Responding to increased attacks on ships in the southern Red Sea by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, the U.S. announced sanctions against 13 people and firms alleged to be providing tens of millions of dollars from the sale and shipment of Iranian commodities to the Houthis in Yemen.

The White House also announced Thursday that it was encouraging allies to join the Combined Maritime Forces, a 39-member partnership that exists to counter malign action by non-state actors in international waters, as it looks to push back against the Houthis. The State Department and Pentagon are leading the effort to expand the maritime partnership after three commercial vessels were struck by missiles fired by Iranian-back Houthis in Yemen earlier this week.

A leading organization representing journalists worldwide expressed deep concern Friday at the number of media professionals killed around the globe doing their jobs in 2023, with Israel's war with Hamas claiming more journalists than any conflict in over 30 years.

In its annual count of media worker deaths, the International Federation of Journalists said 94 journalists had been killed so far this year and almost 400 others had been imprisoned.

A rocket attack at the sprawling U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Friday morning caused minor material damage but no casualties, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

The attack is the first to be confirmed since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war on the U.S. Embassy, in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and embassies, on the west bank of the Tigris River.

Desperate Palestinians fleeing Israel's expanding ground offensive crowded into an ever-shrinking area of the Gaza Strip as the Israel-Hamas war entered its third month Friday. The United Nations warned that its aid operation is "in tatters" because no place in the besieged enclave is safe.

Israel's ferocious military assault on Gaza, a tiny, densely populated territory, has led to widespread civilian casualties and mass displacements, triggering international alarm.

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has spent the majority of the season in apparent crisis.

Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, spoke this week of his confidence that Manchester City would win an unprecedented fourth Premier League title in a row.

Anti-doping prosecutors in Italy requested a maximum four-year ban for Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba on Thursday after the World Cup winner tested positive for testosterone.

Pogba opted not to make a plea bargain with Italy's anti-doping agency, meaning the case will be tried before the country's anti-doping court.

For the sixth month in a row, Earth set a new monthly record for heat, and also added the hottest autumn to the litany of record-breaking heat this year, the European climate agency calculated.

And with only one month left, 2023 is on the way to smashing the record for hottest year.

It is sickly hilarious to make a movie in which so much consensual sex is had, often so gleefully, that is not the least bit sexy. Though Bella Baxter's insatiable libido might be her guiding light at first in "Poor Things," sexual liberation (or "furious jumping," as she calls it) is only part of this fantastical, anarchic journey to consciousness.

Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and his star, Emma Stone, have a good and strange thing going whether she's playing a striving scullery maid who works her way into the favor of Queen Anne, or a re-animated Victorian woman finding independence. Stone helps make his black humor more accessible, and he creates unorthodox opportunities for her to play and stretch. We, the audience, are the benefactors.

In weather terminology, they call it "rapid intensification" — the process by which a storm strengthens dramatically in a short period.

In pop culture terminology, they call it Taylor Swift.

China's exports rose in November, the first increase since April, while imports fell, according to customs data released Thursday.

Exports rose 0.5% from a year earlier to $291.9 billion, a sign that demand may be picking up after months of decline. But imports fell 0.6%, to $223.5 billion, after they climbed 3% in October.