As guardian of the occupied West Bank's oldest olive tree, Salah Abu Ali prunes its branches and gathers its fruit even as violence plagues the Palestinian territory during this year's harvest.

"This is no ordinary tree. We're talking about history, about civilization, about a symbol," the 52-year-old said proudly, smiling behind his thick beard in the village of Al-Walajah, south of Jerusalem.

President Donald Trump hosted leaders of five Central Asian countries at the White House on Thursday as he intensifies his hunt for rare earth metals needed for high-tech devices, including smartphones, electric vehicles and fighter jets.

Trump and the officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan held bilateral meetings in the Oval Office before having a working dinner.

The 2026 Grammy Award nominations are almost here. And the competition will be stiff.

Nominees will be announced during a video livestream on the Grammy website and the Recording Academy's YouTube channel on Friday at 8 a.m. Pacific and 11 a.m. Eastern.

As French police race to track where the Louvre's stolen crown jewels have gone, a growing chorus wants a brighter light on where they came from.

The artifacts were French, but the gems were not. Their exotic routes to Paris run through the shadows of empire — an uncomfortable history that France, like other Western nations with treasure-filled museums, has only begun to confront.

Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka earned a third straight group-stage win at the WTA Finals by beating Coco Gauff 7-6 (5), 6-2 on Thursday, eliminating her American opponent from the tournament in the process.

Sabalenka's win means Jessica Pegula advanced to the semifinals from the group along with the Belarusian No. 1. Pegula beat Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-3 earlier to take her record to 2-1. Gauff, the defending champion, finished 1-2 while Paolini went 0-3 at the season-ending tournament for the world's top eight players.

The Sudanese army intercepted drones fired overnight by its rival paramilitary group on two cities in Sudan's northeast, a military official said Friday.

The army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the matter, said 15 drones targeted Atbara, a city north of the capital, in River Nile province. He confirmed that strikes caused no casualties. Local media reports said residents heard explosions.

British police said Friday that 11 people were arrested the previous night around the highly charged Europa League football match in Birmingham between English Premier League side Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv, a match that saw fans of the Israeli team banned.

In an update Friday, West Midlands Police said five of those arrested were on suspicion of racially aggravated offenses. The others included failure to comply with orders and breaching the peace.

Shares were mostly lower in Europe following a retreat Friday in Asia after losses for influential technology stocks pulled Wall Street benchmarks lower.

U.S. futures edged higher and oil prices advanced.

Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden were recalled Friday by England coach Thomas Tuchel for the team's upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Serbia and Albania.

The attacking midfielders — two of the country's most talented players — were left out of England's last squad, with Tuchel stressing the need to have a strong team spirit in the camp and warning there would be "no guarantees" for his superstar players.

For more than two years, Sudan's military and a powerful paramilitary force have torn the country apart in a war for power, both digging in against peace efforts even as atrocities mount and starvation spreads. One reason they can keep going is the support each reportedly gets from other nations looking for influence.

International alarm has grown since Oct. 26, when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces seized the key city of el-Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region from the military and reportedly went on a rampage. Witnesses and aid groups say fighters have killed hundreds of civilians, and the fate of thousands more is unknown.