Egypt's revenue from the Suez Canal plunged by almost two thirds last year, officials said Wednesday, attributing the sharp drop to regional tensions and wars in the Middle East that have impacted traffic through the key waterway.

The canal is a major source of foreign currency for the Egyptian government, with about 10% of world trade flowing through the waterway in recent years.

Iran confirmed Wednesday that the next round of nuclear talks with the United States this weekend will be held in Rome after earlier confusion over where the negotiations would be held.

The announcement by Iranian state television came as Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian formally approved the resignation of one of his vice presidents who served as Tehran's key negotiator in its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

An intense series of suspected U.S. airstrikes hit sites across Yemen held by the Houthi rebels into Thursday morning, with at least one person reportedly being killed in the capital, Sanaa.

The strikes took place around multiple governorates in the country overnight, with the Houthis providing few details about the sites hit. The U.S. military's Central Command has provided no specifics on targets as well in its campaign, which has been hitting sites in Yemen since March 15.

A portrait of a young Palestinian boy who lost both arms as a result of an Israeli attack in Gaza was honored Thursday as World Press Photo of the year.

The photo, taken by Qatar-based Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times shows 9-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour with his arms missing just below each shoulder.

Turkey's central bank raised its key interest rate by 3.5 percentage points on Thursday, halting a three‑month easing streak as it confronts stubborn inflation, financial turbulence following the arrest of Istanbul's mayor and aftershocks of global tariffs.

The Monetary Policy Committee lifted the benchmark one‑week repo rate to 46% from 42.5% and pushed the overnight lending and borrowing rates to 49% and 44.5%, respectively.

Information Minister Paul Morcos said Thursday that Lebanon has recorded 2,740 Israeli violations of the ceasefire.

Morcos said in a press conference following a cabinet meeting that 190 people have been killed and 485 injured in Lebanon by Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began.

Israel was supposed to fully withdraw from Lebanon under a ceasefire reached in late November after more than a year of fighting. Israeli forces withdrew from villages in southern Lebanon but stayed in five "strategic" overlook locations along the border inside Lebanon.

The Israeli army also continued to carry out strikes against what it says are militant targets and Israel's defense minister said Wednesday that Israeli troops will stay "indefinitely" in "security zones" in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and Syria.

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions Wednesday on a Chinese refinery accused of purchasing more than $1 billion worth of Iranian oil, saying the proceeds help finance both Tehran's government and Iran's support for militant groups.

The sanctioned refinery in China's Shandong province received dozens of shipments of crude oil from Iran worth more than $1 billion, the Trump administration said. Some of the petroleum came from a front company for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, U.S. authorities said.

The Israeli defense minister says his country's troops will stay in "security zones" in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely, after Israel unilaterally expanded its frontiers in the war unleashed by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Israel says it needs to hold on to the zones to prevent similar attacks, but the takeovers appear to meet the dictionary definition of military occupation.

Qatar is sending scores of military vehicles to the Lebanese army and a new, $60 million donation to help it pay salaries to officers as the small Mediterranean country recovers from the fighting in Hezbollah's latest war with Israel, the two Arab countries announced Wednesday.

Gas-rich Qatar has been a main backer of the Lebanese army since an unprecedented economic crisis engulfed the country in late 2019. Qatar was first sending food aid for the military while cash donations began in 2022.