U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday welcomed Iran's announcement that the crucial Strait of Hormuz will be open to shipping for the duration of a ceasefire.

Oil prices plunged Friday after Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the vital Strait of Hormuz was "completely open" for commercial tankers and cargo ships during the U.S.-Iran ceasefire.

International benchmark Brent North Sea crude plunged 10 percent to $89.11 a barrel, after earlier falling five percent on U.S.-Iran peace deal hopes.

The leaders of France and the U.K. gathered dozens of countries — but not the United States — on Friday to push forward plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil route choked off by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

The Paris meeting is part of attempts by sidelined nations to ease the impact of a conflict they didn't start and haven't joined, but that has sent the global economy reeling. After the war started on Feb. 28, Iran effectively shut the narrow strait though which a fifth of the world's oil usually passes.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran has agreed to hand over its store of enriched uranium and that the two sides were "close" to a peace deal to end the war that has engulfed the Middle East.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni was supposed to be Europe's bridge to U.S. President Donald Trump. It may be burning.

After chastising Pope Leo XIV, Trump turned his ire on Meloni, long one of his closest European allies, for calling his papal broadside "unacceptable" and not backing the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

Russia hammered civilian areas of Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in an attack that stretched for hours from daytime into the night, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 100 others as terrified residents cowered in their homes, officials said Thursday.

Russia launched nearly 700 drones and dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles, primarily targeting civilians, in its biggest aerial barrage in almost two weeks, authorities said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated peace talks with Tehran could resume this week, as the United States turned the screws Wednesday with a naval blockade it said had cut off maritime trade with Iran.

Trump's hint came as Israel and Lebanon agreed to open direct negotiations after a rare face-to-face meeting in Washington, with Israel's war with Hezbollah ongoing despite the ceasefire with Tehran.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that China has agreed not to send weapons to its close partner Iran and that he has received personal assurances from leader Xi Jinping.

Ukraine's top diplomatic priority is securing its allies' help to buy and build more air defense systems, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday between meetings with European leaders, as Russia kept up its deadly attacks on civilians and public infrastructure.

Russian strikes hit more than a half-dozen areas of Ukraine behind the front line from Tuesday to Wednesday, killing an 8-year-old boy in the central Cherkasy region and a woman who was in a kiosk near a bus stop that was hit in southern Zaporizhzhia, according to Zelensky and local officials.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Wednesday that the stability and certainty of China-Russia relations are particularly "precious" in the face of an international landscape intertwined with change and chaos.

During a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Beijing, Xi said the strong vitality and exemplary significance of the friendship treaty between the two countries stand out even more under such a backdrop.