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.

President Donald Trump is escalating threats to crack down on what he describes as the "radical left" following Charlie Kirk's assassination, stirring fears that his administration is trying to harness outrage over the killing to suppress political opposition.

Without establishing any link to last week's shooting, the Republican president and members of his administration have discussed classifying some groups as domestic terrorists, ordering racketeering investigations and revoking tax-exempt status for progressive nonprofits. The White House pointed to Indivisible, a progressive activist network, and the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, as potential subjects of scrutiny.

It's the sort of experience you just can't buy.

The carriages are being polished, the family silver is being laid out, and diamonds are being dusted off as King Charles III prepares to offer a royal welcome to Donald Trump on Wednesday for what will be the highlight of the U.S. president's unprecedented second state visit to Britain.

Denmark is leading a military exercise with hundreds of troops from several European NATO members in Greenland, a maneuver that coincides with months of tensions over the Trump administration's desire for U.S. jurisdiction over the vast Arctic territory.

Immigrants are being detained while going to work, outside courthouses, and at store parking lots in Metro Boston as President Donald Trump targets so-called sanctuary cities in his effort to ramp up immigration enforcement.