First, he wanted out. Then he opted to stay. Finally, Barcelona said enough is enough and decided to part ways.

One month after Xavi Hernández said he would continue on as Barcelona coach despite a disappointing season, the Spanish club told the former midfield great it did not want him back.

The top United Nations court ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its military operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — but stopped short of ordering a full cease-fire. While Israel is unlikely to comply with the order, it will ratchet up the pressure on the increasingly isolated country.

Criticism of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza has been growing, particularly on operations in Rafah — and even from its closest ally, the United States. This week alone, three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for another U.N. court requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, along with Hamas officials.

New York is offering up to $90 million in tax credits for news outlets to hire and retain journalists in an effort to help keep the shrinking local news industry afloat.

The U.S. newspaper industry has been in a long decline, driven by factors including a loss in advertising revenue as outlets have moved from primarily print to mostly digital. That prompted state lawmakers to help in a measure passed in the state budget.

The federal government will spend $75 million to help build a factory making glass parts for computer chips in Covington, Georgia.

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced the investment Thursday in Absolics, part of South Korea's SK Group.

Flooding in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state ravaged nearly everything needed for economic activity, from local shops to factories, farms and ranches.

The environmental catastrophe — unprecedented in state history — upended transportation, including the airport in the capital Porto Alegre, which is expected to remain shuttered for months. Segments of major highways are closed due to landslides, washed-out roads and collapsed bridges. Blackouts continue to plague the state. Gov. Eduardo Leite has said Rio Grande do Sul will need a "kind of 'Marshall Plan' to be rebuilt," although an exact strategy to do so in a way that reduces future climate disasters has yet to be determined.

Extreme heat in Mexico, Central America and parts of the U.S. South has left millions of people in sweltering temperatures, strained energy grids and resulted in iconic Howler monkeys in Mexico dropping dead from trees.

Meteorologists say the conditions have been caused by what some refer to as a heat dome — an area of strong high pressure centered over the southern Gulf of Mexico and northern Central America that blocked clouds from forming and caused extensive sunshine and hot temperatures. This extreme heat is occurring in a world that is quickly warming due to greenhouse gases, which come from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

The impact of the calamitous rains that struck East Africa from March to May was intensified by a mix of climate change and rapid growth of urban areas, an international team of climate scientists said in a study published Friday.

The findings come from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists that analyzes whether and to what extent human-induced climate change has altered the likelihood and magnitude of extreme weather events.

It began last month with the arrest of a Russian deputy defense minister. Then the head of the ministry's personnel directorate was hauled into court. This week, two more senior military officials were detained. All face charges of corruption, which they have denied.

The arrests began after President Vladimir Putin began his fifth term and shuffled his ally, longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, into a new post.

Extreme weather events have hit parts of Africa relentlessly in the last three years, with tropical storms, floods and drought causing crises of hunger and displacement. They leave another deadly threat behind them: some of the continent's worst outbreaks of cholera.

In southern and East Africa, more than 6,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 cases have been reported since a series of cholera outbreaks began in late 2021.

Taiwan tracked dozens of Chinese warplanes and navy vessels off its coast on Friday, the second day of a large military exercise launched by Beijing to show its anger over the self-governing island's inauguration of new leaders who refuse to accept its insistence that Taiwan is part of China.

China has issued elaborate media statements showing Taiwan being surrounded by forces from its military, the People's Liberation Army. A new video on Friday showed animated Chinese forces approaching from all sides and Taiwan being enclosed within a circular target area while simulated missiles hit key population and military targets.