Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “I met with Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi to discuss the health situation in Iran and how WHO can support meeting the health needs across the country, following the impacts on health and damage sustained during recent hostilities in the country. Peace is the best medicine. #WHA” The World Health Organization (WHO) is urgently addressing the severe health crisis in Iran caused by regional conflict, which has strained the country’s healthcare system. Primary concerns include attacks on health facilities, critical shortages of medicines, large-scale civilian displacement, and radiological or industrial chemical risks.

Tennessee officials will pay $835,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a man who was jailed for more than a month over a Facebook post he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. While many people across the U.S. lost their jobs over social media comments about Kirk’s death, Larry Bushart’s case stood out as a rare instance in which such online speech led to criminal prosecution. The 61-year-old retired police officer spent 37 days behind bars before authorities dropped the felony charge against him in October. During his time in jail, Bushart lost his postretirement job and...

Myanmar’s military-backed government says it has regained control of two towns near the country’s borders with India and Thailand, marking a significant advance in the civil war as it seeks to reassert control of regions long held by resistance forces. A report in the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper on Thursday said Tonzang, near the border with India, was captured by the army on Wednesday after 10 days of operations to retake it. The paper published photos of soldiers who recaptured the town in front of the township’s administrative office and other departments. That report came a day after Myanma Alinn...

A lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of students and community organizations in Massachusetts argues the state is illegally maintaining schools that are racially segregated, concentrating Black and Latino students in high-poverty districts with fewer opportunities. The lawsuit challenges the state’s practice of assigning students to schools based solely on where they live, which can lead to patterns of housing segregation being replicated in school systems. The case is the latest example of efforts to address segregation and funding inequities through state-level litigation. Even before the Trump administration began taking steps to release districts in the Deep South from court-ordered desegregation...

Over the past months, Ukrainian drones have crashed into the chimney of a power plant in Estonia, hit empty fuel tanks in Latvia and been shot down by Romanian fighter jets stationed in Lithuania. For the first time in a NATO and European Union capital, Lithuanians were pictured sheltering in underground car parks in Vilnius on Wednesday, as authorities warned of unidentified drone activity in neighboring Belarus. No one has died or been injured recently, but the increasing airspace incursions have prompted some Baltic ministers to chastise Ukraine for the violations, which also led to the collapse of the Latvian...

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed two decrees on Wednesday that add to the pressure on big tech companies by increasing their liability for illegal content shared by its users and paving the way for investigations by a government body into their responses to such cases. The moves toughen the environment in Brazil for giants like Google, Meta and TikTok, who have long tried to dissociate themselves with crimes online committed by users. The first decree makes key adaptations to government regulations to align them with a decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court making big tech companies liable if...