Top-ranked Ash Barty reached the Adelaide International semifinals with a 6-3, 6-4 win over 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin on Friday and Rafael Nadal advanced in Melbourne via a walkover in tune-up tournaments ahead of the year's first Grand Slam event.

Barty used her usual backhand slice and powerful forehand drive but also hit 17 aces and won 31 of 32 points on her first serve to advance. Barty lost to Kenin in the Australian Open semifinals at Melbourne Park two years ago.

China's lockdowns of big cities to fight coronavirus outbreaks are prompting concern about more disruptions to global industries after two makers of processor chips said their factories were affected.

That has added to unease about the omicron variant's global economic impact. Analysts warn Vietnam, Thailand and other countries important to manufacturing chains might impose anti-disease measures that would delay deliveries.

Consumer prices in the 19 countries that use the euro currency soared at a record rate, led by a surge in food and energy costs, figures showed Friday.

Inflation rose to 5% in December compared with a year earlier, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office. That is the highest level in the eurozone since recordkeeping began in 1997, breaking the record of 4.9% only just set in November.

Budget airline Ryanair said Friday that it plans to stop serving Frankfurt Airport, Germany's busiest, at the end of March. and close its base there.

Ryanair said it is closing its base in Frankfurt and reallocating its five planes there to other airports that "have responded with lower airport charges to stimulate traffic recovery."

A Tunisian ex-justice minister who launched a hunger strike after his arrest a week ago is "stable" in hospital, a doctor said Friday, as Human Rights Watch demanded his release.

Noureddine Bhiri, 63, of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party, was arrested by plainclothes police officers last Friday and later accused of possible "terrorism" offences.

Iran put three ballistic missiles on display at an outdoor prayer esplanade in central Tehran on Friday, as talks in Vienna aimed at reviving Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers flounder.

The missiles, known as Dezful, Qiam and Zolfaghar and with official ranges of up to 1000-km (620 miles), were already-known models, the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said.

Kazakhstan is experiencing the worst street protests the country has seen since gaining independence three decades ago.

The outburst of instability is causing significant concern in Kazakhstan's two powerful neighbors: Russia and China. The country sells most of its oil exports to China and is a key strategic ally of Moscow.

The World Health Organization has said that a record 9.5 million COVID-19 cases were tallied over the last week as the omicron variant of the coronavirus swept the planet, a 71% increase from the previous 7-day period that the U.N. health agency likened to a "tsunami." However, the number of weekly recorded deaths declined.

"Last week, the highest number of COVID-19 cases were reported so far in the pandemic," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. He said the WHO was certain that was an underestimate because of a backlog in testing around the year-end holidays.

Experts say testing is the best way to determine what you have since symptoms of the illnesses can overlap.

The viruses that cause colds, the flu and COVID-19 are spread the same way — through droplets from the nose and mouth of infected people. And they can all be spread before a person realizes they're infected.

New data from the music industry confirms what a lot of people long suspected — 2021 was a very good year for Morgan Wallen, Adele and vinyl.

MRC Data's year-end report, presented in collaboration with Billboard, showed that Wallen's "Dangerous: The Double Album" ended 2021 as both the top country album of the year and the most popular album across all genres, with 3.2 million equivalent album units earned during the year.