Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been hospitalized since Monday, due to complications following a minor elective medical procedure, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said. It was the department's first acknowledgement that Austin had been admitted — five days earlier — to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Ryder said Friday that it's not clear when Austin will be released from the hospital, but said the secretary is "recovering well," adding that he expected "to resume his full duties" Friday.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday that the United States and China must insist on peaceful coexistence and transcend their differences like they did when they established diplomatic relations 45 years ago this week.

Wang also promised that giant pandas would return to the U.S. — and specifically California — by the end of the year.

Jurgen Klopp has wished Mohamed Salah good luck — sort of — for the Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

Liverpool's top scorer this season could be absent for more than a month depending on how Egypt performs in the Ivory Coast.

Rafael Nadal missed three match points and needed a medical time-out Friday before losing to Jordan Thompson in the quarterfinals of his tournament comeback following a year-long injury layoff.

The 22-time major winner failed to convert a match point in the 10th game of the second set and two more in the tiebreaker before No. 55-ranked Thompson rallied to win 5-7, 7-6 (6), 6-3 at the Brisbane International.

Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oil fell last year from record highs in 2022, when Russia's war in Ukraine, drought and other factors helped worsen hunger worldwide, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday.

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly traded food commodities, was 13.7% lower last year than the 2022 average, but its measures of sugar and rice prices growing in that time.

Inflation plaguing Europe rose to 2.9% in December, rebounding after seven straight monthly declines as food prices rose and support for high energy bills ended in some countries. The rise in price levels fueled debate over how soon interest rate cuts could be expected from the European Central Bank.

The figure released Friday was up from the 2.4% annual inflation recorded in November — but is well down from the peak of 10.6% in October 2022.

A woman was pulled carefully from the rubble 72 hours after a series of powerful quakes started rattling Japan's western coast. Despite rescue efforts, the death toll Friday grew to at least 94 people, and the number of missing was lowered to 222 after it shot up the previous day.

An older man was found alive Wednesday in a collapsed home in Suzu, one of the hardest-hit cities in Ishikawa Prefecture. His daughter called out, "Dad, dad," as a flock of firefighters got him out on a stretcher, praising him for holding on for so long after Monday's 7.6 magnitude earthquake.

Russian air defenses downed dozens of Ukrainian drones in occupied Crimea and southern Russia on Friday, officials said, as Kyiv pressed its strategy of targeting the Moscow-annexed peninsula and taking the 22-month war well beyond Ukraine's borders.

Air raid sirens wailed in Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea, and traffic was suspended for a second straight day on a bridge connecting the peninsula, which Moscow seized illegally a decade ago, with Russia's southern Krasnodar region. The span is a crucial supply link for Russia's war effort.

An armed unmanned surface vessel launched from Houthi-controlled Yemen got within a "couple of miles" of U.S. Navy and commercial vessels in the Red Sea before detonating, just hours after the White House and a host of partner nations issued a final warning to the Iran-backed militia group to cease the attacks or face potential military action.

Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Navy operations in the Middle East, said Thursday it was the first time the Houthis had used an unmanned surface vessel, or USV, since their harassment of commercial ships in the Red Sea began after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. They have, however, used them in years past.

As the Biden administration grapples with an increasingly tense and unstable situation in the Middle East, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to the region this weekend for the fourth time in three months on a tour expected to focus largely on easing resurgent fears that the Israel-Hamas war could erupt into a broader conflict.

With international criticism of Israel's operations in Gaza mounting, growing U.S. concerns about the end game, and more immediate worries about a recent explosion in attacks in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, Blinken will have a packed and difficult agenda. He leaves just days after a suspected Israeli attack killed a senior Hamas leader in Beirut and, while a White House spokesman said "nobody should be shedding a tear" over his death, it could further complicate Blinken's mission.