Iran has inaugurated its first drone-carrier warship, saying the vessel is capable of operating in oceans far from its mainland, the official IRNA news agency reported Thursday.

The report said the vessel, manned by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard's navy, can carry several squadrons of drones as well as helicopters and cruise missiles. Named Shahid Bagheri, it's capable of launching cruise missiles, IRNA said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke with Donald Trump's "influential" billionaire adviser Elon Musk a day after the new U.S. president promised to cut funding for South Africa over a land expropriation law, Ramaphosa's spokesperson said Wednesday.

Ramaphosa's conversation with Musk was "logical," spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said, because the South African-born Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur has held previous investment-related discussions with Ramaphosa and is a Trump ally.

When Elon Musk debuted the Department of Government Efficiency recently at the Capitol, House Speaker Mike Johnson enthusiastically predicted the coming Trump administration would bring "a lot of change around here."

Three weeks in, the change the Trump administration has brought is a disruption of the federal government on an unprecedented scale, dismantling longstanding programs, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation's laws and pay its bills.

Iran's government seems to be welcoming some recent decisions by the United States — even though they happen to come from a man Iranian operatives have allegedly been plotting to assassinate.

President Donald Trump's moves to freeze spending on foreign aid and overhaul, maybe even end, the U.S. Agency for International Development have been lauded in Iranian state media.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Iran "cannot have a Nuclear Weapon", a day after he signed an order reinstating a "maximum pressure" policy against Tehran over allegations that it was trying to develop such weapons.

"I want Iran to be a great and successful Country, but one that cannot have a Nuclear Weapon," he said in a post on his Truth Social platform, adding: "I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper."

The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's statement that he was ready for direct talks with Russian counterpart Vladmir Putin to end fighting as "empty words".

"So far this cannot be seen as anything but empty words," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, after Zelensky said in an interview that he would agree to sit at a negotiating table with Putin.

Jonathan Zou, a second-year student at the University of Michigan, was among the thousands of students who joined pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses nationwide this past year. Although the campus protests have subsided, the repercussions for students like Zou remain.

Since his arrest by university police last Oct. 7 after using a megaphone during a pro-Palestinian march, Zou has been banned from all University of Michigan campuses, except for attending class or seeking medical care.

The head of France's far-right National Rally party said Tuesday he doesn't support a no-confidence motion filed against the government, making it more likely that the prime minister will remain in office and a 2025 budget will be adopted.

A no-confidence vote is scheduled Wednesday in the National Assembly and needs at least half the 577 votes to pass. Hard-left France Unbowed, Communist and Green lawmakers are expected to vote in favor but don't have the numbers on their own to bring down the centrist government.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he will cut all funding to South Africa over what he called a human rights violation, a move that reflects Elon Musk's repeated and false claims over the years that authorities in his country of birth are anti-white and even encouraging the killing of white people.

Trump said on Sunday that "terrible things are happening in South Africa. The leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things" without providing specifics. He said "they're taking away land, they're confiscating land, and actually they're doing things that are perhaps far worse than that."

U.S. and Philippine fighter aircraft staged a joint patrol and training Tuesday over a disputed South China Sea shoal where Chinese fighter jets fired flares last year to drive away a Philippine aircraft, Philippine officials said.

The joint patrol and air-intercept drills over the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippines were the first by the longtime treaty allies since U.S. President Donald Trump took office again.