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.

Iran's government seems to be welcoming some recent decisions by the United States — even though they happen to come from a man Iranian operatives have allegedly been plotting to assassinate.

President Donald Trump's moves to freeze spending on foreign aid and overhaul, maybe even end, the U.S. Agency for International Development have been lauded in Iranian state media.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Iran "cannot have a Nuclear Weapon", a day after he signed an order reinstating a "maximum pressure" policy against Tehran over allegations that it was trying to develop such weapons.

"I want Iran to be a great and successful Country, but one that cannot have a Nuclear Weapon," he said in a post on his Truth Social platform, adding: "I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper."

The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's statement that he was ready for direct talks with Russian counterpart Vladmir Putin to end fighting as "empty words".

"So far this cannot be seen as anything but empty words," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, after Zelensky said in an interview that he would agree to sit at a negotiating table with Putin.

Jonathan Zou, a second-year student at the University of Michigan, was among the thousands of students who joined pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses nationwide this past year. Although the campus protests have subsided, the repercussions for students like Zou remain.

Since his arrest by university police last Oct. 7 after using a megaphone during a pro-Palestinian march, Zou has been banned from all University of Michigan campuses, except for attending class or seeking medical care.

The head of France's far-right National Rally party said Tuesday he doesn't support a no-confidence motion filed against the government, making it more likely that the prime minister will remain in office and a 2025 budget will be adopted.

A no-confidence vote is scheduled Wednesday in the National Assembly and needs at least half the 577 votes to pass. Hard-left France Unbowed, Communist and Green lawmakers are expected to vote in favor but don't have the numbers on their own to bring down the centrist government.