The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on a resolution Friday on whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, as European officials warn Tehran that time is running out to come to a diplomatic resolution ahead of next week's annual United Nations gathering of world leaders.

There is "absolutely no evidence" that Russia's President Vladimir Putin wants to negotiate peace in Ukraine, the head of Britain's foreign intelligence agency said Friday in an outgoing speech.

Richard Moore, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 as it is more commonly known, said Putin was "stringing us along."

Pakistan's defense minister says his nation's nuclear program "will be made available" to Saudi Arabia if needed under the countries' new defense pact, marking the first specific acknowledgment that Islamabad had put the kingdom under its nuclear umbrella.

At a moment of growing international alarm about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, more U.S. adults view Israel's military action in the Palestinian territory as excessive than at the beginning of the war, according to a new poll.

Protesters hit France with transport strikes, notably hobbling the Paris Metro, demonstrations and traffic slowdowns and blockades Thursday, pitting the power of the streets against President Emmanuel Macron 's government and its proposals to cut funding for public services that underpin the French way of life.

The first whiffs of police teargas came before daybreak, with scuffles between riot officers and protesters in Paris. Nationwide demonstrations, from France's biggest cities to small towns, were expected to mobilize hundreds of thousands of marchers, voicing anger about mounting poverty, sharpening inequality and struggles for low-paid workers and others to make ends meet.

European officials told Iran on Wednesday it had yet to take the actions needed to stop the return of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear program, warning time was running out.

After the pomp, it's time for the politics.

President Donald Trump will meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, the final day of the U.S. leader's state visit to Britain, with tech investment, steel tariffs and potentially tricky topics on the agenda.

A ballooning deficit. A fractious Parliament. Unrest on the streets. The challenges facing Sébastien Lecornu, France's fourth prime minister in a year, are daunting and defeated his immediate predecessors.

So he's trying a different tack. To ease tensions, Lecornu has scrapped proposals to axe two public holidays and trimmed lifetime benefits for former government ministers. A loyal ally to unpopular centrist President Emmanuel Macron, he began meeting with opposition leaders and trade unions this week.

The widow of Alexei Navalny said Wednesday that two independent labs have found that her husband was poisoned shortly before his death in a Russian prison.

Germany said Wednesday that the "ball is still in Iran's court" after the UK, France and Germany held talks with the Islamic republic over its nuclear program.

The phone talk came after European powers last month triggered a 30-day deadline for so-called "snapback" sanctions to come back into force in the absence of a negotiated deal on the Iranian nuclear program.