When Joe Seaman, the city planner for the working class town of Cohoes, New York, Googled the term "floating solar," he didn't even know it was a thing. What he did know is that his tiny town needed an affordable way to get electricity and had no extra land. But looking at a map, one feature stood out, he said. "We have this 14-acre water reservoir."

Seaman soon found the reservoir could hold enough solar panels to power all the municipal buildings and streetlights, saving the city more than $500,000 each year. He had stumbled upon a form of clean energy that is steeply ramping up. Floating solar panel systems are beginning to boom in the United States after rapid growth in Asia. They're attractive not just for their clean power and lack of a land footprint, but because they also conserve water by preventing evaporation.

Saudi Arabia has invited Syrian President Bashar Assad to the upcoming Arab League summit in the oil-rich kingdom, the Syrian president's office said on Wednesday. The news comes as Damascus continues to slowly return to the Arab fold, following a 12-year-period of political isolation.

Assad received the invitation days after the Arab League restored Syria's membership into the organization during a meeting in Cairo on Sunday. Syria's membership was suspended for brutally cracking down on mass protests against Assad in 2011. Since then, the uprising turned into a vicious civil war that killed nearly a half million people and displaced half of the country's pre-war population of 23 million.

Oprah Winfrey's latest book project is one she helped write. Winfrey has teamed with the author, educator and Atlantic columnist Arthur C. Brooks on "Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier," to be published Sept. 12 by Portfolio Books.

"I started reading Arthur Brooks' column 'How to Build a Life' during the early days of the pandemic," Winfrey said in a statement released Wednesday by Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. "I found myself happily anticipating each week's lesson, which turned out to be a recipe for growing forward. When I discovered he taught happiness at Harvard, I wanted to extend that to the rest of us."

Real Madrid's Vinícius Júnior and Manchester City's Erling Haaland were relaxed and laughing as they embraced after the final whistle at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.

They both seemed satisfied following an even first leg that ended in a 1-1 draw and left the Champions League semifinal wide open going into next week's return match in Manchester.

Sergio Busquets is ending his "unforgettable journey" of nearly two decades with Barcelona, he said Wednesday.

Busquets, whose contract ends this season, announced his decision with a video released on social media.

Kevin De Bruyne's shot flew like a missile, skimming just above the turf in a trajectory not dissimilar to Carlos Alberto's glorious goal for Brazil in the 1970 World Cup final.

Of course, this was no title match for Manchester City — it was the first leg of the Champions League semifinals — but with the eyes of the world on the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, it sure felt like one.

Toyota's January-March profit edged up 3% from the previous year on robust sales as a chips supply crunch gradually eased.

Toyota Motor Corp. racked up 552.2 billion yen ($4 billion) in quarterly net profit, up from 533.8 billion yen ($3.9 billion), according to results released Wednesday. Quarterly sales soared nearly 20% to 9.69 trillion yen ($72 billion).

With stars like Margot Robbie and Lil Nas X sitting in the front row, Virginie Viard's sporty clothing designs inspired by Hollywood glam shined just as bright during a Chanel fashion show in Los Angeles.

The fashion brand took hold of the Paramount Picture Studios lot to unveil its latest cruise collection on a chilly Tuesday night. It was such a splashy spectacle that even Snoop Dogg was dancing in his comfy bleacher seat while models strutted on a black-and-white Chanel basketball-like court with two large scoreboards.

Global shares declined in muted trading Wednesday as investors awaited an upcoming report on inflation in the United States, an important indicator for where interest rates and global growth might go in the coming months.

France's CAC 40 shed 0.2% in early trading to 7,382.48. Germany's DAX declined 0.3% to 15,914.55. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.2% to 7,752.65. U.S. shares were set to drift lower with Dow futures down 0.1% at 33,599.00. S&P 500 futures fell 0.1% to 4,128.25.

Top business leaders from Japan and South Korea announced Wednesday they will use a fund meant to underscore the two countries' burgeoning ties to strengthen their cooperation in energy, industry and other sectors.

Japan Business Federation, known as Keidanren, and its South Korean counterpart, the Federation of Korean Industry, announced a fund of 200 million yen ($1.5 million) in March. The money comes from an initial installment of 100 million yen ($750,000) from each side to complement efforts initiated by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's government to resolve a historical dispute over Japanese brutality during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.