Police in Hungary said Thursday they were investigating bomb threats that were sent to more than 240 schools across the country, resulting in classes being cancelled at some schools.

The threats, which came in the form of emails, were identical in their text and likely sent by a single sender, police said in a statement. Officers were being dispatched to all affected institutions. No explosives or explosive devices were found in the buildings inspected so far, police added.

Turkey's central bank lowered its key interest rate by 2.5 percentage points to 45% on Thursday, in its second rate cut in as many months as official figures showed inflation was easing.

The bank's Monetary Policy Committee said it was reducing its benchmark one-week repo rate to 45% from the current 47.5%. In its previous reduction in December, the bank also cut the rate by 2.5 percentage points.

Germany's opposition leader vowed Thursday to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected chancellor next month, as a knife attack by a rejected asylum-seeker spilled over into an election campaign in which he is the front-runner.

Two people, including a 2-year-old boy, were killed and three injured Wednesday in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg. The suspect, arrested shortly afterward, is a 28-year-old Afghan with a history of psychiatric problems and violence who said over a month ago that he would leave Germany voluntarily.

Syria's new foreign minister said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos that his country hopes it can follow in the footsteps of economic powerhouses like Singapore and Saudi Arabia as it begins rebuilding after nearly 14 years of war.

“We need the help of the international community to help us in this new experiment,” Asaad al-Shibani said.

A record 47% of the European Union's electricity now comes from solar and other renewables, a report Thursday said, in yet another sign of the growing gap between the bloc's push for clean energy and the new U.S. administration's pursuit of more fossil fuels.

Nearly three-quarters of the EU's electricity doesn't emit planet-warming gases into the air — with 24% of electricity in the bloc coming from nuclear power which also doesn't release greenhouse gases, a report released by the climate energy think tank Ember found. This is far higher than in countries like the United States and China, where nearly two-thirds of their energy is still produced from carbon-polluting fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

Inside a lavish clubhouse on Doha's waterfront, tensions strained by months of fruitless back-and-forth weighed on negotiators as the hour neared 3 a.m.

On the first floor, a Hamas delegation whose leader had once evaded an Israeli airstrike that killed seven family members combed through the details of yet another proposal to halt the war in Gaza. On the second floor, advisers to Israel's intelligence chief, who had vowed to hunt down those responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war, did the same.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned on Thursday that a Russian victory over Ukraine would undermine the dissuasive force of the world's biggest military alliance and that its credibility could cost trillions to restore.

NATO has been ramping up its forces along its eastern flank with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment to deter Moscow from expanding its war into the territory of any of the organization's 32 member countries.

The Al Jazeera news network says the Palestinian Authority arrested one of its reporters after preventing him from covering an Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank.

The Qatar-based news network reported Thursday that its reporter, Mohammed al-Atrash, was arrested from his home.

Israel’s ambassador to the United States said Thursday the two countries are in talks about extending the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as a deadline in the ceasefire approaches.

Michael Herzog said in an interview with Israeli Army Radio that he believed Israel would "reach an understanding" with the Trump administration to extend the necessary time for the Lebanese Army to truly deploy and fulfill its role under the agreement. "The incoming administration understands our needs and our position on security, and I believe we will reach an agreement on this issue."

Commercial flights between Turkey and Syria resumed Thursday after 13 years with a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Damascus.

Turkish media showed Syrian families draped in their national flag singing pro-opposition songs and cheering as they prepared to board flight TK0846 to Damascus. Passengers continued their celebrations inside the plane, singing the uprising anthem "Hold your head up high, you are a free Syrian." One man sobbed while waiting for takeoff.