The president should still be basking in the World Cup victory that sparked tumultuous joy on the streets of France -- but instead, he heads off to his southern summer retreat on Friday weighed down by a damaging scandal.

For two weeks opponents have seized on revelations that former top aide Alexandre Benalla roughed up May Day protesters while wearing police insignia, and that Macron's office knew about it but didn't inform prosecutors.

President Donald Trump thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for "fulfilling a promise" to return the remains of U.S. soldiers missing from the Korean War, as a U.S. military plane made a rare trip into North Korea to retrieve 55 cases said to contain remains.

Close to 7,700 U.S. soldiers remain unaccounted for from the 1950-53 Korean War, and about 5,300 of those were lost in North Korea.

Unbowed by swirling criticism of his summit encounter with Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump swiftly invited the Russian leader to the White House this fall for a second get-together. Cleanup from the first has continued with no letup and Trump belatedly decided Putin's "incredible offer" of shared U.S.-Russia investigations was no good after all.

A White House meeting would be a dramatic extension of legitimacy to the Russian leader, who has long been isolated by the West for activities in Ukraine, Syria and beyond and is believed to have interfered in the 2016 presidential election that sent Trump to the presidency. No Russian leader has visited the White House in nearly a decade.

As the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers prepare to meet in Buenos Aires, the United States is likely to face intense questions over its aggressive tariff policies.

The US and Russian presidents may swap compliments at their first summit in Helsinki on Monday, but they are deeply divided on issues including Syria, Ukraine and alleged Russian election-meddling.

Syria's southern province of Daraa is the birthplace of the 2011 anti-government uprising that became a devastating seven-year war, with parts of the region falling into opposition hands.

President Donald Trump in May withdrew the United States from a hard-won accord that Washington and other world powers signed with Iran in 2015 to curb Tehran's nuclear program.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's interior minister offered his resignation late Sunday after his hardline Bavarian conservatives failed to budge her over plans to limit migration into Europe and the Germany.

Here are four things to know about the background to the crisis and what's at stake.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's election triumph, winning a new mandate with even stronger powers, is likely to embolden the Turkish strongman to take a tougher line on issues ranging from the fight against Kurdish militants to foreign policy, analysts say.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led Turkey for 15 years as prime minister and then as president. As he declares victory in Sunday's election, here is a look back at key periods during his time in power.