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Russia said Friday it has taken control of the Ukrainian salt mine town of Soledar. The Russian Defense Ministry said that Soledar was taken late Thursday.

United Nations agencies are calling for urgent action to protect the most vulnerable children in the 15 countries hardest hit by an unprecedented food and nutrition crisis.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is in Canada Thursday for talks with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Kishida is on a tour of Group of Seven, or G-7, leading industrialized countries as Japan assumes the rotating presidency of the group.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said Thursday there was fierce fighting in Soledar, but that Ukraine’s forces were holding on.

An estimated 5 million children died before their fifth birthday and another 2.1 million children and youth aged between 5–24 years lost their lives in 2021, according to the latest estimates released by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME).

A town in France has decided to hide from public view a sign noting its brief connection to the former supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The U.S. Navy said Tuesday it intercepted a shipment of assault rifles last week bound for Yemen that it believes came from Iran.

More than four months after a national state of emergency was declared in Pakistan, up to 4 million children are still living near contaminated and stagnant flood waters, risking their survival and wellbeing, UNICEF warned, on January 9.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Russian leader Vladimir Putin that negotiations to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should be supported by a unilateral cease-fire.

One of the longest serving Palestinian prisoners in Israel went free Thursday after completing a 40-year sentence for kidnapping and killing an Israeli soldier.