a man on suspicion of wildlife trafficking after he was found with two baby orangutans in a basket at a gas station in the Thai capital. The 47-year-old suspect was apprehended Wednesday as he was about to deliver the two primates to a customer, Thai police said in a statement on Thursday. Officers discovered the ...

Armed assailants tried to kidnap the daughter and grandson of a French cryptocurrency boss in Paris, police said, in a brazen daytime attack that was caught on camera. Tuesday morning’s attack in Paris’s 11th district is the latest in a string of violent incidents targeting figures in France’s burgeoning crypto industry. Four masked men attacked the daughter, her partner and ...

A Venezuelan toddler who had been kept in US government custody after her parents were deported has been returned to Venezuela. Maikelys Antonella Espinoza Bernal arrived at the Simón Bolívar International Airport on Wednesday on a repatriation flight from the US. Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores carried the 2-year-old in her arms as officials announced the girl’s return to reporters ...