From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting.

The United States on Thursday said there is no justification for Russia's retaliatory expulsion of American diplomats.

Later on Thursday, the White House issued a statement saying the action by Russia "marks a further deterioration" of the relationship between the two countries.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced the expulsion of 60 U.S. diplomats in response to the U.S. ordering the departure of the same number of Russian diplomats.

He said, "Russia also is closing the U.S. consulate in the city of Saint Petersburg, ordering it to cease operations in two days."

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet April 27 in Panmunjonm, the peace village on the border between the two Koreas.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was encouraged by steps taken by North Korea in recent days.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai is back in Pakistan for the first time since she was shot in 2012 by Taliban militants angered at her championing of education for girls.

"I still can't believe that this is actually happening."

She said in a brief speech at a ceremony at the office of the prime minister that she will continue to campaign for the education of girls.

And Pakistan announced on Thursday it has successfully conducted another test-firing of a nuclear-capable, submarine-launched cruise missile, which has a range of 450 kilometers.

The indigenously developed Babur missile was fired from an underwater platform and the military said it "engaged its target with precise accuracy."

This is VOA news.

A Kenyan opposition politician says police dragged and forcibly deported him to Dubai.

Miguna Miguna says in a Facebook post that he'd been detained in a bathroom at Nairobi's international airport since Monday when he returned from Canada after being deported last month.

He says police broke into the bathroom Thursday, injected him with a substance, then dragged him to an Emirates Airline plane.

Kenya's high court has fined three top government officials $2,000 each for defying court orders, including an order to release Miguna Miguna.

Correspondent Rael Ombuor has the latest for VOA from Nairobi.

Kenyan Interior Minister Fred Matiang'i, Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet, and the head of immigration Gordon Kihalangwa were again no-shows in court Thursday.

"Each of the first, second and third respondents are hereby penalized to pay a fine of Kenyan shillings 200,000 personally. The same sum will be deducted directly from their next month's salaries," Judge George Odunga issued the sentence.

On Wednesday, the judge held the three officials in contempt of court for defying an order to immediately release opposition leader Miguna Miguna, who had been detained at the airport since Monday and denied entry to Kenya.

Rael Ombuor, for VOA news, Nairobi.

The Trump administration has ended an Obama-era policy that exempted pregnant women facing deportation from immigration detention. Now, pregnant women will only be able to get released if an immigration and customs enforcement officer determines so on a case by case basis.

Nearly a week after President Trump issued an order banning some transgender people from serving in the U.S. military, the Pentagon is refusing to provide clarity on that policy, citing ongoing legal challenges.

The Pentagon did say there are about 9,000 service members who identify as transgender, transgender, that is.

Russia's RT television network is set to go off the air in the Washington, D.C., area, one of the network's most coveted markets in the United States.

The Kremlin-backed network will have its final cable and network broadcast in the Washington area on Saturday when two local digital stations that currently air its programing shut down.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Bloomberg News first reported the news.

In the United States, RT is primarily available via satellite. It's also available in about a 1,000 hotels in the U.S., according to RT.

You can find more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. From the world headquarters of the Voice of America in Washington, I'm Jonathan Jones, VOA news.

That's the latest world news from VOA.