The Defense Department will install solar panels on the Pentagon, part of the Biden administration's plan to promote clean energy and "reestablish the federal government as a sustainability leader."

The Pentagon is one of 31 government sites that are receiving $104 million in Energy Department grants that are expected to double the amount of carbon-free electricity at federal facilities and create 27 megawatts of clean-energy capacity while leveraging more than $361 million in private investment, the Energy Department said.

The third round gets underway Friday at the Australian Open with Novak Djokovic back in action in his bid for a record-extending 25th major title. Stay up-to-date with a guide that tells you everything you need to know about how to watch the year's first Grand Slam tennis tournament, what the schedule is, what the betting odds are, and more:

WHO IS PLAYING ON DAY 5?

There won't be a guard of honor when Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid rekindle their rivalry in the second of three matches between the clubs in less than a month on Thursday.

The round-of-16 match in the Copa del Rey will come less than a week after Madrid beat Atletico 5-3 in extra time in the semifinals of the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia.

Karim Benzema has filed a defamation lawsuit against France's Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who accused the soccer star of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Darmanin said in October that Benzema had "a notorious link" to the Brotherhood — a pan-Arab Islamist group which came to power in Egypt following elections a year after the 2011 popular uprising — because Benzema posted a message of support online for the people of Gaza early into the Israel-Hamas war.

Uniqlo Co. has sued rival retailer Shein over a small shoulder bag the Japanese retailer said was an inferior and unlawful copy of its hit product touted as the "Mary Poppins bag."

The lawsuit demanded Shein stop selling its product that Uniqlo said looks too much like its Round Mini Shoulder Bag.

Smartphones could get much smarter this year as the next wave of artificial intelligence seeps into the devices that accompany people almost everywhere they go.

Samsung, the biggest rival to Apple and its iPhone, provided a glimpse of how smartphones are evolving during a Wednesday unveiling of the next generation of its flagship Galaxy models.

Global shares traded mixed Thursday as pessimism spread among investors about any imminent interest rate cut in the United States.

France's CAC 40 added 0.2% to 7,334.46 in early trading. Germany's DAX was little changed, declining less than 0.1% to 16,431.08. Britain's FTSE 100 declined nearly 0.1% to 7,440.86. U.S. shares were set to be mixed with Dow futures inching down less than 0.1% to 37,444.00, while S&P 500 futures edged up nearly 0.1% to 4,773.50.

French manufacturers have reduced the manufacturing times for some of the weapons systems they supply to Ukraine by half or more, as France increasingly switches away from its previous policy of dipping into its own military stocks to support the war effort against Russia's invasion, France's defense minister said in an interview published Thursday.

"The logic of ceding materiel taken from the armies' stocks is reaching its end," the minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in the interview with Le Parisien. "From now on, the solution is to directly connect French defense industries with the Ukrainian army."

Heavy snow and freezing rain hit parts of northern and central Europe on Wednesday, bringing transport to a halt in some Scandinavian regions and causing major disruption at airports in Frankfurt and Oslo.

At Frankfurt Airport, Germany's busiest, freezing rain forced a halt to takeoffs, German news agency dpa reported. The airport cited a danger of de-iced aircraft icing up again as they taxied toward the runway. Some departures resumed in the afternoon as the rain subsided. Hundreds of flights already had been canceled.

An Israeli airstrike on a home killed 16 people, half of them children, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, medics said early Thursday. The military continued to strike targets in areas of the besieged territory where it has told civilians to seek refuge.

There was meanwhile no word on whether medicines that entered the territory Wednesday as part of a deal brokered by France and Qatar had been distributed to dozens hostages with chronic illnesses who are being held by Hamas.