The so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators has urged Israel and the Palestinians to address an array of challenges — ongoing violence in the West Bank, the advancement of new settlement units in Palestinian territories, and "the untenable fiscal crisis within the Palestinian Authority."

A statement following an in-person meeting of Quartet envoys from the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia in Norway's capital, Oslo, welcomed steps announced by Israel "to reach out to the Palestinian Authority and to assist with the fiscal crisis."

Ahead of Christmas, a towering wooden screen — once blackened with soot from millions of worshippers' candles — is being restored to its gilded glory in the Church of the Nativity, built at the site where many believe Jesus was born.

But few visitors are expected to see it during the upcoming Christmas holiday season.

President Joe Biden said that the United States was weighing a diplomatic boycott of next year's Winter Olympics in Beijing over China's human rights abuses, a move that would keep American dignitaries, but not athletes, from the games.

Speaking to reporters as he hosted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Oval Office, Biden said backing a boycott of the Olympics in February is "something we're considering."

When Juventus asked players to take salary cuts and deferrals during the coronavirus pandemic, Sami Khedira's curiosity in how the soccer industry works was reignited.

A World Cup winner with Germany in 2014 who spent five seasons at Real Madrid before joining the Italian club, Khedira said this week he was "always interested in the system."

When Xavi Hernández played for Barcelona, a game against Espanyol was normally an easy win.

Now, Espanyol can ruin the former midfielder's return to Camp Nou as coach of his boyhood club.

Stepping barefoot onto the field at Camp Nou Stadium, Dani Alves was cheered by a crowd of more than 10,000 as he was introduced to Barcelona fans again on Wednesday, saying he insisted on returning to help put the Catalan club back on track.

The 38-year-old Brazil defender said he will be ready to fight for a starting spot when he is eligible to play in January.

Apple is letting some iPhone users fix their own phones, a sharp turnaround for a company that has long prohibited anyone but company-approved technicians from fiddling with its proprietary parts and software.

The company said Wednesday that it will enable users of two of the newest iPhone models and eventually some Mac computers to get access to genuine Apple parts and tools for consumer repairs.

Global shares were mixed Thursday after stock indexes shuffled lower on Wall Street.

France's CAC 40 edged up nearly 0.2% in early trading to 7,167.47. Germany's DAX gained 0.2% to 16,275.17. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.2% to 7,277.41. The future for the Dow industrials was trading 0.2% higher, while the future for the S&P 500 added 0.3%.

The British government came under fire Thursday for scrapping a long-planned high-speed rail line to the northern English city of Leeds as part of a package of revisions that reduces costs by tens of billions of pounds.

Critics argue that the scaling back of plans will leave many parts of northern England at an economic disadvantage, and runs against Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson's stated ambition to "level-up" the country, by spreading prosperity away from London and other wealthy parts of southern England.

Scientists have been able to get a rare glimpse into a crucial, early stage of human development by analyzing an embryo in its third week after fertilization — a moment in time that has been difficult to study because of both practical and ethical considerations.

European researchers looked at a single embryo that was 16 to 19 days old, donated by a woman who ended her pregnancy. Until now, experts said, researchers have lacked a full understanding of this stage of development because human embryos at this stage are difficult to obtain. Most women don't yet know they're pregnant by this point and decades-old global guidelines have until recently prohibited growing human embryos in a lab beyond 14 days.