Russia has blocked popular messaging service WhatsApp for failing to abide by Russian legislation, the Kremlin said Thursday.

"Such a decision was indeed made and implemented," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the reported ban.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading a large U.S. delegation this week to the Munich Security Conference where increasingly nervous European leaders are hoping for at least a brief reprieve from President Donald Trump's often inconsistent policies and threats that have roiled transatlantic relations and the post-World War II international order.

A year after Vice President JD Vance stunned assembled dignitaries at the same venue with a verbal assault on many of America's closest allies in Europe, accusing them of imperiling Western civilization with left-leaning domestic programs and not taking responsibility for their own defense, Rubio plans to take a less contentious but philosophically similar approach when he addresses the annual gathering of world leaders and national security officials Saturday, U.S. officials say.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog was due to end a contentious four-day visit to Australia on Thursday that brought comfort to Sydney's Jewish community traumatized by a recent antisemitic mass shooting, but also attracted large-scale demonstrations protesting the civilian toll of the Gaza war.

Herzog has been dogged by protesters who label him a war criminal as he visited Sydney, the national capital Canberra and Melbourne in the first Australian visit by an Israeli head of state in six years.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta's Instagram, testified Wednesday during a landmark social media trial in Los Angeles that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms.

The question of addiction is a key pillar of the case, where plaintiffs seek to hold social media companies responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Meta Platforms and Google's YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled.

Leaders from across the European Union are meeting Thursday in a Belgian castle as the 27-nation bloc faces antagonism from U.S. President Donald Trump, strong-arm economic tactics from China and hybrid threats from Russia — challenges that have prompted a rethink of Europe's approach to diplomacy and trade.

"We all know we must change course, and we all know the direction," Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told a meeting of some European leaders on Wednesday. "Yet it sometimes feels like we're standing on the bridge of the ship staring at the horizon without being able to touch the helm."

United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright arrived Wednesday in Venezuela for a firsthand assessment of the country's oil industry, a visit that further asserts the U.S. government's self-appointed role in turning around Venezuela's dilapidated energy sector.

Wright met Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez at the Miraflores presidential palace in the capital, Caracas. He is expected to meet with government officials, oil executives and others during a three-day visit to the South American country.

Portugal's interior minister has stepped down in response to growing criticism of her government's response to successive winter storms this season, in which at least seven people have died.

Maria Lúcia Amaral resigned after concluding that she "no longer possessed the personal and political conditions necessary to hold the position," President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa's office said late Tuesday.

Nearly all of the 230 people up for Oscars across 24 categories gathered Tuesday for the Academy Award nominees luncheon, an event that functions as a celebration, group portrait session and orientation for next month's big ceremony.

Nominees including Jessie Buckley, Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio and Emma Stone sat for lunch and stood for a class photo alongside nominees for awards including best animated short and the newly created casting Oscar.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday called on the nation's highest court to lift a suspension on an economic emergency decree that would grant his government the authority to raise taxes without congressional approval.

In a televised Cabinet meeting, Petro said that the government must raise tens of millions of dollars to fund recovery efforts in two northern Colombian provinces that have been affected by floods that have killed at least 14 people and displaced an estimated 69,000.

Moscow will observe the limits of the last nuclear arms pact with the United States that expired last week as long as it sees that Washington is doing the same, Russia's top diplomat said Wednesday.

The New START treaty expired Feb. 5, leaving no restrictions on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century and fueling fears of an unconstrained nuclear arms race.