Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted Friday of espionage and sentenced to 16 years on charges that his employer and the U.S. have rejected as fabricated.

The conclusion of his swift and secretive trial in the country's highly politicized legal system perhaps cleared the way for a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.

Spain striker Álvaro Morata has joined AC Milan on a four-year deal with the option to extend for another year, the Italian club said Friday.

The 31-year-old Morata captained Spain to the European Championship title last Sunday and joins from Spanish club Atletico Madrid, where he scored 21 goals last season.

The Vatican released on Friday the program for Pope Francis' trip to Belgium and Luxembourg in late September, where he will celebrate Mass for the faithful, as well as meeting with religious and political authorities.

During the four-day visit, on Sept. 26-29, he will also hold private talks with his brethren in the Jesuit order.

To harvest tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, to clip herbs, to prune and propagate succulents, people work in oppressive heat and humidity. Some wring out shirts soaked with sweat. Some contend with headaches, dizziness and nausea. Some collapse. Some hover on the brink of exhaustion, backs straining, breathing heavily.

Many do so not out in farm fields, but indoors – under the roofs of greenhouses. In structures designed to control the growing environment of plants, some workers described humidity with temperatures sometimes soaring past 100 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 38 degrees Celsius).

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised a tentative deal between Serbia and the European Union signed on Friday that paves the way for the disputed excavation of lithium, a mega project that could reduce Europe's dependency on China but one that has been fiercely criticized by environmentalists and opposition groups.

Scholz attended a "critical raw materials summit" in the Serbian capital where a memorandum of understanding between the EU and Serbia's government on a "strategic partnership" on sustainable raw materials, battery supply chains and electric vehicles was signed.

Shares retreated in Europe and Asia on Friday after a broad washout across Wall Street dragged U.S. stocks lower.

Widespread IT outages disrupted travel and communications around the world, causing flight delays and cancellations.

The bodies of four Pakistanis killed in an attack on a Shiite mosque in Oman this week have been repatriated and handed to their families, officials said Friday.

Relatives of the victims were present when the Pakistan International Airlines flights landed at the Islamabad and Lahore airports. Airline spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez said the bodies were repatriated at orders from the government and handed to the victims' relatives for burial.

First came the Israeli military bulldozers, which tore down a quarter of the homes in the West Bank Bedouin village of Umm al-Khair. Then came the settler attacks.

In the aftermath, dozens of people were left homeless and without consistent access to water and electricity. Several were injured from pepper spray and sticks, and the village's water pipe was cut — all, they said, as Israeli soldiers looked on.

The top United Nations court is delivering a nonbinding advisory opinion Friday on the legality of Israel's 57-year occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state, a ruling that could have more effect on international opinion than it will on Israeli policies.

Friday's hearing comes against the backdrop of Israel's devastating 10-month military assault on Gaza, which was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. In a separate case, the International Court of Justice is considering a South African claim that Israel's campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide, a claim that Israel vehemently denies.

A widespread Microsoft outage was disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday.

Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.