Neymar set up the first two goals with curling set pieces as Paris Saint-Germain won their French League Cup semi-final 3-0 away to Reims on a chilly Wednesday night.
PSG will face Lyon, who beat Lille on penalties on Tuesday, in the final at the Stade de France on April 4.
This was PSG's second cup match in three days and coach Thomas Tuchel continued to shuffle his squad.
Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, who were unused substitutes as PSG won in the French Cup at Lorient on Sunday, started while Mauro Icardi and Angel di Maria who began that game, shivered on the bench on a below-freezing evening in Champagne country.
The home team, lying eight in Ligue 1, 20 points behind PSG, also made changes from its last league game, as coach David Guion reshuffled his midfield.
Neymar set up the first goal for his fellow Brazilian Marquinhos, another star brought back after a coach-enforced rest, after nine minutes.
Marquinhos, playing in central defence and as captain, raced in to meet an ...

Neymar sets up two goals as PSG cruise into League Cup final

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Coronavirus

Passengers who spoke with reporters at the airport seemed largely unfazed by the crisis, and the media attention

Coronavirus: In last flight from Wuhan, 'everyone was wearing masks'

Press Trust of India

International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) president Tamas Ajan agreed late Wednesday to relinquish his duties for 90 days while an independent investigation into allegations of corruption and doping violations are carried out.
Ursula Papandrea, the president of USA Weightlifting, will take over veteran Ajan's role in an acting capacity until April, said an IWF statement issued late Wednesday in Doha after a 13-hour emergency meeting of the organisation's executive board.
German broadcaster ARD alleged in a documentary earlier this month that a "culture of corruption" had been established in the Olympic sport with prominent weightlifters rarely subjected to drugs tests and cash being taken by doping controllers to accept manipulated urine samples.
The IWF executive board agreed to appoint independent experts to assess the allegations, a move it claimed would act "decisively" to restore the governing body's battered reputation.
"This work is expected to be completed during a 90-day ..

Under-fire weightlifting chief steps aside for corruption probe

Boeing Chief Executive David Calhoun sought to pivot from a bruising period of crisis and scandal on Wednesday, pledging a renewed commitment to safety and transparency and endorsing the long-term viability of the 737 MAX plane.
"I commit to you to be more accessible than the team has been," Calhoun said at the outset of an hour-long conference call with reporters, the first such event with a Boeing executive since the MAX was grounded in March following two deadly crashes.
Calhoun vowed a "safety first" culture and promised investment in the firm's engineers, who critics say have lost influence in the company's zeal to boost its share price.
Without safety "there is no shareholder value, there is no profit-sharing," Calhoun said a day after the company's decision to push back the timeframe for the MAX's return until at least midyear.
Calhoun reaffirmed his commitment to the MAX, saying "I believe in this airplane" and pointing to positive feedback from pilots as he dismissed ...

New CEO stands by 737 MAX, eyeing reset at troubled Boeing

A water-bombing plane may have crashed while fighting a massive bushfire in mountains near Sydney, Australian authorities said, as blazes flared across the country Thursday.
The New South Wales Rural Fire Service said it was "investigating reports of a serious incident involving an aircraft in southern NSW this afternoon".
"Contact was lost with a large air tanker which was working in the Snowy Monaro area," the agency said in a statement.
"Local ground crews indicate the aircraft may have crashed. A number of helicopters are in the area carrying out a search." The bushfire in the Snowy Mountains, about five hours from Sydney, is burning across almost 94,000 hectares (230,000 acres).
High temperatures and strong winds have fuelled an outbreak of new blazes across several areas in eastern Australia, ending a period of respite following several days of rains and cooler weather.
The country has been battling an unprecedented wave of wildfires since September that have devastated ...

Firefighting plane 'may have crashed' while battling Australia blaze

Brendan Rodgers hopes Jamie Vardy will not be sidelined for long after Leicester's leading scorer limped off during 4-1 win against West Ham.
Vardy was hurt while chasing a pass in the first half at the King Power Stadium on Wednesday.
He was treated for several minutes before trying to resume playing, a move which lasted just seconds before he again fell to the turf clutching his leg.
This time the 33-year-old was forced to come off as Kelechi Iheanacho replaced him in a game where Leicester were leading 2-0 at half-time.
Vardy is the Premier League's top scorer with 17 goals this term and would be huge miss if he is out for an extended period.
But, speaking after the match, Rodgers said: "It is not his hamstring which is good. Hopefully over the next couple of days it will ease off and he will be fit.  "Jamie is a real talisman for the team but if we are going to have success it is about the team.
"He hasn't played for us in a number of games and the team has still played well but ..

Rodgers eases Vardy injury fears

Juventus coach Maurizio Sarri complimented Cristiano Ronaldo's mother as the Portuguese star extended his scoring streak in a 3-1 win over Roma to advance to the Italian Cup semi-finals.
The Portuguese star picked up a Gonzalo Higuain cross after 26 minutes, finishing off from an angle in the Allianz Stadium on Wednesday.
It was the 34-year-old's 12th goal in eight consecutive games in which he has played in all competitions for the Turin giants but his first in the Italian Cup.
The five-time Ballon d'Or winner has also scored seven goals in four matches played in 2020.
"I believe that the compliments should be made to his mother," said Sarri of Ronaldo who has now scored in 15 different club competitions throughout his career.
"He is in super form physically. In terms of explosiveness he is doing well, he takes great care of the details.
"It is difficult to improve on an individual level. We are talking about one of the greatest of all time and I would like to help him win a sixth ...

Mum's the word as Ronaldo fires Juventus into Italian Cup semi-finals

John Millman is prepared to do anything to get an edge over Roger Federer, and that includes cheekily requesting their crunch Australian Open third round match is played on a court other than Rod Laver Arena.
Befitting his status, the Swiss master, making a 21st appearance at Melbourne Park, almost always plays on the centre court where he has won six titles, and Millman is keen to disrupt his momentum.
"More so just to throw a spanner in the works for Roger," said the Australian, who memorably beat Federer over four gruelling sets at the US Open in 2018.
"I don't know if he knows the other courts. He hits on the outside ones, but he hasn't played too many. I don't know if he would have played too many matches on the outside ones."
Federer insisted he'll play the third-round match wherever he's told to.
"Look, I don't choose which court I play on," said the 38-year-old.
"You would think a match like this should be played at Rod Laver Arena maybe.
"He knows Margaret Court Arena better, 

'Spanner in the works' - Millman requests court change against Federer

Two of the most exciting young talents in tennis take centre stage at the Australian Open on Friday when 15-year-old American Coco Gauff takes on reigning champion Naomi Osaka.
It will be just the second instalment of a budding rivalry that could light up tennis for the next decade or more, having met for the first time at the US Open last year.
The 38-year-old Serena Williams still reigns over the women's game but Osaka, 22, has been touted as a possible successor in the short term, and Gauff as the longer-term heir apparent.
They have a long way to go to get anywhere near Williams's success and stature, but can press their claims when they meet in the third round in Melbourne.  Williams, chasing a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam title, could await in the quarter-finals.
Williams was hugely impressed by what she saw in Gauff at a pre-season training camp, saying that she was "nowhere near her level at 15 either on the court or off the court, not even close".
Gauff stunned Williams's 

Future of women's tennis on display in Coco v Osaka part II

Heartbroken Jelena Ostapenko was knocked out of the Australian Open on Thursday after taking the difficult decision to play despite the sudden death of her father.
The 22-year-old former French Open champion, whose father Jevgenijs passed away earlier this month, had said playing in Melbourne was the best way to take her mind off her loss.
She pulled out of a tournament in Auckland at the start of the year and flew home to Latvia, but decided to play in the Australian Open where she was beaten by Belinda Bencic in the second round.
Her father had driven her to the airport for the flight to Auckland and had been buoyed by her return to form, having slumped since winning the 2017 French Open.
"My dad was always believing in me," she told the official Australian Open website before Thursday's match. "I decided to play (in Melbourne) because I will be busy with something.
"If I stay home I think it's gonna push me even more and will be even harder for me."
Ostapenko beat Liudmila ...

'It's very hard': grieving Ostapenko beaten at Australian Open

An Australian Open that has been hit by weather extremes faced a new challenge on Thursday: dirty rain, after overnight downpours left courts muddy and unplayable.
Workers armed with squeegees and high-pressure hoses rushed to clean the dirty surfaces, delaying matches by more than two hours on most of the courts.
"Due to the rain and dust overnight the outside courts need high pressure cleaning," organisers tweeted.
"Our team is working across Melbourne Park to prepare the outside courts for play," they added.
The dirty rain, blamed on smoke hanging in the air from Australia's raging bushfires, is just the latest hazard at a tournament that has been beset by meteorological mishaps.
Smog from the deadly wildfires hit hazardous levels during qualifying, leaving players with coughing fits and breathing problems and triggering a rash of complaints.  Although the haze cleared before the tournament's start on Monday it was replaced by torrential rain, which wiped out half of the day's ...

Mud stops play: after smog, wind, rain, new challenge for Aussie Open

At least one person was killed and five others were critically injured on Wednesday after gunfire broke out in downtwon Seattle, near a popular tourist area, police said.
Local media said at least one suspect was being sought in connection with the mass shooting that took place near a McDonalds fast food restaurant, just blocks away from the Pike Place Market.
It was the third shooting in the area in less than two days.
"Officers investigating shooting near 4th and Pine," the Seattle Police Department said in a tweet. "Multiple victims. The suspect has fled, and police are searching for him.
Officers and medics are providing first aid to the injured." Local media quoted police chief Carmen Best as saying that one person had been killed and five others, including a child, were critically wounded in the shooting that occurred shortly after 5:00 pm.
Police ordered people to stay out of the area and shut down a subway station as they searched for a suspect.
Tyler Parsons, an employee at ..

At least one killed, several injured in Seattle mass shooting

Actor Cuba Gooding Jr will stand trial April 21 on charges he groped three women, a judge ruled Wednesday, in the latest #MeToo case to reach the courts.
The 52 year old actor is accused of inappropriately touching one of the women in a restaurant in Manhattan in September 2018.
He is also accused of pinching a second woman's buttocks at a nightclub the next month and of grabbing another woman's breast without her consent at a New York bar in June 2019.
Gooding, who won the Oscar for best supporting actor in 1997 for the American football movie "Jerry Maguire," has pleaded not guilty to six charges against him, with the three main ones each carrying the potential for one year in prison.
Judge Curtis Farber of the New York Supreme Court also ruled on Wednesday that the prosecution could call two other women as witnesses during the trial.
They claim they are also victims of Gooding, though their accusations are not the subjects of criminal proceedings.
Farber, however, ruled against ...

Actor Cuba Gooding to stand trial in April

The former CEO of the embattled Recording Academy, the institution behind the Grammys, on Wednesday rejected as "ludicrous and untrue" his ousted successor's allegations that he raped an unnamed foreign female musician.
Neil Portnow's denial comes one day after Deborah Dugan filed an explosive discrimination complaint against the Academy, which included the rape allegation, days after she was put on leave -- and just before Sunday's Grammy awards.
Dugan's bombshell 44-page filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Los Angeles claims she was suspended after raising concerns of sexual harassment, voting irregularities and other misconduct within one of music's most powerful organizations.
Portnow -- who stepped down as CEO after 17 years at the helm, amid outrage over his controversial comments that women artists should "step up" to gain more recognition for their work -- said Dugan's filing "is filled with inaccurate, false and outrageous and terribly hurtful claims ...

Former Grammy head flatly denies rape allegation

A court in Toronto on Wednesday ordered Volkswagen to pay a fine of Can$196.5 million (US$150 million) after the automaker pleaded guilty to violating environmental laws in the emissions cheating scandal.
The court accepted an agreement that the German automaker reached with the Canadian government, which in December filed a 60-count indictment against the company.

Volkswagen in Canada ordered to pay CAN$196.5 mn over emissions scandal

Venezuela's government on Wednesday said the country's homicide rate fell dramatically last year.
It went from 33 murders per 100,000 inhabitants to 21, for a drop of 37 percent, Interior and Justice Minister Nestor Reverol said without offering an explanation for the decline.
These figures are at odds, however, with those of an NGO called the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, which said in December that there were 60.3 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2019.
It said 32 percent of homicides happened during police operations against suspected criminals.
The government classifies those cases as deaths "resisting authority" and does not include them in its murder statistics.
The government said there were 17,849 such deaths through resisting authority from 2016 to last May.
The violence observatory said there were 16,506 murders in 2019 in the country of 30 million.
Reverol accused the observatory of "distorting" its figures as part of a "war against the government." The UN Office on ...

Venezuela says murder rate down sharply in 2019

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday railed against anti-Semitism, saying it "haunts our present time", during a visit to Jerusalem to commemorate Holocaust victims.
The French leader is in Jerusalem ahead of a gathering of world leaders there on Thursday, to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.
In a message to Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre, which will host the high-profile event, Macron spoke of "citizens of France and elsewhere (who) are targeted because they are Jewish.
"This return of hatred haunts our present time," he said in the text published by Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.
Combatting anti-Semitism is a key theme of Thursday's event, which will remember more than one million Jews killed at Auschwitz during World War II.
"This fight against anti-Semitism, I lead it every day by tackling it in speeches, in behaviour, on the internet," said Macron.
He invited digital platforms and public authorities, as well as ...

France's Macron slams anti-Semitism on Jerusalem visit

The World Health Organization said Wednesday the measures China is taking to rein in an outbreak of a deadly SARS-like virus would "minimise" the risk of further international spread.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hailed the "very, very strong measures" being taken by China after Beijing said it was halting flights and trains from Thursday out of Wuhan, the city of 11 million people at the centre of the outbreak that has sickened hundreds and killed 17 people.
The measures will "minimise the chances of this outbreak spreading internationally," he told reporters in Geneva.

WHO says Chinese measures 'minimising' risk of virus spreading internationally

Democrats began laying out a detailed case on Wednesday for the removal of President Donald Trump, accusing him at his historic Senate impeachment trial of seeking to cheat to ensure re-election in November.
Adam Schiff, the head of the prosecution team from the House of Representatives, took the floor of the Senate for opening arguments after lawmakers were told by the sergeant-at-arms to remain silent "on pain of imprisonment."
"President Trump solicited foreign interference in our democratic elections, abusing the powers of his office to seek help from abroad to improve his re-election prospects at home," the California lawmaker told a hushed chamber.
"And when he was caught, he used the powers of that office to obstruct the investigation into his own misconduct," said Schiff, who headed the probe that led to Trump's December 18 impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House.
Schiff shrugged off Republican arguments that American voters -- and not the Senate -- should decide ...

Trump sought to cheat to win re-election, Democrats charge at trial

- President Donald Trump is counting on a strong US economy to seal his reelection victory but the Boeing crisis and ongoing trade frictions could undermine that strategy.
Trump on Wednesday criticized Boeing as a "very disappointing company" because of the aerospace giant's recent problems after the worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX plane, which is having knock-on effects for the broader economy.
He also has lashed out at the Federal Reserve for mishandling monetary policy and keeping borrowing costs too high, which he says is likewise holding back the US economy.
Other scapegoats include Europe and China, which he says use trade policies to take advantage of or steal from the United States, and any country with a weak currency against the US dollar.
And as the impeachment trial against him proceeds in the Senate, Trump of course has blamed Democrats for a political attack that is distracting from his policy priorities.
However, no matter whom he chooses to cast as a culprit, the ...

Boeing hit to US economy a worry for Trump reelection bid

In explaining his decision to give up his work as a senior member of Britain's royal family, Prince Harry laid part of the blame at the feet of the media, which he called a "powerful force."
Indeed, in a 2017 BBC documentary, Harry decried the paparazzi who hounded his mother Diana as a "pack of dogs." He surely hoped that with a move to Canada, the family could tame the tabloid scrum.
But sure enough, journalists from as far away as Australia have arrived on Vancouver Island, and pictures of Harry's wife Meghan walking the dogs, their son Archie strapped to her, quickly surfaced.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have threatened legal action over the pictures, but the photographers are also under fire from locals who say they are not going to tolerate invasions of privacy.
"It is a quiet place here," said Kathryn Sandberg, a long-time resident of North Saanich, the tiny seaside community where Harry, Meghan and son Archie are living, in the greater Victoria area.
"I think maybe one of ..

AFP

AFP

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