The Trump administration has ended funding to U.N. World Food Program emergency programs helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other impoverished countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the organization and officials who spoke to The Associated Press.

The World Food Program, the largest provider of food aid, appealed to the U.S. to roll back the new cuts in a social media post Monday. The unexpected round of contract cancellations has targeted some of the last remaining humanitarian programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to two U.S. officials, a United Nations official and documents obtained by the AP.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that he has begun "direct talks" with Iran "at almost the highest level" over its nuclear program.

Tehran on Monday urged Paris to explain the arrest in France of an Iranian woman who has been out of reach for weeks, as tensions mount between the two countries.

The French weekly Le Point identified the woman as Mahdieh Esfandiari, a 35-year-old French language graduate who has lived in Lyon for eight years.

On a day when stock markets around the world dropped precipitously, Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl led a celebration of the president whose global tariffs sparked the sell-off.

With no mention of the Wall Street roller coaster and global economic uncertainty, Wahl declared his state GOP's "Trump Victory Dinner" — and the broader national moment — a triumph. And for anyone who rejects President Donald Trump, his agenda and the "America First" army that backs it all, Wahl had an offer: "The Alabama Republican Party will buy them a plane ticket to any country in the world they want to go to."

Long-shot efforts to find survivors from Myanmar's devastating March 28 earthquake were winding down Monday, as rescue efforts were supplanted by increasing relief and recovery activity, with the death toll from the disaster surpassing 3,500 and still climbing.

In the capital, Naypyitaw, people cleared debris and collected wood from their damaged houses under drizzling rain, and soldiers removed wreckage at some Buddhist monasteries.

Russia on Monday denied firing on civilian infrastructure after a deadly strike on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig that killed 20 people, including nine children.

"No strikes are carried out on social facilities and social infrastructure," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a briefing call when asked about Friday's attack.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday rejected direct negotiations with the United States as "meaningless", after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would prefer direct talks with the Islamic republic.

Trump had called last month on Tehran to hold negotiations on its nuclear program with Washington, but threatened to bomb Iran if diplomacy fails.

A Russian ballistic missile strike on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's home city of Kryvyi Rig killed 18 people, among them nine children, authorities said.

Sixty-one people were injured, the Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Sergiy Lysak said Saturday after emergency operations were completed overnight.

After giving a red carpet welcome this week to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza, Hungary announced it would quit the court.

Should Hungary follow through with its withdrawal from the world's only permanent global court for war crimes and genocide based in The Hague. It will become only the third country in the institution's history of more than 20 years to do so. The process will take more than a year.

Britain and France on Friday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet in ceasefire talks aimed at halting his country's invasion of Ukraine and demanded a swift response from Moscow after weeks of U.S. efforts to secure a truce.

A Russian drone attack late Thursday on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, killed five civilians and dramatized the diplomatic insistence on a ceasefire. Emergency crews carried black body bags from a burning apartment building as onlookers wept and hugged in the dark. Some of the 32 injured, bloodied and in shock, limped out into the street or were carried on stretchers as flames shot from the windows of their homes.