Incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani took his midnight oath of office on a centuries-old Quran, marking the first time a mayor of New York City uses Islam's holy text to be sworn in and underscoring a series of historic firsts for the city.

The 34-year-old Democrat became mayor in a long-closed subway station beneath City Hall, the first Muslim, first South Asian and first African-born person to hold that position.

Widening demonstrations sparked by Iran's ailing economy spread Thursday into the Islamic Republic's rural provinces, with at least seven people being killed in the first fatalities reported among security forces and protesters, authorities said.

The deaths may mark the start of a heavier-handed response by Iran's theocracy over the demonstrations, which have slowed in the capital, Tehran, but expanded elsewhere. The fatalities, two on Wednesday and five on Thursday, occurred in four cities, largely home to Iran's Lur ethnic group.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday said Russia was carrying the near four-year war "into the New Year" with more than 200 drones fired at Ukraine, mainly targeting energy infrastructure.

Several dozen people are presumed dead and around 100 injured after a fire ripped through a crowded bar in the luxury Swiss ski resort town of Crans-Montana, police said early Thursday.

Iran's prosecutor general said on Wednesday that economic protests that had gripped the country were legitimate, but any attempt to create insecurity would be met with a "decisive response".

Russia's defense ministry published a video Wednesday of a downed drone that it says Ukraine launched at President Vladimir Putin's residence in north-west Russia this week -- a claim Kyiv has denied as a "lie."

The EU's top diplomat accused Russia Wednesday of pushing "unfounded claims" that Ukraine fired drones at a residence of President Vladimir Putin, branding the allegation a "deliberate distraction" from peace efforts.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday said his country's answer to an attack would be harsh, which appeared to be in response to a warning by U.S. President Donald Trump over reconstruction of Iran's nuclear program.

"Answer of Islamic Republic of Iran to any cruel aggression will be harsh and discouraging," Pezeshkian said on the social media platform X.

President Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. has "hit" a dock facility along a shore as he wages a pressure campaign on Venezuela, but the U.S. offered few details.

Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about "an explosion in Venezuela," he said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs "load up."

European leaders were due to hold talks Tuesday on U.S.-led peace efforts to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine, amid a flare-up in tensions between Moscow and Kyiv over Russian claims, denied by Ukraine, of a mass drone attack on a lakeside residence used by President Vladimir Putin.

The virtual European meeting was expected to gather leaders who attended talks in Berlin earlier this month, according to Polish government spokesman Adam Szłapka, although it was not clear who would be taking part.