Americans are marking 24 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with solemn ceremonies, volunteer work and other tributes honoring the victims.

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of President Donald Trump who played an influential role in rallying young Republican voters, was shot and killed at a Utah college event in what the governor called a political assassination.

Authorities say Kirk was killed with a single shot from a rooftop on Wednesday. Whoever fired the gun then slipped away amid the chaos of screams and students fleeing the Utah Valley University campus. Federal, state and local authorities were still searching for an unidentified shooter early Thursday and working what they called "multiple active crime scenes."

Poland said early Wednesday that multiple Russian drones entered and were shot down over its territory with help from NATO allies, describing the incident as an "act of aggression" carried out during a wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine.

Several European leaders said they believed Russia was intentionally escalating the war, and NATO was discussing the incident in a meeting. It came three days after Russia's largest aerial attack on Ukraine since the war began, an attack that for the first time hit a key government building in Kyiv.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday appointed Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu as new prime minister and tasked him with immediately trying to get the country's fractious political parties to agree on a budget for one of the world's biggest economies.

Lecornu, 39, was the youngest defense minister in French history and architect of a major military buildup through 2030, spurred by Russia's war in Ukraine. A longtime Macron loyalist, Lecornu is now France's fourth prime minister in barely a year.

Russian forces launched more than 400 drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said Wednesday, after Poland announced it had scrambled air defenses to intercept "hostile objects."

The Ukrainian air force said Moscow had launched 415 drones and 43 missiles in the attack that Ukrainian officials said left at least one dead. Air defense units downed 386 drones and 27 missiles, the air force added.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a major state of the union speech on Wednesday addressing the challenges facing the world's biggest trading bloc and laying out her vision for tackling them.

The commission has enthusiastically billed her speech — modeled on the annual State of the Union addresses to Congress by U.S. presidents — as "a milestone event for European democracy."

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Monday that he was hopeful of reaching a deal with Iran on a full resumption of inspections of its sites in the "next few days", warning that "not much" time was left.

Riot police scuffled with protesters, including lawmakers, at the Istanbul branch of Turkey's main opposition CHP party where a state-appointed trustee entered by force Monday after its elected leadership was removed.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou is making a last-ditch effort to save his job, urging lawmakers expected to topple him in a confidence vote later Monday to back his plans to curb France's debts that he said are "submerging us."

In an impassioned speech to the National Assembly, the 74-year-old stuck to his position that France's spiraling public deficit and mounting debts are threatening the future of the European Union's second-largest economy. He said state debts will weigh on future generations, leave France vulnerable to foreign creditors, and undermine its cherished social safety nets if not brought under control.

Police in Kathmandu opened fire Monday on protesters demonstrating against a government ban on social media, killing at least 17 people and wounding 145, officials said.