French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to outline his vision for Europe to become a more assertive global power against a backdrop of war in Ukraine and other security and economic challenges, in a speech on Thursday ahead of pivotal European Parliament elections in June.

The French president plans to focus on strategic and geopolitical issues in Europe, including defense, the economy, protecting the environment and safeguarding democracy, his advisers said. Russia's war in Ukraine, now in its third year, is expected to be the main theme of the speech Macron will deliver at Paris' Sorbonne University on Thursday.

With graduations looming, student protesters doubled down early Thursday on their discontent of the Israel-Hamas war on campuses across the country as universities, including ones in California and Texas, have become quick to call in the police to end the demonstrations and make arrests.

While grappling with growing protests from coast to coast, schools have the added pressure of May commencement ceremonies. At Columbia University in New York, students defiantly erected an encampment where many are set to graduate in front of families in just a few weeks.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said his country has proven the West doesn't have a monopoly on technology while inaugurating a hydropower and irrigation project in Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

Raisi is the first Iranian leader to visit Sri Lanka since former President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad visited the country in 2008.

Student protests over the war in Gaza have created a new and unpredictable challenge for President Joe Biden as he resists calls to cut off U.S. support for Israel while trying to hold together the coalition of voters he'll need for reelection.

The protests at Columbia University in New York and other campuses have captured global media attention and resurfaced questions about Biden's lagging support from young voters. His handling of the Middle East conflict is also being closely watched by both Jewish and Arab American voters in key swing states.

Ukrainian drones attacked oil facilities in western Russia overnight, defense sources in Kyiv confirmed Wednesday, in the latest aerial assault by Kyiv aiming to dent Russian military logistics.

Kyiv has stepped up aerial attacks on Russian energy facilities over recent weeks in the hopes of crippling Moscow's ability to attack Ukrainian cities or gain more ground in the industrial east.

Armenia on Wednesday said it had faced modern-day "ethnic cleansing" as it commemorated Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, a national holiday marking the World War I-era mass killings of ethnic Armenians by Ottoman forces.

The exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region last autumn following a lightning Azerbaijani offensive hung over this year's events in the capital Yerevan.

Argentina has asked Interpol to arrest Iran's interior minister over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, the foreign ministry said.

That minister, Ahmad Vahidi, is part of an Iranian delegation currently visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and Interpol has issued a red alert seeking his arrest at the request of Argentina, the ministry said in a statement.

Former President Donald Trump faces serious charges in two separate cases over whether he attempted to subvert the Constitution by overturning the results of a fair election and illegally remain in power.

Yet it's a New York case centered on payments to silence an adult film actress that might provide the only legal reckoning this year on whether he tried to undermine a pillar of American democracy.

India's main opposition party accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using hate speech after he called Muslims "infiltrators" — some of his most incendiary rhetoric to date about the minority faith in a campaign rally days after the country began its weekslong general election.

At the rally on Sunday in the western state of Rajasthan, Modi said that when the Congress party was in government, "they said Muslims have the first right over the country's resources." If it returns to power, the party "will gather all your wealth and distribute it among those who have more children," he said as the crowd applauded.

A man who works for a German lawmaker in the European Parliament has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China, German prosecutors said Tuesday.

The suspect, identified only as Jian G. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested Monday in Dresden, federal prosecutors said in a statement. They said that he has worked for a German lawmaker in the European Union's legislature since 2019.