The U.S. and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for resettling Palestinians uprooted from the Gaza Strip under President Donald Trump's proposed postwar plan, American and Israeli officials say.

The contacts with Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland reflect the determination by the U.S. and Israel to press ahead with a plan that has been widely condemned and raised serious legal and moral issues. Because all three places are poor, and in some cases wracked by violence, the proposal also casts doubt on Trump's stated goal of resettling Gaza's Palestinians in a "beautiful area."

Representatives of China, Russia and Iran called Friday for an end to U.S. sanctions on Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program and a restart to multinational talks on the issue.

The talks are the latest attempt to broach the matter and come after U.S. President Donald Trump wrote to Iran's supreme leader in an attempt to jumpstart talks.

U.S. President Donald Trump threw a curve ball at China by linking the fentanyl issue to his tariffs on imports. The Chinese government is swinging back.

First it issued a report detailing its efforts to control the illegal trade in fentanyl, specifically the ingredients for the opioid that are made in China. Then, the Chinese foreign minister blasted the U.S. for responding to Beijing's goodwill with tariffs. And this week, Chinese officials expressed their indignation at a rare background briefing with journalists.

As extreme weather events have hit the world hard in recent years, one meteorology term — atmospheric rivers — has made the leap from scientific circles to common language, particularly in places that have been hit by them.

That stands to reason.

Real Madrid beat Atletico Madrid in a Champions League penalty shootout — again — to keep its title defense alive Wednesday and advance to the quarterfinals.

Defender Antonio Rüdiger scored the decisive spot-kick in a 4-2 shootout win after two Atletico players missed. Marco Llorente's shot struck the bar after Julián Álvarez's score despite slipping was disallowed on video review because he touched the ball twice.

Belgian federal prosecutors said Thursday they have arrested several individuals as part of a corruption probe linked to the European Parliament amid reports in local media that Chinese company Huawei bribed EU lawmakers.

Some 100 federal police officers carried out 21 searches in Brussels as well as in Flanders, Wallonia and Portugal, the federal prosecutor's office said.

Senior European Union officials were in South Africa for a summit Thursday with President Cyril Ramaphosa that centers on bolstering trade and diplomatic ties as both feel the impact of the Trump administration's confrontational foreign policy.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa will meet with Ramaphosa at his Cape Town office in the first EU-South Africa summit since 2018.

Pope Francis marked the 12th anniversary of his papacy Thursday with increasingly positive medical updates four weeks into his hospitalization for double pneumonia.

The pope spent another tranquil night, the Vatican said in its brief morning statement.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio may be walking into unusually unfriendly territory this week when he meets his counterparts from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies — strong American allies stunned by President Donald Trump's actions against them.

Just hours after Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs kicked in — prompting responses from the European Union and Canada and threatening to ignite full-scale trade wars with close U.S. partners — Rubio arrived at the scenic Quebec town of La Malbaie on the St. Lawrence River for two days of talks starting Thursday with the top diplomats of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. All of them have been angered by the new American president's policies.

Vaccines could be a key means of suppressing bird flu and avoiding the slaughter of millions of chickens, which is blamed for egg prices averaging nearly $6 a dozen. But the move has been delayed in part because of concerns it could jeopardize chicken exports worth billions of dollars a year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced plans to spend $100 million to study bird flu vaccines to fight the disease in concert with meat chicken, egg and turkey groups. That's part of a larger $1 billion effort to invest in more protections to keep the virus off farms that President Donald Trump believes will help lower egg prices.