Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed decrees giving jobs in his administration to members of the former government.

Former Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin and former Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky were appointed as presidential aides, while former Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak became a deputy head of administration.

Putin increased the number of deputy heads of administration to three from the previous two by a separate decree.

The former government, headed by Dmitry Medvedev, resigned on Jan. 15.

Two children were killed and several others injured as a school bus rushed down a slope in the central German state of Thuringia on Thursday, local media FOCUS Online reported.

The accident took place in the Wartburg district where there was heavy fog and slippery road, according to the report.

Around 20 children were on the bus.

Germany is banning the neo-Nazi group Combat 18 Deutschland in what the country's top security official said Thursday was a "clear message" against far-right extremism and anti-Semitism.

More than 200 police officers carried out raids in six German states early Thursday, seizing cellphones, computers, unspecified weaponry, Nazi memorabilia and propaganda material, the Interior Ministry said.

The group had spread "far-right extremism and anti-Semitic hatred" in German society by producing neo-Nazi music and staging concerts for extremist bands, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said.

The group is an offshoot of Combat 18, which was founded in Britain in the early 1990s as a militant wing of the British National Party. The number 18 stands for the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, AH, which are the initials of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The German chapter of Combat 18 "enjoys great respect within the far-right extremist scene" and is regarded as a symbol of violent extremism, Seehofer said.

Some of the group's members were convicted of illegally importing ammunition to Germany as they returned from firearms training in the Czech Republic in September 2017.

The police raids were carried out in Brandenburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia states.

Russia's parliament has approved a package of constitutional amendments in a first reading Thursday, in a move widely seen as an attempt by President Vladimir Putin to stay in on power past the end of his term in 2024.

Putin submitted the amendments to the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, on Monday, just several days after presenting them in the annual state-of-the-nation address last week.

He suggested that lawmakers could name prime ministers and Cabinet members, proposed a greater role for the State Council, an obscure consultative body of regional governors and federal officials, and sought to prioritize the primacy of Russian laws over international law.

The proposed changes, he argued, would bolster democracy.

The Kremlin-controlled Duma unanimously voted for the amendments on Thursday, after discussing them for two hours.

Putin, a 67-year-old former KGB office, has led Russia for more than 20 years — the longest since the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. According to the Russian Constitution, he will have to step down in 2024, having served two consecutive terms.

The bill submitted to parliament empowers the State Council to "determine the main directions of home and foreign policy," its specific authority yet to be spelled in a separate law.

It gives the parliament more say over Cabinet ministers' appointment, but emphasizes that the president should retain the power to dismiss the prime minister and Cabinet ministers and remain in charge of the Russian military and law enforcement agencies.

Commentators see these proposals as a strategy for Putin to stay in charge by becoming the head of the State Council.

The draft also modifies the constitution to limit a president to two terms altogether, unlike the current version containing a limit of two consecutive terms.

The second reading of the bill is scheduled for Feb. 11. Lawmakers and the working group created by Putin have already come up with a variety of proposals in addition to what the draft law outlines.

Putin said that the constitutional changes need to be approved by the entire nation, but it remains unclear how such a vote would be organized.

Russian opposition members condemned the reform as a "constitutional coup" and called for a rally against it on Feb. 29.

Three more people have died as a result of a fierce storm that has battered Spain for the past three days, authorities said Wednesday, raising the death toll to seven.

Fears increased that heavy rains expected later Wednesday could lead to several swollen rivers breaking their banks, among them the Onyar river that flows through the northeastern city of Gerona .

The body of a missing man was found Wednesday in a flooded area near the town of Callosa, in southeastern Spain, the local Valencia regional government said.

It added that a woman was killed when her apartment building partially collapsed in the town of Alcoy, following heavy rains.

In the southeastern town of Nijar, a farmer was found dead in a plastic greenhouse that had been hit by a hail storm, according to the private Spanish news agency Europa Press.

Four other people died between Sunday and Tuesday.

Searches continued for several missing people.

Since Sunday, the storm has hit mostly eastern areas of Spain with hail, heavy snow and high winds, while huge waves smashed into towns on the Mediterranean coast and the nearby islands of Mallorca and Menorca.

Weather forecasts said the worst of the storm had passed by Wednesday.

Transport authorities said the bad weather forced the closure of more than 200 roads. Schools canceled classes for more than 5,700 pupils.

Officials in Barcelona said the city's beaches lost much of their sand due to the high, powerful surf.

Rubén del Campo, spokesman for national weather service AEMET, said he expected that once all data was collected the storm will have been one of the strongest on record. Some areas saw their heaviest rainfall in more than 70 years.