Bethany Bell/BBC Sister Rita (L), Sister Regina (C) and Sister Bernadette have gained a substantial following for their social media posts Three Austrian nuns in their 80s who ran away from the old people’s home where they were placed have been told they can stay in their former convent “until …

EPA President Macron said the new form of voluntary service was an “act of trust in our youth” A limited form of military service will be re-introduced in France in response to growing fears of a confrontation with Russia. More than 25 years after conscription was phased out, the plan …

Pope Leo XIV is beginning the first foreign trip of his papacy. Over the next six days he will first visit Turkey for an historic Christian anniversary. He will then visit Lebanon just days after Israeli airstrikes on its capital, Beirut. Visits to both countries had originally been planned by …

The former president of Spain’s Valencia region, Carlos Mazón, has come under renewed scrutiny over a period of several hours he spent with a journalist when flash floods struck his region with tragic consequences a year ago. It was already known they spent several hours at lunch. Latest allegations suggest …

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has described the situation surrounding the war in Ukraine as “volatile” and “dangerous” and accused Russia of having no “real intent” of engaging in peace talks. Her comments came shortly before Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “premature” to speak about striking …

Getty Images The US president told reporters aboard Air Force One that Witkoff was doing the standard thing US President Donald Trump has defended special envoy Steve Witkoff as doing the “standard thing” after a leaked recording appeared to show him advising a Russian official on how to appeal to …

Four more people have been arrested as part of the investigation into last month’s theft of precious jewellery at the Louvre Museum, the Paris prosecutor’s office says. Two men, aged 38 and 39, and two women, aged 31 and 40, were arrested on Tuesday. They are all from the Paris …

President Emmanuel Macron said he will announce a new military service aimed at boosting French army numbers later this week. Details are scant, but according to French media the scheme would be voluntary, remunerated and last 10 months. In an interview with local media he sought to reassure French people …

Donald Trump wants a peace deal in Ukraine very badly. Kyiv wants peace even more, just not at any cost. That’s why when the US began pushing it to agree to a deal by Thanksgiving on what looked close to surrender terms, Ukraine pushed back. It scrambled senior officials to …

Belgium is bracing for widespread disruption across sectors including public transport and schools this week as unions hold a three-day national strike. The action was called in response to Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s attempts to shrink Belgium’s debt by changing labour laws and reforming unemployment benefits and pensions. Teachers, …

Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, has described an allegation that he was involved in “sniper tourism” during the siege of Sarajevo as a “lie”. It follows a complaint submitted to Italian prosecutors by a Croatian journalist, who claimed that video from the 1990s and subsequent testimony by Bosnian officials showed that …

Abdujalil AbdurasulovIn eastern Ukraine A robot being sent on a mission by Ukraine’s fifth brigade to deliver supplies to troops on the frontline “The toy is delivered,” a Ukrainian soldier whispers into the radio. In the dead of night, he and his partner move quickly to roll out their cargo …

Unidentified drones have been observed hovering over a military base used by Nato in the Netherlands, the Dutch defence ministry has said. It said military personnel deployed weapons to try to take down the drones spotted near Volkel Air Base, north of Eindhoven, between 19:00 and 21:00 local time (18:00-20:00 …

Paul KirbyEurope digital editor Marharyta Fal/Frontliner/Getty Images The draft US-Russia peace plan has been widely leaked and we now know that it proposes to hand over those areas of Ukraine’s industrial eastern Donbas region still under Ukrainian control to the de facto control of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Latest versions of …

One of the world’s first calculating machines will not go to auction as scheduled, France, after a Paris court provisionally blocked the historic item from being export. Auction house Christie’s has confirmed it will not proceed with a bid for the machine La Pascaline, developed by the French mathematician Blaise …

BBC Trending & BBC News Ukrainian SBU ‘Vlad’ was under surveillance when he planted a bomb in a van In July this year a 17-year-old travelled 500 miles from his home in eastern Ukraine to collect a bomb and a phone hidden in a park in the western city of …

NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP via Getty Images Amine Kessaci was 17 when his first brother was killed – now he has lost another A prominent French anti-drugs campaigner whose brother was killed by drugs criminals last week, five years after the murder of his elder brother, has vowed to stand up to …

A portrait by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was sold for $236.4m (£179m) in New York on Tuesday, making it the second most expensive piece ever sold at auction. Six people took part in a 20-minute bidding battle for the Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer which was painted between 1914 and …

At least 16 people have been killed and dozens more wounded in a Russian drone and missile attack on the western city of Ternopil that hit two blocks of flats, Ukrainian officials say. Among the 64 wounded were 14 children, police said, in one of the deadliest Russian strikes on …

Jessica Parker,Berlin correspondent, Baltic Sea and Ned Davies,BBC Verify Getty Images The BBC joined coastguards on the front line of Europe’s uneasy standoff with Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” Out on the western Baltic, a coastguard officer radios a nearby, sanctioned oil tanker. “Swedish Coastguard calling… Do you consent to answer …