A suicide bomber struck outside the gates of a district court in Islamabad on Tuesday, detonating his explosives next to a police car and killing 12 people, Pakistan's interior minister said, the latest in an uptick of violence across the country.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the midday blast, which also wounded at least 27 people, but authorities have struggled over the past months with a resurgent Pakistani Taliban.

The Senate passed legislation Monday to reopen the government, bringing the longest shutdown in history closer to an end as a small group of Democrats ratified a deal with Republicans despite searing criticism from within their party.

The 41-day shutdown could last a few more days as members of the House, which has been on recess since mid-September, return to Washington to vote on the legislation. President Donald Trump has signaled support for the bill, saying Monday that "we're going to be opening up our country very quickly."

Intensified fighting in central Sudan displaced some 2,000 people over the past three days, the U.N. migration agency said Monday, the latest in a war that has convulsed the country for more than two years and killed tens of thousands.

The International Organization for Migration said the displaced fled from several towns and villages in the area of Bara in North Kordofan province between Friday and Sunday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he wants to order 25 Patriot air defense systems from the United States, as Ukraine desperately tries to fend off relentless Russian aerial attacks that have brought rolling blackouts across Ukraine on the brink of winter.

Zelensky acknowledged that the Patriot systems are expensive and that such a large batch could take years to manufacture. But he said European countries could give their Patriots to Ukraine and await replacements, stressing that "we would not like to wait."

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be released from prison and placed under judicial supervision, a Paris appeals court ruled Monday, less than three weeks after he began serving a five-year sentence over a scheme to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Libya.

Sarkozy, 70, was expected to leave Paris' La Santé prison in the afternoon.

The pain Americans are facing at airports across the country is expected to get worse this week if Congress is unable to reach a deal to reopen the federal government.

U.S. airlines canceled more than 1,500 flights Saturday and more than 2,900 Sunday to comply with an FAA order to reduce traffic as some air traffic controllers, who have gone unpaid for nearly a month, have stopped showing up for work.

Iran on Monday dismissed accusations by the United States that Tehran had attempted to kill the Israeli ambassador in Mexico, describing it as "absurd".

"We found this claim very ridiculous and absurd," said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei during a weekly press briefing, adding that it was part of an attempt "to destroy Iran's friendly relations with other countries".

The United States and Israel on Friday accused Iran of trying to kill Israel's ambassador to Mexico, with Tehran rejecting the claim as a "big lie" and the Mexican government saying it was unaware of the plot.

The Sudanese army intercepted drones fired overnight by its rival paramilitary group on two cities in Sudan's northeast, a military official said Friday.

The army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the matter, said 15 drones targeted Atbara, a city north of the capital, in River Nile province. He confirmed that strikes caused no casualties. Local media reports said residents heard explosions.

For more than two years, Sudan's military and a powerful paramilitary force have torn the country apart in a war for power, both digging in against peace efforts even as atrocities mount and starvation spreads. One reason they can keep going is the support each reportedly gets from other nations looking for influence.

International alarm has grown since Oct. 26, when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces seized the key city of el-Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region from the military and reportedly went on a rampage. Witnesses and aid groups say fighters have killed hundreds of civilians, and the fate of thousands more is unknown.