MELBOURNE, Australia. (AP) — Australian police said they shot dead a man following a three-hour standoff on Monday, seven months after he was suspected of killing two police officers and seriously wounding a third in a remote forest region.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan announced Sunday that it will soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran, though there was no immediate word from Washington or Tehran, and it was unclear whether discussions on the monthlong war would be direct or indirect.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Jerusalem’s major holy sites are shuttered, and families are dejected and exhausted ahead of Passover and Easter as the Iran war enters its fifth week. The mood stands in stark contrast to a usual spring, when longer days herald a period of family gatherings and an influx of tourists for the major Jewish and Christian holidays.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un observed a test of an upgraded solid-fuel engine for weapons capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, and called it a significant development boosting his country’s strategic military arsenal, state media reported Sunday.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel struck Iran’s nuclear facilities hours after threatening to “escalate and expand” its campaign against Tehran on Friday. Iran vowed to retaliate and struck a base in Saudi Arabia, wounding U.S. service members and damaging planes.

A group of northern European countries vowed Thursday to harden the fight against Russia's “shadow fleet” of tankers exporting its sanctioned oil, as Turkish officials said that one of those tankers approaching the Black Sea entrance to the Bosporus Strait was hit by a naval drone.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran on Wednesday dismissed an American plan to pause the war in the Middle East and launched more attacks on Israel and Gulf Arab countries, including an assault that sparked a huge fire at Kuwait International Airport.

LONDON (AP) — British police arrested two men on Wednesday in connection with an arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity, an assault that authorities are investigating as an antisemitic hate crime.

Russian air defenses downed 389 incoming Ukrainian drones, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday, in what was the largest reported overnight attack on Russian regions and Crimea since Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine more than four years ago.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's Taliban authorities on Tuesday released American academic Dennis Coyle after holding him for over a year, with the Foreign Ministry saying the release came on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Trump administration late Tuesday offered a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran, a person briefed on the contours of the proposal said, even as the U.S. military prepared to call up at least 1,000 more troops to supplement some 50,000 troops already in the Mideast.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Airstrikes battered Iran’s capital and Iranian missiles and drones targeted Israel’s Tel Aviv and sites across the Mideast on Tuesday, even as President Donald Trump said the United States was in talks with the Islamic Republic to end the war.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A major Russian drone and missile attack on civilian areas of Ukraine killed four people and injured at least 27, officials said Tuesday, while Moscow’s army stepped up efforts to break through Ukrainian front-line defenses in what could be the start of an anticipated spring ground offensive.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday extended his deadline for Iran to reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, saying the U.S. would hold off on strikes against Iranian power plants for five days.

LONDON (AP) — Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in London were set on fire early Monday morning in London, in what British police are investigating as an antisemitic hate crime. No one was injured in the overnight attack, which shattered windows in nearby homes and left the vehicles charred shells.

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba began restoring its energy system on Sunday, a day after a nationwide collapse of the entire grid left millions of people in the dark for the third time this month.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran threatened to target recreational and tourist sites worldwide and insisted it was still building missiles. Its supreme leader purportedly issued another defiant statement on Friday, nearly three weeks into U.S.-Israeli strikes that have killed a slew of Tehran’s top leaders and hammered its weapons and energy industries.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian officials are helping five countries in the Middle East and Gulf region counter attacks on their territory by Iranian drones, while the United States and European countries are among others who have requested support, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday.

GUAJES DE AYALA, Mexico (AP) — Jesús Domínguez pushes through thick brush lining a rugged mountainside with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and a grenade fastened to his leather belt.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran intensified its attacks on oil and natural gas facilities around the Gulf on Thursday, raising the stakes in a conflict that is sending shock waves through the global economy.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European leaders doubled down Thursday on refusing to join the United States and Israel military campaigns in the Middle East as they met in Brussels to grapple with rising oil and gas prices caused by the war.

HELSINKI (AP) — Heavy social media use contributes to a stark decline in well-being among young people, with the effects particularly worrying in teenage girls in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, according to the World Happiness Report 2026 published Thursday.

LONDON (AP) — Lawmakers in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday rejected legislation that would have made Scotland the first part of the United Kingdom to allow terminally ill adults to end their lives. Members of the Edinburgh-based legislature voted 69 to 57 against a bill that would have let people in Scotland with six months or less to live seek help to end their lives. There was one abstention.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Heavy rains and strong winds lashed Pakistan’s largest city overnight, killing at least 15 people and injuring several others as walls and roofs collapsed at multiple locations, emergency services and hospital officials said Thursday.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel killed Iran's intelligence minister as it kept up its campaign against the Islamic Republic’s top leadership and reportedly attacked an Iranian offshore natural gas field Wednesday, as the war escalated pressure on the region’s economic lifeblood: energy.