There’s no good way to sugarcoat setbacks. On the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine conceded that its summer counter-offensive had stalled and that in pulling back from Avdiivka, its forces were both outmanned and outgunned.

Four months and one day after Hamas’ attack on Israel, neither side wants to stop - even though Gaza has been flattened. Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trying to pre-empt conciliatory voices by the visiting the US secretary of state and announcing months of war ahead, with total victory as the sole option.

A country that's broke, beset by radical insurgents and on the front lines of global warming needs leadership its citizens can trust. But Thursday's elections follow a familiar pattern of revolving door politics.

Seventeen months after King Charles III rose from the title of world's longest-waiting heir to a throne, now comes news that Britain's monarch has cancer – and it’s not just royal watchers who care.

So what's the deal? No sooner had an emergency EU summit began that Hungary lifted its objections to a €50 million lifeline for Ukraine. The aid is vital for a country whose support from Washington is currently frozen. So what did Viktor Orban get in return?

The only thing more difficult than guessing what goes on behind the walls of the Kremlin is guessing what goes on in Pyongyang. The leader of one of the planet's most reclusive regimes made a rare trip abroad last September to neighbouring Russia. Then, it was Western claims of North Korean munitions winding up on the battlefield in Ukraine. Now, it's more.

The French call the first general policy speech of a prime minister before parliament the great oral exam. That expression takes on a whole new layer of meaning when the prime minister is just 34. We ask how Gabriel Attal, the youngest head of government in two centuries, weathered the traditional jeers and whistles from the opposition benches, in a National Assembly where the ruling centrists do not have a majority. With farmers' tractors converging on the capital, we also ask how he's handling his first nationwide protest movement.

What is Washington to do about Middle East mission creep? What response from the United States after the weekend attack in Jordan that killed three of its troops? The US has already hit back at Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria in the past, but to what effect?

Their tractors have been bearing down on Europe's capitals. From Berlin to Bucharest, from Warsaw to Brussels, farmers are venting their fury at having their margins squeezed by inflation and big distributors that drive down market prices in the name of protecting consumers' pocketbooks. Their tractors have been bearing down on Europe's capitals. From Berlin to Bucharest, from Warsaw to Brussels, farmers are venting their fury at having their margins squeezed by inflation and big distributors that drive down market prices in the name of protecting consumers' pocketbooks.

So much for the primaries. Donald Trump is all but killing suspense this January with an 11-point win in New Hampshire over Nikki Haley, his sole Republican rival left standing. Never Trumpers can try the "it’s only 11 points" argument in a state he won by 20 points during his first run in 2016, but New Hampshire is an outlier that lets independents vote in primaries. Exit polls suggest the former president won the votes of three quarters of the party faithful.