When Xavi Hernández returned as Barcelona coach four months ago, the team he had helped lead to greatness as a player was struggling to get wins over the most modest of rivals.

After a bumpy start, Xavi now has Barcelona back to playing like a title challenger after a string of big wins that culminated in a 4-0 rout at Real Madrid before a two-week international break.

A convoy of buses headed to Mariupol on Thursday in another attempt to evacuate people from the besieged port city, while Russia pressed its attacks in several parts of Ukraine ahead of a planned new round of talks aimed at ending the fighting.

After the Russian military agreed to a limited cease-fire in the area, the Red Cross said its teams were traveling to Mariupol with relief and medical supplies and hoped to help pull civilians out of the beleaguered city on Friday. Previous attempts at establishing a similar humanitarian corridor have fallen apart.

A Norwegian soccer official delivered a scathing criticism of World Cup host Qatar and FIFA to an audience of executives on Thursday on the eve of the tournament's draw.

Qatar's record of protecting the rights of migrant workers — who have built tens of billion of dollars of projects needed for the World Cup — and its criminalization of homosexuality was aired by Lise Klaveness, the newly elected head of soccer in Norway and one of the few women ever to lead a FIFA member federation.

The world's fair in Dubai, a tech-saturated site teeming with talking robots and solar canopies, sought to be the future.

Now, it's history.

Bruce Willis is stepping away from acting after a diagnosis of aphasia, a condition that causes loss of the ability to understand or express speech, his family said.

In a statement posted on Willis' Instagram page, the 67-year-old actor's family announced that Willis was recently diagnosed with aphasia and that it is impacting his cognitive abilities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has recalled Ukraine’s ambassadors to Georgia and Morocco, suggesting they haven’t done enough to persuade those countries to support Ukraine and punish Russia for the invasion.

“With all due respect, if there won’t be weapons, won’t be sanctions, won’t be restrictions for Russian business, then please look for other work,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation Wednesday. “I am waiting for concrete results in the coming days from the work of our representatives in Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa.”

China's manufacturing activity fell to a five-month low in March after most of Shanghai and two other industrial centers were shut down to fight coronavirus outbreaks, a survey showed Thursday.

The monthly purchasing managers' index of the Chinese statistics agency and an industry group, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, fell to 49.5 from February's 50.2 on a 100-point scale. Numbers below 50 show activity contracting.

The city of Shanghai prepared Thursday to reopen its eastern half and shut its western half, while authorities elsewhere announced the lifting of a citywide lockdown in the province hit hardest by China's ongoing omicron-driven coronavirus outbreak.

Residents of the city of Jilin will be able to move about freely starting Friday for the first time in more than three weeks, state broadcaster CCTV said, citing a notice issued by the city. They will be required to wear masks and, when indoors, stay one meter (three feet) apart. Public gatherings in parks and squares are prohibited.

Sri Lanka's Catholic bishops on Thursday called for unity among the country's politicians, warning that the South Asian island nation is fast becoming a failed state amid its most severe economic crisis in memory.

A foreign exchange crunch in Sri Lanka has led to a shortage of essential goods such as fuel and cooking gas, and power cuts now last up to 13 hours a day.

Severe storms that included at least two confirmed tornadoes have injured several people, damaged homes and businesses and downed power lines in Mississippi and Tennessee after they spread damage in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas overnight before moving to the Deep South.

No deaths had been reported from the storms as of Wednesday evening, officials said.