Xavi Hernández, the player who personified the attacking style popularized by Barcelona and Spain's national team, is close to returning to Camp Nou as coach.

Xavi's current employer, Qatari club Al-Sadd, said Friday that the former midfielder would be freed from his coaching contract once his release clause is paid. His current contract runs into 2023.

Germany coach Hansi Flick recalled midfielders Julian Draxler and Julian Brandt on Friday for upcoming World Cup qualifying games against Liechtenstein and Armenia.

The most recent of Draxler's 56 games for Germany was in October 2020 in a 3-3 draw with Switzerland under previous coach Joachim Löw. Brandt last played for his country in November 2020 in a 3-1 victory win over Ukraine.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer likened Cristiano Ronaldo to Michael Jordan after the Portugal star bailed out Manchester United yet again this week in the Champions League.

The United manager could use a bit of Phil Jackson — the "Zen master" former coach of the Chicago Bulls — when they host Manchester City on Saturday in the marquee matchup of weekend games in the English Premier League.

Spain coach Luis Enrique called up Barcelona teenager Ansu Fati on Friday for the national team's decisive World Cup qualifiers against Greece and Sweden.

With two matches remaining, Spain is in second place behind Sweden in their qualifying group. The group winners qualify for the next year's tournament in Qatar, while second-place finishers face a playoff.

Silflower was among native plants that blanketed the vast North American prairie until settlers developed farms and cities. Nowadays confined largely to roadsides and ditches, the long-stemmed cousin of the sunflower may be poised for a comeback, thanks to solar energy.

Researchers are growing silflower at nine solar installations in the Minneapolis area, testing its potential as an oilseed crop. The deep-rooted perennial also offers forage for livestock and desperately needed habitat for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

When a rotten egg smell rises from the mangrove swamps of southeast Mexico, something is going well. It means that this key coastal habitat for blunting hurricane impacts has recovered and is capturing carbon dioxide — the main ingredient of global warming.

While world leaders seek ways to stop the climate crisis at a United Nations conference in Scotland this month, one front in the battle to save the planet's mangroves is thousands of miles (kilometers) away on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

With pledges for a United Nations climate conference, the world may be ever so slightly receding from gloomy scenarios of future global warming, according to two new preliminary scientific analyses Thursday.

The two reports — one by the International Energy Agency and the other by Australian scientists — focused on optimistic scenarios. If all goes right, they said, recent actions will trim two-or three-tenths of a degree Celsius (0.3 to 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit) from projections made in mid-October.

China on Friday criticized a press freedom survey from the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club that found nearly half its members were considering leaving the city.

The survey said the members were concerned about a decline in press freedoms under a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing following massive antigovernmental protests in 2019.

Soon-to-be father Hermann Outrequin felt optimistic in 2019 when he gave up his fishing company job of 16 years to go independent. The Normandy fisherman wanted a fresh start to have time for his newborn son.

But now a political spat over fishing rights between Paris and London has thrown cold water over his plans.

A LGBT advocacy group in China that has spearheaded many of the country's legal cases pushing for greater rights is halting its work for the foreseeable future.

LGBT Rights Advocacy China announced it was ceasing all activities and shutting down its social media accounts in an announcement on social media Thursday.