Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, struggling to stabilize his minority government, said Friday he will seek to maintain regional security and prepare for tough negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump to win his commitment to maintain a strong American presence in the Asia-Pacific.

Ishiba has been seeking to meet with Trump since his election victory in November and is arranging a trip to Washington in the coming weeks.

The last time Belarus staged a presidential election in 2020, authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with 80% of the vote. That triggered cries of fraud, months of protests and a harsh crackdown with thousands of arrests.

Not wanting to risk such unrest again by those opposing his three decades of iron-fisted rule, Lukashenko advanced the timing of the 2025 election — from the warmth of August to frigid January, when demonstrators are less likely to fill the streets.

Donald Trump returned to the White House ready to immediately overhaul the government using the fastest tool he has — the executive order.

He's looked on his first day to increase domestic energy production and stop diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government, among other actions.

Kyiv said Friday that Russia had returned the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian troops, in one of the largest repatriation efforts of the nearly three-year war.

"The bodies of 757 fallen defenders were returned to Ukraine," the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a Ukrainian state agency, said in a post on social media.

The United Nations stressed Friday that the right to seek asylum is "universally recognized", following decisions by President Donald Trump to suspend all refugee admissions and halt the US asylum program.

"All states are entitled to exercise their jurisdiction along their international borders, (but) they need to do so in line with their human rights obligations," UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva when asked about the decisions, stressing that "the right to seek asylum is a universally recognized human right".

Police in Hungary said Thursday they were investigating bomb threats that were sent to more than 240 schools across the country, resulting in classes being cancelled at some schools.

The threats, which came in the form of emails, were identical in their text and likely sent by a single sender, police said in a statement. Officers were being dispatched to all affected institutions. No explosives or explosive devices were found in the buildings inspected so far, police added.

Germany's opposition leader vowed Thursday to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected chancellor next month, as a knife attack by a rejected asylum-seeker spilled over into an election campaign in which he is the front-runner.

Two people, including a 2-year-old boy, were killed and three injured Wednesday in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg. The suspect, arrested shortly afterward, is a 28-year-old Afghan with a history of psychiatric problems and violence who said over a month ago that he would leave Germany voluntarily.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned on Thursday that a Russian victory over Ukraine would undermine the dissuasive force of the world's biggest military alliance and that its credibility could cost trillions to restore.

NATO has been ramping up its forces along its eastern flank with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment to deter Moscow from expanding its war into the territory of any of the organization's 32 member countries.

President Donald Trump's national security adviser on Wednesday sidelined about 160 National Security Council aides, sending them home while the administration reviews staffing and tries to align it with Trump's agenda.

The career government employees, commonly referred to as detailees, were summoned Wednesday for an all-staff call and told they will be expected to be available to the council's senior directors but would not need to report to the White House. The council provides national security and foreign policy advice to the president.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded an apology from the Episcopal bishop of Washington after she made a direct appeal to him during a prayer service marking his inauguration to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and migrant workers who are in the United States illegally.

Referencing Trump's belief that he was saved by God from assassination, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde said, "You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now."