Ukraine says it has a new long-range weapon to strike deep into Russia without asking permission from allies — a homegrown combination of missile and drone that the defense minister vowed Monday would provide "answers" to a wave of Russian bombings.

The Palianytsia was created due to urgent necessity, Ukrainian officials said, as Russia has dominated the skies since the outbreak of the war in February 2022 and Ukraine's Western allies have placed conditions on use of their long-range missiles in Russia. On Monday, a wave of Russian missiles and drones targeted Ukraine's electrical infrastructure in the largest such attack in weeks.

Iran's supreme leader opened the door Tuesday to renewed negotiations with the United States over his country's rapidly advancing nuclear program, telling its civilian government there was "no barrier" to engaging with its "enemy."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's remarks set clear red lines for any talks taking place under the government of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and renewed his warnings that America wasn't to be trusted.

A top White House official arrived in China on Tuesday for talks on a relationship that has been severely tested during President Joe Biden's term in office.

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, was greeted at a Beijing airport by Yang Tao, the Chinese foreign ministry's chief for the North American and Oceanian department, and the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns.

Russia fired a wave of attack drones and missiles at Ukraine that killed at least four people, authorities said Tuesday after the second night of heavy strikes across the war-battered nation.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to toughen knife laws and step up deportations of rejected asylum-seekers Monday as he visited the scene of the knife attack in which a suspected Islamic extremist from Syria is accused of killing three people.

Scholz, speaking after he joined regional officials in laying a white flower at a makeshift memorial in the western city of Solingen, said he was "furious and angry" about the attack, in which eight people also were wounded.

A British safety adviser working with a team of Reuters journalists was killed when a Russian missile struck a hotel in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the news agency confirmed.

Ryan Evans, 38, was staying at the Hotel Sapphire with colleagues in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region when it was hit by a Russian missile Saturday night.

Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan killed 39 people in two separate attacks on Monday, with reports of other shootings and unrest across the same province, police and officials said.

Twenty-three people were fatally shot after being identified and taken from buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail, a district in Baluchistan province, senior police official Ayub Achakzai said. The attackers burned at least 10 vehicles before fleeing.

Russia unleashed a massive drone and missile barrage throughout Ukraine on Monday that appeared to target energy infrastructure. At least three people were reported killed.

The barrage began around midnight and continued beyond daybreak in what appeared to be Russia's biggest attack against Ukraine in weeks.

A 26-year-old man has turned himself into police, saying he was responsible for the Solingen knife attack that left three dead and eight wounded at a festival marking the city's 650th anniversary, German authorities announced early Sunday.

Duesseldorf police said in a joint statement with the prosecutor's office that the man "stated that he was responsible for the attack."

German police on Saturday stepped up a major hunt for a man who stabbed three people to death and wounded eight others at a street festival in the city of Solingen, authorities said.

Police closed off the center of Solingen after the attack on Friday night at the city's "Festival of Diversity". A police statement said five of the wounded were in "serious" condition.