David Stern, who masterminded the NBA's growth into a global sports powerhouse while serving as commissioner from 1984 to 2014, died Wednesday after suffering a brain hemorrhage last month. He was 77.
The NBA, whose championship games were not televised live in the United States when Stern's 30-year tenure began, announced his passing, which came with his family at his bedside.
Stern, who underwent emergency surgery after he was stricken December 12, built the league into a global sporting empire by the time he retired on February 1, 2014, and passed leadership to current commissioner Adam Silver.
"David took over the NBA in 1984 with the league at a crossroads, but over the course of 30 years as commissioner he ushered in the modern global NBA," Silver said in a statement.
"He launched groundbreaking media and marketing partnerships, digital assets and social responsibility programs that have brought the game to billions of people around the world.
"Because of David, the NBA is a ...

NBA mastermind David Stern dead at 77

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Former Everton midfielder Li Tie was named as coach of China's men's football team on Thursday, tasked with reviving their World Cup qualifying campaign after Marcello Lippi's abrupt departure.
The Chinese Football Association said Li, who played in China's only World Cup appearance in 2002, is an "outstanding representative of Chinese football players" and was appointed after an open process.
Li is already familiar with the national coaching set-up having been in temporary charge during the East Asian championships in South Korea last month.
The 42-year-old was the manager of Chinese Super League club Wuhan Zall before his appointment.
"It is believed that under the leadership of the coach, the Chinese national men's football team will work hard to train and prepare scientifically with a high sense of mission and honour," the Chinese Football Association said in a statement.
Li's permanent appointment follows a turbulent year for Chinese football when Lippi's resignation put another .

Troubled China hand reins to ex-Everton player Li Tie

South Korean prosecutors on Thursday indicted almost 30 MPs and the leader of the main opposition party on assault and other charges over a two-day parliamentary stand-off.
In an attempt to stop legislation being passed, members of the opposition Liberty Korea party (LKP) lay on the floor linking arms to block access to a committee room, and blockaded an MP in his office for five hours.
Scuffles broke out as MPs of the governing Democratic party tried to force their way into the hall in April.
Seoul prosecutors indicted the LKP leader Hwang Kyo-ahn and 23 of his MPs -- including former parliamentary floor leader Na Kyung-won -- on charges including causing a commotion at the national assembly and illegal detention.
Five Democratic party MPs were indicted on accusations of assault.
Among the 29 accused, prosecutors said 18 will face court trials, including Hwang and Na, while the others are likely to be fined without court proceedings as their offences are considered minor.
The ...

Dozens of S Korean MPs charged over parliamentary stand-off

Superstars Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal said Thursday there was little point in having two men's team tennis competitions so close together and suggested the new ATP Cup should merge with the Davis Cup.
The ATP Cup is about to kick off its inaugural edition, replacing a number of previous Australian Open warm-up tournaments.
It comes six weeks after the revamped Davis Cup, which also has countries playing each other in a round-robin format, was held in Madrid.
Canadian Denis Shapovalov suggested Thursday that the two events -- one run by the men's tour, the Association of Tennis Professionals, and the other by the International Tennis Federation -- should combine.
"It's a really similar event and it's literally back-to-back from the other one, so it's a little bit of a weird sensation coming from what felt like the world championships coming to play another world championship," Shapovalov said.
"So for me I don't see why they, the ATP and ITF can't combine, can't join, can't come ..

Djokovic, Nadal lead calls for ATP Cup, Davis Cup to merge

Germany's Alexander Zverev said he felt in top shape for 2020 Thursday despite only starting to hit balls a week ago after an off-season curtailed by a lucrative exhibition tour.
The 22-year-old only won one title last year, in Geneva, not quite taking the step up that many had predicted as he slipped from fourth to seventh in the men's tennis rankings.
But Zverev remains a big drawcard and he finished 2019 playing a five-stop exhibition tour of South America and China with Roger Federer.
Although the tour meant a shorter off-season than normal, Zverev insisted it made little difference.
"I mean, still I think I had a good off-season. It was a little bit different. It was shorter this year, for sure," he said at the ATP Cup team event in Brisbane.
"I only started playing tennis a week ago, pretty much, so I don't have a lot of tennis practice yet, which I will build up.
"But I feel good. I feel pretty fit again. My physical (condition) was never really my problem. It was in the ...

Zverev says no concerns over curtailed off-season

Australia kept New Zealand guessing Thursday as they weighed up using a five-pronged bowling attack in the final Test at Sydney.
The home team, who have comfortably won the first two Tests of the three-match series, have called up leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson who could bowl in tandem with Nathan Lyon, depending on a last-minute pitch inspection on Friday.
"We're just weighing up whether we play the second spinner and if we did, how we would do that," captain Tim Paine told reporters ahead of the game, where both teams will wear black armbands for the victims of Australia's raging bushfires.
"As JL (coach Justin Langer) touched on yesterday, I think at the moment it would be likely that we would go unchanged but there's still a possibility, if we see that wicket tomorrow morning, that we could play another spinner."
If they go with a second spinner, middle-order batsman Matthew Wade is the likely fall guy, after number six Travis Head hit a century in the Boxing Day Test at ...

Australia keep NZealand guessing with spin options

New Zealand sweated on the fitness of batting kingpin and captain Kane Williamson Thursday after he and Henry Nicholls missed a second day of training ahead of the final Test against Australia.
Both are battling viral infections as they race to recover for the clash in Sydney, where the visitors are desperate to salvage some pride after being thrashed in the first two Tests.
Spinner Mitchell Santner is also unwell and did not practise on Thursday, with batsman Glenn Phillips making a late dash to Sydney Thursday evening as cover.
"It's up in the air at the moment -- a couple of boys are a little bit crook unfortunately," said opener Tom Latham, filling in for Williamson in his pre-match press conference.
"They're having today off, as well as yesterday, so fingers crossed they'll be right to go tomorrow.
"It's gone around the team a little bit which obviously isn't ideal, but fingers crossed, they're resting up and hopefully they'll wake up tomorrow morning and be good to go."
If they .

NZealand sweat on Williamson, Nicholls, Santner as bug hits team

Over a dozen Chinese lawyers and activists were detained or went missing in the final days of 2019 in a crackdown on participants of a private democracy gathering, rights groups said Thursday.
The Chinese government has severely reduced the space for civil liberties since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, rounding up rights lawyers, labour activists and even Marxists students in various sweeps.
The latest crackdown was linked to a December gathering in the east coast city of Xiamen in Fujian province, where participants discussed "democratic transition in China," said Human Rights Watch researcher Wang Yaqiu.
The period around Christmas and New Year is traditionally when China chooses to sentence prominent dissidents in an effort to minimise international media attention, "so it is not a surprise that they chose this particular time to launch a manhunt of activists," Wang said.
The meeting involved a small group of people "peacefully discussing politics in a private space," she 

China detains activists in year-end crackdown

Two men who attacked a police post this week killing at least one officer in the Russian Caucasus were fighters from the Islamic State jihadist group, the IS propaganda agency Amaq said.
The perpetrators rammed a car into a traffic police post outside the city of Magas in Ingushetia region around 5:30 pm on Tuesday, after which they attacked policemen with knives, according to the regional government.
The Amaq statement on Telegram posted late Wednesday said the men were "two fighters from Islamic state" who killed two officers and injured others.
The Ingushetia regional government and regional investigators said one officer died from injuries. There has been no official confirmation of a second police death.
The attackers were Akhmed Imagozhev, a well-known arm wrestler, and Mikail Miziev, both residents of Ingushetia and Russian citizens.
Miziev was shot dead by police while Imagozhev is in hospital, Ingushetia's government said.
The governor on Tuesday evening lambasted regional ...

IS claims deadly attack on police in Russian Caucasus

Eighteen people in eastern DR Congo's troubled region of Beni have been killed in a fresh attack by a notorious armed group, a local official said on Monday.
"There was an incursion in Apetina-Sana by the ADF last night," Beni administrator Donat Kibwana told AFP, referring to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia.
"(They) hacked 18 civilians to death.

Eighteen killed in new militia attack in eastern DR Congo

Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo will travel to Ukraine, the country at the heart of the ongoing impeachment process against President Donald Trump, during a diplomatic tour in January, the State Department said on Monday.
Pompeo, who will also visit Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Cyprus, will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.
The trip will make Pompeo the most senior US official to visit Ukraine since the scandal over a controversial phone call between Trump and Zelensky erupted earlier this year.
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on December 18.
He is accused of withholding USD 400 million in assistance to Ukraine and a White House meeting with Zelensky to push Kiev to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.
Despite testimony from 17 officials that Trump leveraged his office for political gain, the president has maintained his innocence throughout the ..

Pompeo to travel to Ukraine in January

Membership of the World Trade Organization has benefitted the US and China more than any other nations, a study published on Monday found, as the two powers seek to defuse a months-long trade conflict.
The Bertelsmann Foundation research showed WTO membership has boosted the US's gross domestic product by USD 87 billion in the 25 years since the country joined.
China, which became a member only in 2001, gained USD 86 billion, while Germany added USD 66 billion.
"Even if no organisation is perfect, anyone who believes they can rely on a system of bilateral trade agreements instead of the WTO risks enormous losses of prosperity in international trade," said Bertelsmann trade expert Christian Bluth.
With 164 member countries, the WTO will celebrate a rocky 25th anniversary on January 1, 2020.
Washington refuses to name new judges to its appellate body, blocking arbitration of trade disputes.
Washington and Beijing have nonetheless struck a truce in their tit-for-tat tariff war, hoping to 

US, China biggest WTO winners: Study

A Croatian court on Monday sentenced former prime minister Ivo Sanader to six years in jail and the boss of Hungary's MOL energy group to two years for bribery.
Sanader -- already serving time for a separate graft conviction -- and MOL's Zsolt Hernadi were convicted for "receiving and giving a bribe" concerning a 2009 deal after the Hungarian firm purchased shares in local oil and gas group INA, the judge said.
Judge Maja Stampar Stipic said the deal allowed then-PM Sanader to pocket 10 million euros (USD 11 million) in exchange for granting the Hungarian firm control over INA.
MOL, whose main shareholder is the Budapest government, has a 49 percent INA stake, while Zagreb holds a 44 per cent stake.
"As the top state official, Sanader ... jeopardised Croatia's vital economic interests," prosecutor Tonci Petkovic said in his final statement.
Defence attorneys for CEO Hernadi, who was tried in absentia, argued that the prosecutors did not prove an "incriminating tie" between the two ...

Croatia sentences ex-PM, Hungary energy firm boss for graft

Fire threatened three Melbourne suburbs Monday, with residents warned it was too late to flee and they must "act immediately to survive," as a heatwave fuelled Australia's deadly bushfire crisis.
Authorities declared a bushfire emergency as an out-of-control blaze bore down on homes in Australia's second-biggest city.
In Bundoora -- just 16 kilometres (10 miles) north of the city centre and home to two major Australian university campuses -- fire was "threatening homes and lives", Victoria Emergency said.
"You are in danger and need to act immediately to survive," the agency said in a message to residents. "The safest option is to take shelter indoors immediately. It is too late to leave." Local media showed images of water bombers flying over the neighbourhoods and families dousing their homes with water hoses in the hope of halting the fire's spread.
It is the latest emergency in Australia's devastating summer fire season, which has been turbocharged by a prolonged drought and ...

Bushfires reach Melbourne as heatwave fans Australia blazes

A mistaken verdict or a legitimate critique? A French court will rule Tuesday if the authoritative Michelin restaurant guide must hand over its secret reasonings for stripping a chef of his third Michelin star, just a year after the coveted award was won.
Marc Veyrat launched the unprecedented lawsuit after his Maison des Bois restaurant in the French Alps lost the third star -- the top ranking -- in January 2019.
It was a shock demotion after Veyrat's remarkable comeback, nine years after he was forced to stop cooking because of a skiing accident, and three years after his restaurant was destroyed in a fire.
The showman chef, known for his ubiquitous black Savoyard hat as much as his "botanical" creations from local herbs and produce, claimed "incompetent" inspectors were out to get him -- not least by claiming his use of English Cheddar cheese in a souffle.
At a stormy meeting in March with the guidebook's new director Gwendal Poullennec, named just a few months before the 2019 ...

Michelin restaurant bible faces ruling in French chef's protest

Bank of England head Mark Carney, soon to become UN special envoy on climate action and finance, urged companies on Monday to move faster on helping to cut carbon emissions.
In an interview with BBC radio's Today programme guest-edited by Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, Carney said the world of business needed to step up action, including on the disclosure of climate risk from their operations.
"A question for every company, every financial institution is: what's your plan? We now have $120 trillion of balance sheets of banks and asset managers wanting this type of disclosure." But he stated that such action is "not moving fast enough".
Asked whether pension funds should divest from fossil fuels even if the returns are currently attractive, Carney said: "Well, that hasn't been the case, but they could make that argument. They need to make the argument, to be clear about why is that going to be the case if a substantial proportion of those assets are going to be ...

BoE chief calls for faster action on climate change

Tesla delivered its first batch of China-made cars on Monday, less than a year after the electric vehicle company broke ground on its first plant outside the United States.
Work began on the firm's multibillion-dollar Shanghai "Gigafactory" in January, allowing the company to skirt trade tensions between China and the US and sell directly to the world's largest "green" vehicle market.
The first cars to roll off the assembly line -- 15 of Tesla's mid-price, mass-market Model 3 design -- were given to employees who had placed advance orders during a ceremony at the plant.
Tesla plans to begin large-scale deliveries of China-made Model 3 sedans next month, said the firm's China general manager Wang Hao.
The company was now producing more than 1,000 cars per week in China and hoped to double the figure next year, manufacturing director Song Gang told Bloomberg News.
Chief executive Elon Musk has said production could rise to 3,000 vehicles per week in the future.
China typically requires .

Tesla delivers first batch of China-made cars

A suspect detained for planning an attack in Saint Petersburg during New Year's festivities had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, Russia's FSB security service said on Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday thanked US President Donald Trump for intelligence that helped foil the attack.
Two men, both Russian citizens, were arrested on Friday suspected of planning the attack.
A video released by the FSB showed the arrest of two Slavic-looking men and a raid on their apartment, which contained munitions, knives, electrical cables and black clothing.
The FSB said the two men had recognised their guilt. A video released by the FSB to Russian news agencies showed one of the suspects, his face masked, pledging allegiance to IS in Arabic.
Russian officials have provided no other details on the alleged attack plan.  Although Moscow and Washington are at odds on many issues both regularly stress their mutual determination to fight terrorism.

Suspect planning Russia attack pledged to IS: FSB

This year was the hottest ever registered in Russia, the country's weather chief said on Monday, as climate change pushes global temperatures to record highs.
"This year in Russia was the hottest for the entire period of instrumental observations," the head of the Gidromedtsentr weather service, Roman Vilfand, told Russian news agencies.
He said Moscow's average temperature for 2019 had hit 7.6-7.7 degrees Celsius (45.7-45.9 degrees Fahrenheit), beating the previous record by 0.3 degrees.
Weather records have been kept since 1879 in Moscow and since 1891 in Russia as a whole.
Global warming has sent temperatures rising around the world, with the United Nations saying earlier this month that 2019 was on course to be one of the three hottest years on record.
Known for its notoriously harsh winters, Moscow has seen its warmest December in a century this year.
While some flurries fell on Monday, the Russian capital -- normally covered with a blanket of snow by mid-December -- saw a ...

2019 was hottest year on record for Russia

Bangladesh's first women's bodybuilding championship was won by a 19-year-old student in a contest where most of her muscle was covered up to prevent controversy in the Muslim-majority nation.
While skimpy bikinis are the norm at international body-building contests, Awhona Rahman and her 29 rivals kept their brawn under wraps in front of the crowd of hundreds.
Rahman and the other competitors struck poses on stage wearing tight leggings and body-hugging outfits during the three-day event that finished on Sunday and was held in the capital Dhaka.
"I am really happy, I really worked hard for this," Rahman told AFP.
"It never entered my mind that someone might criticise me for showing my body.
My brother, who runs a fitness centre, has always encouraged me," she added.
"We were told there would be proper dress code and the outfit provided was perfect from a Bangladeshi perspective." Bangladesh Bodybuilding Federation general secretary Nazrul Islam said there had been a huge response to .

Cover-up at Bangladesh's first body-building contest for women

At least 11 people died and seven were injured on Sunday when a car and a van carrying tourists crashed on a highway in Mexico's southern Chiapas state, local prosecutors said.
"Eleven people were killed and seven more were injured," the prosecutor's office said in a statement, adding an investigation had been opened into the accident's cause.
According to reports from local authorities, the victims included tourists traveling in the van to San Cristobal de las Casas, one of the most visited cities in Chiapas state.
During the Christmas and New Year's holiday season, traffic is heavier on Mexico's roads and accidents occur more frequently.

AFP

AFP

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