So often reviled for his antics on court, Australia's Nick Kyrgios is now something of a national hero after his box-office performances at Melbourne Park and heartfelt support for the victims of deadly bushfires.
The 24-year-old's apparent newfound maturity was lauded in local media after his four-set victory on Thursday over France's Gilles Simon in the Australian Open second round.
A picture of the 23rd seed punching the air took up half the front page of Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper, proclaiming: "Kyrgios beats demons, wins admirers." He was on the back pages too after his 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 victory, which set up a third-round meeting with Karen Khachanov, the 16th seed from Russia.
There were flashes of the worst of Kyrgios, losing his temper with his court-side coaching team and threatening to unravel as the stubborn Simon refused to lie down.
"I could have gone to a very dark place in the fourth set," the Australian, who has a suspension hanging over him following a litany .

Smitten Australia falls for 'childish brat' Kyrgios

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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp hailed another moment of magic from Roberto Firmino as the Brazilian's late winner opened up a 16-point lead at the top of the Premier League with a 2-1 victory at Wolves on Thursday.
The European champions' now 14-game winning streak in the league seemed set to end as Raul Jimenez cancelled out Jordan Henderson's early opener.
Liverpool were even grateful to goalkeeper Alisson Becker for not falling behind in the second half.
However, like crucial victories against Leicester, Aston Villa and Crystal Palace earlier in the campaign, Liverpool left it late to snatch another vital three points in their quest to end a 30-year wait to win the title as Firmino smashed home six minutes from time.
"You just have to find a way to win and have someone who makes the perfect decision and that was Bobby again," said Klopp.
"A worldie I would say from Bobby, a super goal." Liverpool, who now have 22 wins in 23 league games this season, also have a game in hand over ...

Firmino 'worldie' secures another late Liverpool win at Wolves

Serena Williams will not give up on her chase for a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam title and believes she can still do it, despite crashing out of the Australian Open Friday.
The 38-year-old American legend has been stuck on 23 since winning in Melbourne in 2017, when she was pregnant with daughter Olympia.
She has lost four Slam finals since then, but this time did not get close, dumped out in the third round by China's 27th seed Wang Qiang.
Williams, who was downbeat but not broken, said she will be back on the practice court on Saturday.
"I just made far too many errors to be a professional athlete today," she said.
"I definitely do believe or I wouldn't be on tour," added Williams when asked if she thinks she can still reach Australian Margaret Court's 24 Slams record.
"I don't play just to have fun. To lose is really not fun." Williams dropped just one game in beating Wang in the quarter-finals at the US Open last year, but was stunned 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 7-5 on Friday.
"She served 

'Not cool' but Serena vows to continue 24th Slam quest

A 47-year-old Libyan man who was captured by US special forces in Libya and brought to the United States for trial was sentenced to prison on Thursday for his role in the 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi.
Mustafa al-Imam, who was convicted of terrorism charges and other offenses in June 2019 after a six-week trial, was sentenced to 19 years and six months in prison by a US District Court judge.
US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died in the September 11, 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi and the CIA annex there.
"Each sacrificed his life promoting American ideals," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement, adding that Al-Imam's sentencing "sends a strong message to those who would attempt to commit such a heinous crime."
Imam was captured by US troops in Libya in October 2017 and brought to the United States.
"Imam played an important role in the terrorist attack that destroyed the US mission and the CIA annex in Benghazi," US attorney ...

Libyan sentenced to 19 years in US for Benghazi attack

Lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff called dramatically for the Senate to remove President Donald Trump from office Thursday, saying the US leader cannot be trusted to put the country's interests ahead of his own.
"The American people deserve a president they can count on, to put their interest first," said Schiff.
His impassioned words capped a long day in which Democrats detailed Trump's illicit scheme to pressure Ukraine to help his 2020 reelection campaign.
"You know, you can't trust this president to do what is right for this country. You can trust he will do what's right for Donald Trump," Schiff added.
"He'll do it now. He's done it before. He'll do it for the next several months. He'll do it in the election if he's allowed to. This is why, if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed." "Because right matters. And truth matters. Otherwise we are lost."
As the 100 senators sat as jurors and millions of Americans watched on television, House impeachment .

Trump 'should be removed': impeachment trial

Caroline Wozniacki's glittering tennis career ended in tears at the Australian Open on Friday when she was dumped out by lower-ranked Ons Jabeur of Tunisia.
The Danish former world number one, who announced in December that this would be her final tournament, lost 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 in the third round.
The unseeded 29-year-old brings the curtain down on a career that saw her win 30 WTA titles, with her sole Grand Slam triumph coming in 2018 at Melbourne Park.
"Only fitting that my last match was a three-setter, a grinder, and I finished my career with a forehand error. Those are the things I've been working on my whole career," joked Wozniacki, as she choked back tears.
"Guess this is just how it was meant to be," added the Dane, who began playing tennis aged seven.
Wozniacki, who made her professional debut in 2005, was given a rapturous reception by the Melbourne Arena crowd and was embraced by Jabeur.
"I've had unbelievable experiences on the court, amazing fans and support I've had my .

Wozniacki career ends in tears with defeat at Australian Open

RB Leipzig coach Julian Nagelsmann is trying to ensure the Bundesliga leaders stay alert at Eintracht Frankfurt this weekend amid an intensifying title race by organising a sleep seminar.
Bayern Munich's seven-year domination in Germany is under threat with Leipzig, Gladbach, Dortmund and Schalke all in the hunt for this season's title.
Leipzig travel to mid-table Frankfurt looking to maintain their four-point lead over second-placed Bayern and extend a 13-game unbeaten run in all competitions.
Striker Timo Werner is level with Bayern star Robert Lewandowski as the league's joint top scorer with 20 goals after netting twice in last weekend's 3-1 home win over Union Berlin.
In an effort to squeeze every advantage Nagelsmann brought in sleep experts to brief his squad about getting better rest between games.
"It was about improving sleep quality -- sleeping in the right rhythms and spending less time checking the mobile or watching television in the evening to keep blue light to a ...

No snoozing for leaders Leipzig in title race

He has scored more goals than anyone else in the relatively short history of Paris Saint-Germain and is revered by supporters, but Edinson Cavani now looks set to leave the club before the January transfer window closes.
The Uruguayan is out of contract at the season's end and is reportedly determined to join Atletico Madrid having been relegated to the role of rarely-used substitute in Thomas Tuchel's team. Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has also admitted an interest in the player.
Cavani did not play in Wednesday's 3-0 League Cup semi-final win at Reims because he was, according to Tuchel, "a little bit injured".
It remains to be seen if he will play any part in this weekend's trip to Lille, as the clock ticks down to the transfer window closing on January 31.
With 198 goals since arriving from Napoli in 2013, Cavani long ago overtook old teammate Zlatan Ibrahimovic's mark of 156 to become the club's all-time top scorer.
However, his influence has waned this season, first due to ...

While Cavani heads for exit, PSG hope to tie down breakthrough star

Supporters of volatile Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr prepared on Friday for a "million-strong" march in Baghdad to demand the ouster of US troops, putting the protest-hit capital on edge.
The march has rattled the separate, months-old protest movement that has rocked the capital and Shiite-majority south, where young Iraqis have demanded a government overhaul, early parliamentary elections and more accountability.
After defying violence that has left 470 people dead as well as a spree of kidnappings and intimidations, those protesters fear their cause could be eclipsed by Sadr's powerplay.
"Sadr doesn't represent us," one teenager said defiantly late Thursday on a blocked-off thoroughfare in Baghdad.
America's military presence in Iraq has become a hot-button issue in the country since a US drone strike killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on January 3 outside Baghdad's international airport.
Two days later, parliament voted for all foreign ...

Iraqis apprehensive ahead of cleric's anti-US rally

Barcelona's new era has started with two wins out of two but Saturday's trip to Valencia will provide Quique Setien with his first true test and an opportunity to make his mark.
After squeezing past Granada 1-0 and scoring two late goals to beat Ibiza 2-1, Barca are still without a convincing victory to give their new coach some thrust.
Against Granada, there were clear signs of intent, in the 83 per cent possession and 1,005 attempted passes, both the most seen by a team in La Liga since Pep Guardiola's in 2011.
"I saw a lot of things that I liked today," said Setien.
But dominance did not convert into goals and the winner, scored by Lionel Messi, only came in the 76th minute, after Granada had been reduced to 10 men following the sending off of German Sanchez.
On an artificial pitch and with a weakened team facing inspired, albeit third tier, opposition, Ibiza in the Copa del Rey perhaps always offered little up-side.
But a 94th-minute winner from Antoine Griezmann, who had scored ..

Setien finding his feet as Barca look for lift-off against Valencia

Jessica Korda waited out a late rain delay to cap her six-under-par 66 with her eighth birdie of the day, seizing a two-shot lead over a chasing trio in the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio in Florida on Thursday.
Korda had taken a one-shot lead at five-under with a birdie at her penultimate hole, the eighth, and was playing the ninth when rain halted play.
After a 40-minute delay the American returned and drained a 25-foot birdie putt that put her two up on South Korean Kim Sei-young, Thailand's Patty Tavatanakit and Japan's Yui Kawamoto.
"It's only Thursday, so a lot of golf to be played, but nice to put a good round up there," said Korda, who was pleased to complete her round before darkness halted play with several groups still on the course.
"It's just not wanting to come back in the morning and putt it," she said, adding that it wasn't only the prospect of an early wake up call but also knowing that conditions on the greens would likely be different on Friday morning.
Kim, a 10-time .

Jessica Korda home and dry with first-round LPGA lead

World number one and home favourite Ashleigh Barty said she played her best match this year in blowing away 29th seed Elena Rybakina 6-3, 6-2 to barrel into the Australian Open fourth round Friday.
Barty plays American 18th seed Alison Riske or Julia Goerges -- her doubles partner -- next in Melbourne as she bids to become the first Australian to win the women's title since 1978.
Barty needed just 78 minutes to dispose of the young Kazakh and said: "I felt I needed to be really switched on for this.
"I feel it's the best I've played this summer so far." "This is why I train and work so hard -- to come out here, I'm loving every minute," added the 23-year-old, who won the title in Adelaide before the Australian Open.
Barty was broken in her first service game at an expectant Rod Laver Arena, but the Australian top seed immediately broke back.
She exchanged breaks with the Moscow-born Rybakina again before Barty held serve for a 3-2 lead, then broke the 20-year-old for 4-2.
Rybakina, ...

Brutal Barty demolishes Rybakina to reach Melbourne last 16

Rafael Nadal insisted "I really don't care" after Nick Kyrgios turned up the heat on their simmering rivalry by mimicking the Spaniard's signature serving routine.
Kyrgios theatrically copied Nadal's laborious pre-serve ticks during his Australian Open second round clash against Gilles Simon, pretending to tuck his hair behind his ears and picking at his underwear.
Even the umpire had to chuckle at Kyrgios, who had been penalised for taking too long to serve. Kyrgios's opponent did his own Nadal impression when he was also warned for slow serving, sending the Australian into giggles.
But Nadal, who has history with Kyrgios, brushed off the impersonation.
"I am here to play tennis. Honestly, I don't care at all. If was funny, good. That's it," said the Spaniard.
Kyrgios has a testy relationship with Nadal. Last year he described the world number one as "super salty" after the 19-time Grand Slam winner accused him of lacking respect.
"There wasn't any extracurricular activities I was ...

Mimic Kyrgios serves up fresh dig at rival Nadal

Tiger Woods, seeking an unprecedented 83rd career US PGA Tour victory, fired a three-under par 69 that left him three off the first-round lead shared by Sebastian Cappelen and Keegan Bradley at Torrey Pines.
At the famed tract north of San Diego, where the 44-year-old American has previously captured eight titles, Woods closed with a five-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole of Torrey Pines' North Course, with golfers also competing on the harder-playing South Course.
"Overall, I'm pleased to shoot in the 60s. The course was gettable today," Woods said. "I felt like I hit the ball well.
"I'm very pleased to get something in the red and get over to south tomorrow."
Sixth-ranked Woods matched US legend Sam Snead for the all-time US PGA title record on 82 by winning last October's Zozo Championship in Japan and this is his first opportunity to claim sole possession of the mark.
Woods, who won his 15th major title at the Masters last April, broke 70 in an opening round at Torrey Pines for ..

Tiger opens with solid 69 as Cappelen, Bradley share Torrey Pines lead

Atletico Madrid were knocked out of the Copa del Rey on Thursday, defeated 2-1 in extra-time by third division Cultural Leonesa.
Atletico, who are third in La Liga and are looking forward to a Champions League clash next month against Liverpool, were one of four top-flight sides dumped out of the tournament on Thursday at the last 32 stage.
Argentine striker Angel Correa put them in front in the 62 minutes before Leonesa levelled seven minutes from the end through Julen Castaeda.
Sergio Benito then delievered the winner for the hosts in the second period of extra-time.
Defeat completes a miserable January for Diego Simeone's Atletico who were defeated in the Spanish Super Cup by Real Madrid and 2-0 at Eibar in La Liga last weekend.
"The responsibility is mine alone," admitted Simeone.
"Cultural deserved the victory, we had no forcefulness." Also exiting the Copa del Rey on Thursday were Eibar, Real Betis and Celta Vigo.

Atletico suffer extra-time Cup misery at third-division Leonesa

US President Donald Trump will sign the new North American trade pact with Mexico and Canada next week, a White House official said Thursday.
The USMCA, the fruit of years of negotiation between the three key trading partners, is billed as an update to the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump had long lambasted as a job killer and threatened to scrap outright.
The US Senate approved the pact last week and White House officials said Trump will sign it Wednesday.
The earlier NAFTA created a vast free-trade zone across North America, leading to radical shifts in the makeup of industries in the three countries and vastly increasing cross-border exchanges in goods, services and people.
While the agreement produced winners and losers in some areas, economists say overall it increased growth and raised the standard of living in North America.
The new deal changes content rules on auto manufacturing and requires higher salaries for some Mexican auto workers.
It also makes ...

Trump to sign trade accord with Mexico, Canada next week: White House

- The United States has rejected a request by the UK government to extradite the wife of a diplomat who was involved in a car accident that killed a teenager, the British government said Friday.
The case of Anna Sacoolas, 42, has been a thorn in London's close relations with Washington, stirring up debates over the limits of diplomatic immunity in cases unrelated to national security.
"We are disappointed in this decision, which appears to be a denial of justice," a spokeswoman for the Home Office said.
"We are urgently considering our options." Briton Harry Dunn died in August when his motorbike collided with a car driving on the wrong side of the road near an airbase in Northamptonshire, central England, which is used by the US military as a communications hub.
Sacoolas admitted in October to being the driver, but has cited immunity while refusing to return to Britain to face justice, as Dunn's parents demand.
The parents of the 19-year-old were informed of Mike Pompeo's decision in 

US refuses to extradite diplomat's wife over teen's death: British govt

At his nearly century-old diner in the western Ohio town of Defiance, third-generation owner Karl Kissner has turned on Fox News for live coverage of President Donald Trump's impeachment trial.
For his many customers who aren't interested, the other TV sets at Kissner's are on The Weather Channel and the Food Network.
A Trump supporter who says he doesn't push his politics on patrons, Kissner says he hears "snide" comments about impeachment -- but, usually, nothing at all.
"The majority of what I'm seeing here is that people are ignoring it. Or they're looking up at it, saying, 'Oh, that's on again,' and moving on with their conversations," he said.
As the US election season opens, a team of AFP journalists is taking the political pulse of the country by driving from Washington to Iowa, which on February 3 holds the nation's first contest to select presidential nominees.
From a cluttered barber shop in Pennsylvania steel country to a cozy winery off Lake Erie, television sets are ...

Watching impeachment from afar, same divide but little persuasion

President Donald Trump opened a new front in his battle against immigration on Thursday, barring the issuing of visas to pregnant women seeking to enter the United States for so-called "birth tourism."
In announcing the move, which takes effect Friday, the White House said foreigners were using the visas "to secure automatic and permanent American citizenship for their children by giving birth on American soil."
"The integrity of American citizenship must be protected," White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.
Temporary B-1 and B-2 visitor visas would no longer be issued to "aliens seeking to enter the United States for 'birth tourism,'" the White House said.
Calling the practice "a glaring immigration loophole," it argued that the crackdown on "birth tourism" was for public safety and national security as well as to maintain the "integrity of our immigration system."
"The birth tourism industry threatens to overburden valuable hospital resources and is rife with 

US to limit visas for pregnant women to curb 'birth tourism'

China locked down some 20 million people at the epicentre of a deadly virus outbreak on Thursday, but the World Health Organization said the disease did not yet constitute a global health emergency.
The respiratory virus has claimed 18 lives since emerging from a seafood and animal market in the central city of Wuhan, infected hundreds of other people and been detected as far away as the United States.
The new virus has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.
But after two days of talks to determine the level of global concern, the World Health Organization on Thursday stopped short of declaring a so-called public health emergency of international concern -- declaration used for the gravest epidemics.
"This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.
WHO had ...

China locks down cities to curb virus, but WHO says no global emergency

Authorities in Texas are investigating a second suspected case on US soil of a new and deadly Chinese virus, officials said Thursday.
Brazos County, northwest of Houston, "is investigating a suspected case of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)," officials wrote in a statement on Facebook.
"The patient traveled from Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus originated," the statement added.
"Health care providers were aware of public health guidance on novel coronavirus and quickly recognized that the patient met the criteria for coronavirus testing and is being kept isolated at home, while the precautionary testing is done." A blood sample from the patient has to be tested by technicians at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) before the case if confirmed.
If the case is confirmed, the patient would be the second person to be infected with the pathogen on US soil after a man in his 30s near Seattle reported himself to authorities on January 19.
He is said to be ...

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