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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said continued support for Ukraine is central to the alliance’s security, as ministers discussed Kyiv’s battlefield needs and Russia’s attacks on civilians. He said Ukraine’s front line is stabilizing, praised Kyiv’s innovation in drone warfare, and said allies must keep support “substantial,” “predictable” and “sustainable.” Rutte also confirmed President Volodymyr Zelensky had been invited to NATO’s Ankara summit.

“Ukraine must have what it needs to defend itself today and deter future aggression tomorrow,” Rutte said after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden.

“An important part of ensuring our own security is continuing our support for Ukraine,” Rutte said.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha joined NATO foreign ministers on Thursday evening, as allies reviewed Russia’s ongoing war and Kyiv’s defense requirements.

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For decades, the Open Society Foundations have worked to advance justice and human rights in Africa, the Middle East and trouble spots around the world. But the OSF’s latest major investment is aimed at a crisis closer to home.

On Tuesday, the organisation, founded by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros and headquartered in New York, announced a $300m spend aimed at boosting economic security and defending civil liberties in the US.

The drastic commitment comes 16 months into Donald Trump’s second term as president, with millions of Americans suffering an affordability crisis and activists warning of an extraordinary attack on the rule of law.

“We certainly believe that civil society is essential and must stay on the playing field,” said Laleh Ispahani, managing director for the US at the OSF. “We’ve had experience in other countries, unfortunately, where civil society has been targeted by autocratic administrations. It does matter that we still are funding in most parts of the world and are very much in communication with one another as things are happening in the US.”hropist George Soros and headquartered in New York, announced a $300m spend aimed at boosting economic security and defending civil liberties in the US.

Soros has given more than $32bn of his personal fortune to causes around the world. He is also a longtime Democratic donor and favourite bogeyman for the right. The attacks frequently rely on antisemitic tropes, framing Soros – a Jewish survivor of the Nazi occupation in Hungary – as a “globalist” puppet master.

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US intelligence assessed that Ukraine recaptured around 400 square kilometers of territory after Ukrainian officials disabled thousands of Starlink terminals used illegally by Russian forces. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, said the Starlink shutdown, together with middle-strike drones, helped shift battlefield momentum in Ukraine’s favor.

A newly declassified US defense intelligence assessment has revealed that Ukraine’s strategic disabling of thousands of illicit Russian Starlink terminals triggered a catastrophic command-and-control failure for Moscow, paving the way for Kyiv to liberate nearly 400 square kilometers of occupied territory earlier this year.

The advance was made possible, in part, by a significant weakening of Russia’s front-line capabilities, according to a US Defense Intelligence Agency report compiled for the Pentagon Inspector General.

The findings, first reported by Bloomberg, underscore how heavily Moscow’s forces had come to rely on smuggled commercial American technology to run their daily battlefield operations.

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Following pressure from the U.S., the Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations is withdrawing his bid for a vice president role at the U.N. General Assembly, and Lebanon's ambassador is taking his place, the U.N. said Thursday.

The Palestinian U.N. delegation relayed, through an Arab country, that Ambassador Riyad Mansour would refrain from running for a vice president position for the coming two years, a person familiar with the matter told NPR on Thursday — a potential reference to the end of President Trump's term.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the two-year delay decision had not been announced publicly.

The spokesperson of the President of the U.N. General Assembly, La Neice Collins, confirmed the Palestinian delegation's withdrawal. The U.S. State Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The State Department on Tuesday issued a cable, obtained by NPR, instructing the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem to pressure Palestinian officials to drop the leadership bid or face the potential revocation of their U.N. delegation's U.S. visas.

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Irish author Sally Rooney, whose stance in support of Palestine has earned international attention, has confirmed that her latest book Intermezzo will be published in Hebrew, causing mixed reactions on social media.

A supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for several years, Rooney first gained attention for her stance to join the cultural boycott of Israeli institutions after turning down an offer from Israeli publisher Modan to have her third book translated into Hebrew in 2021.

In collaboration with Israeli publishing house November Books and Local Call, +972 Magazine announced on Tuesday that after five years of communicating with the author to ensure a translation could be published "in a way that honors the principles of the boycott and stands in solidarity with the Palestinian demand for freedom, equality, and justice", a Hebrew translation of the novel will soon be available in Israel and Palestine.

In an interview with the Guardian published to time with the announcement, Rooney said: “Though my refusal to work with complicit Israeli publishing houses made the contractual side of things more complex, I was, of course, never boycotting the Hebrew language or any language. I’m very pleased that Intermezzo will soon be available in Hebrew with November Books.”

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A massive overnight Russian drone strike partially destroyed a multi-story residential building in Konotop, Sumy Oblast, injuring at least six people and prompting an urgent search-and-rescue operation for residents feared trapped beneath the debris, local officials said.

Konotop Mayor Artem Semenikhin said Russian forces targeted civilian infrastructure in the city, with the strike causing part of the high-rise to collapse.

“Behind me is a multi-story building. Part of it is gone. And there are people there,” Semenikhin said in a video address posted on social media.

Due to a lack of ambulances, the injured are being transferred to the hospital in civilian vehicles, Semenikhin added.

According to the mayor, there were “many” people injured in the attack. Emergency teams were working at the scene to clear rubble and search for possible survivors.

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