Although Spain arrived at this year's World Cup as a championship favorite and then went unbeaten through group play, those first three matches weren't overly impressive.

When the knockout rounds finally arrived Thursday, this star-studded team turned on its full talent and served notice that Spain can be just as good as everybody thought — and it's probably getting better.

Knockout matches continue Wednesday at the World Cup in the round of 32 with 2010 champion Spain advancing with a 3-0 victory over Austria in Inglewood, California, just outside Los Angeles. Portugal, led by Cristiano Ronaldo in his sixth World Cup tournament, edged 2018 finalist Croatia 2-1 in Toronto, while Switzerland beat Algeria 2-0 in Vancouver, British Columbia in the late game.

Despite severe fuel shortages across Russia, President Vladimir Putin appears unbothered by Ukraine's increasing attacks on his country's oil refineries.

He has shrugged off the setback for one of the world's leading oil producing nations as "not critical," dismissed ceasefire proposals and insisted the war will continue until his goals are met.

Months after the killing of Iran's supreme leader at the start of its war with the United States and Israel, mourners will hold a dayslong funeral and burial for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The mourning period will see Khamenei's body carried through cities in both Iran and neighboring Iraq. Iran's theocracy likely will encourage the public, government employees and paramilitary forces to fill the streets in his honor.

China and the European Union will hold ministerial-level trade talks once or twice a year, China's Commerce Ministry said Thursday, as the two sides work to increase and rebalance trade.

The EU faces growing pressure to reduce its trade deficit with China, which widened to about 360 billion euros ($410 billion) last year, nearly 1 billion euros a day. Chinese cars and batteries are among items increasingly exported to Europe.

Iran's joint military command warned Thursday that all oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz must use its approved routes or face a "forceful response," again ratcheting up tensions over a waterway crucial for international energy supplies.

The strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, has emerged as one of the top issues in negotiations to reach a permanent end to the Iran war. The statement from the Khatam al-Anbiya military command, reported by Iranian state television, comes after both U.S. and Iranian diplomats met with mediators on Wednesday in Qatar.

Wildfires raged in the south of France on Thursday after weeks of dry weather and record temperatures across the country, devastating large swaths of land.

The biggest fire spread in the Aude and Herault regions, where up to 800 firefighters and 150 vehicles were deployed to tackle the flames that ran over 900 hectares (2,200 acres), local authorities said.

It was the deadliest reported strike in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Most of the victims were children.

In almost any other conflict, these haunting truths would be seared into national memory. Yet more than 120 days since at least one U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school, there remains no final accounting of what happened.

The real estate mogul has become the billion-dollar crypto man.

President Donald Trump's latest financial disclosure report showed he took in about $1.2 billion last year from various crypto holdings, overshadowing a real estate business that brought him fame and helped propel him to the nation's top office.

U.S. President Donald Trump's attacks on Italy's premier have had an unintended consequence.

After Trump questioned Italy's reliability as a wartime ally and claimed Giorgia Meloni had groveled for his attention, European leaders rallied to Meloni's side, thawing what had been a frosty relationship over her hard-right political roots.