Spotlight
Many countries had their worst showing in more than a decade in an index released Tuesday that serves as a barometer of public sector corruption worldwide, from leading powers such as the United States and France to authoritarian nations such as Russia and Venezuela.
Transparency International, which compiles the annual Corruption Perceptions Index, found that 47 countries out of the 180 it surveyed had their lowest score last year since it started using its current methodology for its global ranking in 2012. It said of its 2024 survey that "global corruption levels remain alarmingly high, with efforts to reduce them faltering."

Turkish police on Tuesday detained 10 senior officials of district municipalities in Istanbul over their alleged links to Kurdish militants, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported, widening a crackdown on opposition-held districts in the city.
The detainees include the deputy mayors of the districts of Kartal and Atasehir, along with eight district municipal council members, Anadolu reported. All suspects are members of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP.

Iran's president has accused his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump of seeking to bring the Islamic republic "to its knees" as the country marked the 1979 revolution that toppled the shah.

Iran’s supreme leader said that negotiations with America “are not intelligent, wise or honorable” after U.S. President Donald Trump floated the idea of nuclear talks with Tehran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also suggested that “there should be no negotiations with such a government,” but stopped short of issuing a direct order not to engage with Washington.

The shooter who earlier this week killed 10 people in Sweden's worst mass shooting was connected to the adult education center where he opened fire with at least one rifle-like weapon, law enforcement officials said Thursday.
Authorities said the gunman, who has not yet been officially identified, may have attended school there before Tuesday's violence on the school campus west of Stockholm. The shooter was later found dead with three guns, 10 empty magazines and a large amount of unused ammunition next to his body, officials told a news conference.

President Donald Trump promised voters an administration that wouldn't waste precious American lives and taxpayer treasure on far-off wars and nation building.
But just weeks into his second go-around in the White House, the Republican leader laid out plans to use American might to "take over" and reconstruct Gaza, threatened to reclaim U.S. control of the Panama Canal and floated the idea that the U.S. could buy Greenland from Denmark, which has shown no interest in parting with the island.

Two years have passed since a devastating earthquake shattered Turkey's southern region, but for Omer Aydin and many other of its survivors the memory and the suffering remain fresh.
While struggling with a third winter in the cold inside a shipping container-like temporary housing unit, the single father of three is grappling with a cost-of-living crisis that is affecting the whole country as well as still trying to heal the scars from the disaster.

Iran has inaugurated its first drone-carrier warship, saying the vessel is capable of operating in oceans far from its mainland, the official IRNA news agency reported Thursday.
The report said the vessel, manned by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard's navy, can carry several squadrons of drones as well as helicopters and cruise missiles. Named Shahid Bagheri, it's capable of launching cruise missiles, IRNA said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke with Donald Trump's "influential" billionaire adviser Elon Musk a day after the new U.S. president promised to cut funding for South Africa over a land expropriation law, Ramaphosa's spokesperson said Wednesday.
Ramaphosa's conversation with Musk was "logical," spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said, because the South African-born Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur has held previous investment-related discussions with Ramaphosa and is a Trump ally.

When Elon Musk debuted the Department of Government Efficiency recently at the Capitol, House Speaker Mike Johnson enthusiastically predicted the coming Trump administration would bring "a lot of change around here."
Three weeks in, the change the Trump administration has brought is a disruption of the federal government on an unprecedented scale, dismantling longstanding programs, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation's laws and pay its bills.
