Three months after a fallout with José Mourinho that looked to have ended Rick Karsdorp's career at Roma, the defender is set to return to the team.

Mourinho unleashed a vicious tirade apparently aimed at Karsdorp after Roma's 1-1 draw at Sassuolo in November, saying he had been "betrayed by a player with an unprofessional attitude."

North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un attended groundbreaking ceremonies for new housing and farming projects, which are part of his push for domestic achievements as the country's economic isolation deepens amid his defiant pursuit of nuclear arms.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim broke ground Wednesday for the construction of a huge greenhouse farm in the outskirts of the capital, Pyongyang, where senior North Korean official Jo Yong Won in a speech said that providing Pyongyang residents with "fresh vegetables in all seasons" was a "top priority."

The internet sites of several German airports were disrupted on Thursday after what may have been a hacker attack, German news agency dpa reported.

The disruptions did not appear to have an immediate impact on the country's air traffic, the agency said.

Wall Street was subdued before the open Thursday ahead of another closely-watched inflation reading that comes a day after markets rallied on a strong retail sales report.

Futures for the Dow Jones industrials and ticked down 0.2% and the S&P 500 fell 0.3% less than an hour before the government releases data on wholesale prices and jobless claims.

Soaring U.S. tensions with China, fears of a new Russian offensive against Ukraine and a stalemate with Turkey over NATO expansion will top Secretary of State Antony Blinken's agenda as he heads to Europe this week.

Blinken will leave Washington on Thursday for nearly a week of meetings in Germany, Turkey and Greece, the State Department said.

Amid chilly temperatures and heavy security, thousands of black-clad pilgrims from across Iraq marched Thursday in the annual procession in marking the death of a Shiite saint.

Pilgrims traditionally travel on foot to the shrine and burial site of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, the seventh of 12 Shiite imams who died in a Baghdad prison in the eighth century. The procession leads to the site in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kadimiyah. Participants wear black, with some carrying out self-flagellation to publicly express their mourning.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday urged Turkey to ratify the applications of Finland and Sweden to join the military organization, repeating his claim that the Nordic neighbors have done enough to satisfy Ankara's demands that they crack down on extremism.

At a news conference in Ankara standing alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Stoltenberg also condemned the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, at a protest in Sweden but he said that this is not illegal in Europe.

The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Syria said Thursday that the country's death toll from last week's deadly earthquake is likely to rise further as teams scramble to remove rubble in hard-hit areas.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Muhannad Hadi defended the U.N.'s response to the disaster, which many in Syria have criticized as slow and inadequate.

Syria could face dangerous outbreaks of disease in the wake of last week's devastating earthquake if hundreds of thousands of displaced people do not get permanent housing soon, the Red Cross' global chief said Thursday, as Syrians struggle to receive humanitarian aid amid the mounting crisis.

Jagan Chapagain, who is Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said families staying in makeshift shelters without adequate heating urgently need permanent housing.

China and Iran have urged mutual neighbor Afghanistan to end restrictions on women's work and education.

The call came in a joint statement Thursday issued at the close of a visit to Beijing by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during which the two sides affirmed close economic and political ties and their rejection of Western standards of human rights and democracy.