Daily SumUp

 The United States sent nuclear-capable bombers, accompanied by Japanese fighter jets over the Sea of Japan in the first military show of force by the two allies since a bitter feud erupted between Japan and China last month.The drills included two U.S. B-52 strategic bombers and six Japanese F-35 and F-15 fighter jets, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry's Joint Staff."This bilateral exercise reaffirms the strong will between Japan and U.S. not to tolerate unilateral changes to the status quo by force," Japan's Joint Staff said in a statement — language that Japan often uses to refer to the status of Taiwan, a self-governed island that China claims as part of its territory.This follows joint drills by Chinese and Russian strategic bombers and fighters on Tuesday that prompted Japan and South Korea to scramble planes to monitor them. South Korea lodged a diplomatic protest over the incident.

Chancellor Merz says Kyiv and European allies have prepared a new Ukraine peace proposal and discussed it with US President Trump during their recent phone call

President says European leaders are weak and Russia holds the cards in any peace talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday reaffirmed his support to Venezuela in a phone call with longtime ally President Nicolás Maduro, the Kremlin said.

María Corina Machado said Thursday in Oslo, where she collected the award, that President Donald Trump's "decisive" actions had made the Venezuelan regime "weaker than ever."

The M23 rebel group consolidated control over the strategic town of Uvira in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, residents said, as Kinshasa warned that the Rwanda-backed advance could derail U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to broker peace in the region.

Japan's government on Monday submitted the draft of a huge supplementary budget covering the period through March for debate in the Diet. It is mainly aimed at cushioning the impact of inflation.

Bulgarian government resigns after mass anti-corruption protests

Disney has signed a deal with OpenAI to let the firm's video generation tool produce short videos featuring more than 200 Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars characters.The Walt Disney Company has announced a sweeping partnership with OpenAI that will see it take a $1bn (€852mn) stake in the tech giant. The deal will notably allow cult Disney characters to appear in AI-generated short videos created through Sora, OpenAI’s generative video platform.The licensing agreement marks the first time a major entertainment studio has licensed their intellectual property to a large-scale AI video tool.