The Brief

Fresh eruptions at Mount Anak Krakatau, including two recorded on Sunday, sent volcanic ash into airspace near Jakarta, forcing Indonesia's main airport hub to suspend operations and cancel hundreds of flights.

Authorities said more than 170,000 airline passengers were left stranded, with over 500 flight movements scrapped. No casualties were reported and no evacuation order was issued, though residents and visitors were told to stay at least two miles from the active crater.

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday and traveled to Kyiv on Sunday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since Russia's full-scale invasion.

The envoys described the discussions as "very meaningful" and "substantive," but the Kyiv talks ended without an announced breakthrough. Zelensky said afterward that he expects the war to continue into the winter. Reports had earlier indicated Putin and Zelensky agreed to pause strikes on each other's capitals while the talks proceed.

The U.S. military said it hit three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, destroying one, in retaliation for Iranian attacks on American warships that Washington said involved ballistic missiles. Iran said it had targeted three U.S.-linked ships.

Tehran threatened a "faster, heavier, more painful" response, said the time for proportionate retaliation was over, and on Sunday claimed to have struck a U.S. ship in the Strait of Hormuz, an assertion the U.S. denied. Iranian officials also said they would soon announce a new exclusion zone and shipping route near the strait. The exchange marks a sharp turn back toward fighting after roughly six months of on-again, off-again conflict, with U.S. drivers facing higher gasoline and diesel prices, and a senior U.S. official suggested there may be no nuclear agreement with Iran.

Projections after Sunday's state election in Saxony-Anhalt showed the far-right Alternative for Germany finishing first by a wide margin, with more than 44% of the vote to about 17% for the conservative CDU. The party hailed a "historic result."

It was not immediately clear whether the AfD could form a government, as mainstream parties have refused to work with it. The state's intelligence agency classifies the regional branch as a right-wing extremist group, and a governing role would be the party's first at the state level since World War II.

A multi-storey building used mainly as a hostel for students collapsed in New Delhi on Saturday, killing at least five people, with nine others pulled out alive, according to authorities.

As many as 50 people were thought to have been inside the five-storey structure when it came down, and rescuers were still searching the rubble for those feared trapped.

An explosion of fireworks killed at least 10 people and injured more than 60 during a festival in Temascalcingo, a municipality of about 66,000 residents in central Mexico, officials said. The blast happened Saturday night next to the Nuestra Señora de la Luz church.

Local officials said the explosion appeared to have been set off by a burning bull effigy, a traditional feature of such celebrations.