German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday that his coalition has a "stable foundation" and has achieved a lot in its first 10 weeks, but acknowledged that "occasional setbacks" are a risk in government as his administration struggles with its first major dispute.

Merz took office on May 6, leading a coalition of his conservative Union bloc with the center-left Social Democrats that has a relatively thin parliamentary majority. He vowed to strengthen Europe's biggest economy after years of stagnation, enable Germany to build Europe's strongest conventional army and keep the U.S. on board with aid to Ukraine.

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered to wear an ankle monitor, his press office said on Friday.

The development came as federal police conducted searches at his home and his party's headquarters in Brasília, according to people familiar with the court order.

The European Union and Britain on Friday ramped up pressure on Russia over its war on Ukraine, targeting Moscow's energy sector, shadow fleet of aging oil tankers and military intelligence service with new sanctions.

"The message is clear: Europe will not back down in its support for Ukraine. The EU will keep raising the pressure until Russia ends its war," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said after the bloc agreed its new measures, including a new oil price cap.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are set to sign a treaty on Thursday pledging to tighten defense ties and step up law-enforcement cooperation against gangs that smuggle migrants across the English Channel.

The center-right German leader is in London on his first official visit to Britain since taking office in May. Starmer visited Berlin in August 2024, announcing plans for the U.K.-Germany "friendship and cooperation" treaty with Merz's predecessor, Olaf Scholz.

President Donald Trump is lashing out at his own supporters, accusing them of being duped by Democrats, as he tries to clamp down on criticism over his administration's handling of much-hyped records in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, which Trump now calls a "Hoax."

"Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this "bull——," hook, line, and sinker," Trump wrote Wednesday on his Truth Social site, using an expletive in his post. "They haven't learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years."

Ukraine's economy minister and the key negotiator in the mineral deal with the U.S, Yuliia Svyrydenko, was appointed as its new prime minister Thursday, becoming the country's first new head of government since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.

Svyrydenko is one of a group of officials taking on new roles in Ukraine's government, as President Volodymyr Zelensky reshuffles the Cabinet in a bid to energize a war-weary nation and boost domestic weapons production in the face of Russia's grinding invasion.

Russia said Thursday it had captured Ukrainian villages in three separate areas of the front line, expanding its summer offensive despite U.S. calls to end the fighting.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had "liberated" the settlements of Popiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region, Degtiarne in the northeast Kharkiv region and Kamianske in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

The United States sent five migrants it describes as "barbaric" criminals to the African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration's largely secretive third-country deportation program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

The U.S. has already deported eight men to another African country, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties. The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men, also described as violent criminals, are after it took custody of them nearly two weeks ago.

The United Kingdom, France and Germany have agreed to restore tough U.N. sanctions on Iran by the end of August if there has been no concrete progress on a nuclear deal, two European diplomats said Tuesday.

The three countries' ambassadors to the United Nations met Tuesday at Germany's U.N. Mission to discuss a possible Iranian deal and reimposing the sanctions. The matter also came up in a phone call Monday between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of the three countries, according to two U.S. officials.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that Israel's attacks during last month's 12-day war were intended to weaken the Islamic republic's system and spark unrest to topple it.

"The calculation and plan of the aggressors was to weaken the system by targeting certain figures and sensitive centers in Iran," said Khamenei in a statement published on his website. He said the move was meant to stir "unrest and bring people into the streets to overthrow the system."