David Beckham lit up a subdued transfer deadline day in Europe by securing perhaps the final move of his globetrotting career, a surprise short-term deal with ambitious French club Paris Saint-Germain.

Mario Balotelli, a headline-grabber at the opposite end of his football career, finalized his switch from Manchester City to AC Milan for €20 million ($27 million). Otherwise, there was plenty of speculation but precious little activity as another January window closed for business on Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused on Thursday Iran and Hizbullah of playing an increasingly prominent role in the Syrian war.

The U.S. is "disturbed by increasing Iranian and Lebanese Hizbullah activities" in Syria, Clinton told reporters on the eve of her last day as secretary of state.

The death toll in an explosion at the headquarters of Mexico's state-own oil giant Pemex rose to 32 on Friday as rescuers dug through the rubble while the cause of the blast remained a mystery.

Hundreds of firefighters, police and soldiers toiled through the night after the blast ripped through an annex of Pemex's 54-floor tower on Thursday, leaving huge pieces of broken concrete on the ground and injuring 121 people.

A truck carrying fireworks ahead of Chinese New Year celebrations exploded and destroyed part of an elevated highway Friday in central China, killing at least 26 people as it sent vehicles plummeting 30 meters to the ground, state media said.

The huge blast destroyed an 80-meter stretch of highway outside the city of Sanmenxia in Henan province, and was powerful enough to shatter windows of a nearby truck stop.

A federal jury found a man guilty of federal terrorism charges on Thursday, rejecting the defense team's argument that Mohamed Mohamud was entrapped or induced by a yearlong FBI sting that began to target him when he was a teenager.

Mohamud was accused of leading a plot to detonate a bomb at Portland's 2010 Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. But the device he thought was a bomb was a fake, supplied by undercover FBI agents posing as members of al-Qaida.

It was the place where Jewish women did their ritual bathing. It was a tuberculosis clinic. It survived the German onslaught and became a gathering point for Holocaust survivors.

Now "the white building," the headquarters of the Jewish community and one of the few surviving remnants of the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, could be torn down to make way for a multistory tower that would fit seamlessly into a modern city skyline.

A Malian military spokesman said on Thursday that four soldiers died and five others were wounded when their vehicle hit a land mine in eastern Mali.

Modibo Traore told The Associated Press that the soldiers were killed Wednesday evening in the town of Gossi.

Chinese companies plan to step up investment this year in Europe, which some see as more welcoming than the United States, a European business group said Thursday.

The report by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China comes as Europe courts Chinese investment in hopes of generating new jobs and shedding its economic malaise.

CBS says the big reveal is coming for "How I Met Your Mother."

The network said Wednesday the sitcom will air its ninth and final season next fall.

The vandals that damaged a U.S. cemetery this week have pleaded "moo."

Police say a small herd of cows knocked over 40 flags and veterans' grave markers, then snacked on a few flower arrangements, at the Center Cemetery in Massachusetts on Monday.