Spotlight
Russia's central bank raised its key interest rate by a full percentage point to 19% to combat high inflation as government spending on the military strains the economy's capacity to produce goods and services and drives up workers' wages.
The central bank said in a statement Friday that "growth in domestic demand is still significantly outstripping the capabilities to expand the supply of goods and services." It held out the prospect of more rate increases to return inflation from the current 9.1% to the bank's target of 4% in 2025.

Real Madrid remains with the Spanish league's highest spending limit following the summer transfer window, while Barcelona improved significantly but remained well bellow its rival's cap.
The league released the cost limits for each team on Thursday, with Madrid's cap reaching nearly 755 million euros ($833 million), up from 727 million euros ($803 million).

Liverpool has yet to allow a goal this season and Mohamed Salah has scored in each of the three games — all victories.
If this is what contract distractions look like at Anfield, new manager Arne Slot is fine with it.

Aircraft assembly workers walked off the job early Friday at Boeing factories near Seattle and elsewhere after union members voted overwhelmingly to go on strike and reject a tentative contract that would have increased wages by 25% over four years.
The strike started at 12:01 a.m. PDT, less than three hours after the local branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced 94.6% of voting workers rejected the proposed contract and 96% approved the work stoppage, easily surpassing a two-thirds requirement.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping will visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi confirmed Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West's global influence.
Xi's visit to Russia will be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin's contentions that Russia's action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for weapons production.

As the world's attention focuses on the deadly war in Gaza, less than 80 miles away scores of Palestinian teens have been killed, shot and arrested in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has waged a monthslong crackdown.
More than 150 teens and children 17 or younger have been killed in the embattled territory since Hamas' brutal attack on communities in southern Israel set off the war last October. Most died in nearly daily raids by the Israeli army that Amnesty International says have used disproportionate and unlawful force.

The Russian authorities accused six British diplomats of spying and said they would be expelled, as tensions between Moscow and the West grow during an intensified push by Ukraine to loosen restrictions on using weapons provided by the U.S. and Britain to strike Russia.

A fake video that ricocheted across the internet claiming tensions between France and the United Arab Emirates after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov's detention in Paris likely came from Russia, an analysis by The Associated Press shows, despite Moscow's efforts to maintain crucial ties to the UAE.
It remains unclear why Russian operatives would choose to publish such a video falsely claiming the Emirates halted a French arms sale, which appears to be the first noticeable effort by Moscow to target the UAE with a disinformation campaign. The Emirates remains one of the few locations to still have direct flights to Moscow, while Russian money has flooded into Dubai's booming real estate market since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The leader of the Palestinian Hamas group thanked Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief for his support in the ongoing war with Israel in a letter released Friday by Hezbollah’s media office.
Yahya Sinwar’s letter came in response to a message sent earlier by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in which he paid his condolence for the July killing of top Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh during a visit to Iran.

Taylor Swift on Wednesday repeated her call for fans to register to vote in the U.S. presidential election as she accepted MTV's top Video Music Award.
