The World Health Organization says that the number of reported new COVID-19 cases worldwide decreased by nearly a quarter last week, continuing a decline since the end of March.

The Geneva-based U.N. health agency said in a weekly report that nearly 5.59 million cases were reported between April 11 and 17, 24% fewer than in the previous week. The number of newly reported deaths dropped 21% to 18,215.

For journalist Amer Matar, a decade-long search for his younger brother has defined him and changed the course of his life, now dedicated to researching and documenting crimes committed by the Islamic State group in Syria.

His brother, Mohammed Nour Matar, vanished in Syria's northern city of Raqqa in 2013 while reporting on an explosion that hit the headquarters of an insurgent group. His burnt camera was found at the scene of the blast, and his family soon after got word he was in an IS prison. But there has been no other sign of him since.

Everyone worried this might happen.

In the weeks before a rare confluence of major Jewish, Christian and Muslim holidays, with tens of thousands of visitors expected in Jerusalem for the first time since the pandemic, Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders discussed how to calm tensions.

Europe is struggling to find ways to stop paying Russia $850 million a day for energy and hit the Kremlin's finances over its invasion of Ukraine. Leaders of the 27-member European Union are finding that reversing decades of dependence on Russian oil and natural gas is not a simple matter.

The EU is now discussing sanctions on Russian oil, including a possible boycott. Here is what such a move could mean for people in Europe and the rest of the world:

Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to claim victory in the strategic port of Mariupol on Thursday, even as he ordered his troops not to storm the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the war's iconic battleground.

Russian troops have besieged the southeastern city since the early days of the conflict and largely pulverized it — and top officials have repeatedly indicated it was about to fall, but Ukrainian forces stubbornly held on. In recent weeks, they holed up in a sprawling steel plant, and Russian forces pounded the industrial site and repeatedly issued ultimatums ordering the defenders to surrender.

Iranian intelligence officers arrested three people belonging to a group linked to Israel's Mossad agency and charged with involvement in releasing classified information, state TV reported Thursday.

The report said they were arrested in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan province but didn't identify them or how they had access to classified information.

French President Emmanuel Macron tore into his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen in a television debate Wednesday for her ties to Russia and for wanting to strip Muslim women of their right to cover their heads in public, as he seeks the votes he needs to win another 5-year term.

In their only head-to-head confrontation before the electorate has its say in Sunday's winner-takes-all runoff vote for the presidency, Macron took the gloves off.

Actor Johnny Depp has told jurors that he felt compelled to sue his ex-wife Amber Heard for libel out of an obsession for the truth after she accused him of domestic violence.

"My goal is the truth because it killed me that all these people I had met over the years ... that these people would think that I was a fraud," he said.

Between vast almond orchards and dairy pastures in the heart of California's farm country sits a property being redesigned to look like it did 150 years ago, before levees restricted the flow of rivers that weave across the landscape.

The 2,100 acres (1,100 hectares) at the confluence of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers in the state's Central Valley are being reverted to a floodplain. That means when heavy rains cause the rivers to go over their banks, water will run onto the land, allowing traditional ecosystems to flourish and lowering flood risk downstream.

Japan's weakening yen raised further alarm in Tokyo on Wednesday as the government reported a bigger-than-expected trade deficit largely due to soaring costs for imports of oil, food and other necessities.

The deficit of 412 billion yen ($3.2 billion) for March was lower than the previous month's 670 billion yen but was quadruple analysts' estimates and a reversal of the 615 billion yen surplus recorded a year earlier for the world's third-largest economy.