ZURICH (AP) — A FIFA fund to compensate for unpaid wages helped 225 players in the latest round of payments, including 61 in Portugal and 50 in Greece, the governing body of soccer said Friday.

The $16 million FIFA Fund for Football Players was created in 2020 with the FIFPRO player union. Some clubs were suspected of closing down to avoid paying salaries and then re-started anew as a “phoenix” operation.

FIFA allocated $4 million to applications for financial help from the 2021 calendar year.

May 12 (Reuters) - A former U.S. Marine who killed a homeless man by putting him in a chokehold on the New York City subway was taken into custody at a police precinct on Friday and was expected to be arraigned on a manslaughter charge.

A viral video showed the former Marine, identified as Daniel Penny, putting 30-year-old Jordan Neely in a chokehold on May 1 while they rode on the F train in Manhattan. Neely died from a compression of the neck, the medical examiner said, but Penny's lawyers said he did not mean to kill him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans passed a sweeping bill Thursday to build more U.S.-Mexico border wall and impose new restrictions on asylum seekers, creating a hard-line counter to President Joe Biden’s policies just as migrants are amassing along the border with the end of coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

The bill has virtually no chance of becoming law. Democrats, who have a narrow hold on the Senate, have decried the aggressive measures in the bill as “cruel” and “anti-immigrant,” and Biden has already promised he would veto it.

BERLIN (AP) — A man opened fire at a Mercedes-Benz factory in southwestern Germany on Thursday, leaving two people dead, authorities and the company said.

The shooting occurred in Sindelfingen, a city near Stuttgart. The suspect, a 53-year-old Turkish citizen, was taken into custody, the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office said.

Police received the first emergency calls around 7:45 a.m. (0545 GMT; 1:45 a.m. EDT) on Thursday, prosecutors said in a statement.

BANGKOK (AP) — Voters disaffected by nine years of plodding rule by a coup-making army general are expected to deliver a strong mandate for change in Thailand’s general election Sunday. But a predicted victory by the allies of Thaksin Shinawatra, whose ouster by coup 17 years ago plunged the country into prolonged instability, has caused concern for an unhindered democratic transition.

MOSCOW, May 12 (Reuters) - The commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet has said its defences are being tightened amid a flurry of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting its home base, the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

Vice Admiral Viktor Sokolov told Friday's edition of the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda ("Red Star"): "In connection with the threat of attacks by robotic surface and underwater systems, we have increased the technical defences of the fleet's main base and of the ships' anchorages."

WASHINGTON, May 12 (APP):A prosperous and strong, democratic Pakistan is critical to U.S. interests, a State Department spokesperson said Thursday, while reiterating that it does not have a position on one candidate or the other or one political party versus another.

“We continue to monitor the situation in Pakistan closely,” Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters at his daily press briefing in response to a series of questions about the latest developments in the South Asian country.

ANKARA, May 12 (Xinhua) -- Negotiations to extend a Black Sea Grain Initiative were nearing an agreement after two days of talks in Istanbul between Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish and UN officials, Türkiye's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Friday.

"As part of the first information received, the meeting in Istanbul was positive. We are heading toward an agreement on the extension of the grain deal," Akar said in a statement.

MOSCOW, May 12. /TASS/: Russia welcomes mutually beneficial political, economic and cultural partnership, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a message to participants of the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPILF).

"Russia has been invariably in favor of building a mutually beneficial partnership in the political and security sphere, in the economy, science, culture and sports," Putin said in the message uploaded to the Kremlin website on Friday.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa’s foreign ministry summoned the U.S. Ambassador to a meeting Friday over allegations he made a day earlier that the country had provided arms and ammunition to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Amid the diplomatic fallout over the allegations by the United States, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor will also speak with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (effectively the foreign ministry), said in a statement posted by spokesman Clayson Monyela on Twitter.

TEHRAN, May 12 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran and Iraq have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), on cooperation in implementing oil industry projects, the Shana News Agency, affiliated to the Iranian Oil Ministry, reported yesterday.

The deal was signed by Iranian Oil Minister, Javad Owji, and his Iraqi counterpart, Hayan Abdel-Ghani, at the end of a meeting, attended by the two ministers, as well as, Iraq’s Prime Minister, Shia’ al-Sudani, in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad on Wednesday night, the report said.

KYIV, May 12 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had attacked Russian positions along almost 100 km (60 miles) of the front line near Soledar, a small mining town near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine that Moscow's forces seized in January.

As anticipation grows of a Ukrainian counteroffensive aiming to drive Moscow's forces out of the land they have seized in the last 15 months, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar confirmed earlier reports that Ukraine had made some gains near Bakhmut, but appeared to play down suggestions of a wider push.