NYT

Venezuela doesn’t play a large role in the drug trade to the United States, so what is motivating the massive military buildup? Julian E. Barnes, who reports on intelligence and international security, discusses the issues with our senior writer Katrin Bennhold.

The effort, aimed at young people, came after an army chief angered many by saying the country must accept the possible loss of “our children” in a future war.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received Leo XIV on the opening leg of a trip that will also include Lebanon.

In the Grenfell Tower blaze, a combustible element called cladding that ran up the outside of the 24-story building allowed the fire to jump from floor to floor.

The Russian leader called the U.S. special envoy “an intelligent man” who is properly representing his country in peace negotiations.

The strike is the latest in a string of attacks on energy infrastructure in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, which some regional authorities have privately blamed on Iran-affiliated militias.

Residents describe how a blaze in a high-rise building in Hong Kong quickly spread, taking many by surprise and trapping an unknown number of people in the burning buildings.

A legal assault against the opposition leader’s movement has deepened since his death in prison last year.

Residents from across the city have quickly organized to donate food, water, clothing and other supplies in Tai Po for the many displaced people.

The pontiff begins a trip to Turkey and Lebanon on Thursday — the first foreign voyage of his papacy, and his biggest test yet.

Net migration to Britain has fallen by almost 80 percent from its 2023 peak, according to data released on Thursday.

The authorities said flammable netting and foam boards may have fueled the city’s deadliest blaze in nearly 70 years, killing 55 and prompting arrests.

The police said that building materials used by the company for the work at Wang Fuk Court may not have been up to fire safety standards. The police did not identify the company or who was arrested.

Firefighters tried to douse the blaze at an apartment complex in the city’s northern Tai Po district, which killed at least four people.

China and Japan are in a diplomatic feud over Taiwan, with President Trump in the middle.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer egged on first graders doing the viral gesture, then apologized when told the school prohibited it. “I didn’t start it, Miss,” he said.

First in Warsaw and later from Paris, he supplied anti-Communist activists in Poland with steady stream of leaflets, newsletters and banned books.

The exact cause of the blaze at a high-rise complex was not known, but the authorities suspect that materials on the exterior of the towers, which were sheathed in scaffolding, did not meet fire-safety standards.

The plan presented by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, called for spending increases and higher taxes on the wealthy and the middle class.