The prime minister of New Zealand stressed the mutual benefits of trade with China in a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday, while acknowledging their disagreements on geopolitical issues.

Christopher Luxon, on his first visit to China since becoming prime minister in late 2023, flew to Beijing after two days of meetings with officials and business leaders in Shanghai, China's commercial center.

The success of a key NATO summit hung in the balance on Friday, after Spain announced that it cannot raise the billions of dollars needed to meet a new defense investment pledge demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump and his NATO counterparts are meeting for two days in the Netherlands from next Tuesday. He insists that U.S. allies should commit to spending at least 5% of gross domestic product, but that requires investment at an unprecedented scale.

Suga, a rapper and songwriter in the global K-pop sensation BTS, has been discharged from South Korea's mandatory military service, marking the official return of all seven members from their enlistment duties.

The label confirmed that Suga completed his alternative service duties on Wednesday after using up his remaining leave. His official discharge date is Saturday.

Carlos Cuesta has become the youngest coach in Serie A in nearly a century after being hired by Parma on Thursday.

It is the 29-year-old Cuesta's first role as a head coach after spending the past five years as an assistant at English Premier League club Arsenal.

Kylian Mbappe was discharged from the hospital Thursday after experiencing an acute case of gastroenteritis, and it was not known when he will be able to play for Real Madrid at the Club World Cup.

Mbappe missed the Spanish giant's opening game of the tournament — a surprise 1-1 draw against Saudi Arabian team Al Hilal in Miami — because of a fever.

Lionel Messi scored his first goal of the expanded Club World Cup on a patented free kick in the 54th minute to break a tie in Inter Miami's 2-1 victory over Porto on Thursday.

Messi was taken down just outside the penalty area by Rodrigo Mora on a run down the middle of the field. With chants of "Messi! Messi!" rocking Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the 37-year-old Argentine star's left-footed blast cleared the wall and sailed into the top right corner.

Pablo Barrios scored twice and Atlético Madrid beat the Seattle Sounders 3-1 on Thursday in the Club World Cup.

Giuliano Simeone found Barrios at the top of the penalty box in transition to open the scoring in the 11th minute.

Hundreds of supporters of Hezbollah gathered in Beirut’s southern suburbs after Friday afternoon prayers to demonstrate in support of Tehran in the ongoing Israel-Iran war.

Demonstrators carried the Iranian, Lebanese and Palestinian flags as well as that of Hezbollah, and chanted "death to America" and "death to Israel." Some also chanted pledges of allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is revered as religious authority by many Shiite Muslims.

Heavy rains have killed at least two people in Brazil 's southern region Rio Grande do Sul, the state's civil defense agency said on Wednesday, just over a year after the region was hit by record-breaking floods.

A 65-year-old man is also missing and more than 2,600 people have been forced to flee their homes, the agency added.

Humans are on track to release so much greenhouse gas in less than three years that a key threshold for limiting global warming will be nearly unavoidable, according to a study to be released Thursday.

The report predicts that society will have emitted enough carbon dioxide by early 2028 that crossing an important long-term temperature boundary will be more likely than not. The scientists calculate that by that point there will be enough of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere to create a 50-50 chance or greater that the world will be locked in to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of long-term warming since preindustrial times. That level of gas accumulation, which comes from the burning of fuels like gasoline, oil and coal, is sooner than the same group of 60 international scientists calculated in a study last year.