PARIS / AP France’s presidential race this year is upending every political assumption that has governed the country for decades. And now Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old former economy minister who is running an independent, centrist campaign, has a real chance to become France’s next president in the country’s two-round April-May vote. Among the startling events: an incumbent president is …

  BRUSSELS / AP US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday made clear that the United States was committed to NATO while also reinforcing the Trump administration’s demand that allies pay their fair share. Speaking at his first NATO defense minister’s meeting, Mattis called the alliance “a fundamental bedrock for the United States and for all the trans-Atlantic community.” That …

  PESHAWAR / AP A Taliban suicide bombing targeted the administrative headquarters of a tribal region in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing three policemen and two passers-by, according to officials. The explosion went off at the main gate of the tribal headquarters in Ghalanai in the Mohmand tribal region, just as the workday was about to start, said Hameedullah Khan, …