World champion Marc Marquez will be out for revenge after being pipped to victory in the last two races this season as he looks to match Italian star Valentino Rossi's record of three wins at the San Marino MotoGP on Sunday.
Former seven-time world MotoGP champion Rossi's most recent victory at Misano, near Rimini on Italy's Adriatic coast, was in 2014.
"Racing here in front of my fans is fantastic because it really is my Grand Prix," said 40-year-old Rossi.
"My house is only ten kilometres from the track, I grew up in Misano and the first time I raced was on this circuit." Rossi even rode down the 14km motorway from his
"Motor Ranch" academy at Tavullia to the circuit this week riding his Yahama.
"It was a childhood dream come true because it was the road that we rode by scooter when we were young," said Rossi.
"But I only drove at 170 km/h," he quipped, taking care to clarify that the road was closed to traffic and that "I had a helmet!".
Runaway championship leader Marquez has won .

Marquez seeks revenge in Rossi's Misano backyard

PTI Automatic

Frontrunner Joe Biden went on the offensive in the third Democratic debate of the 2020 White House race, clashing with top rivals on the fraught issue of health care in America and brushing off attacks from lesser challengers.
Under pressure to appear in command -- and dispel doubts over his stamina -- the 76-year-old Biden pushed hard on Thursday against liberals Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in an almost three-hour showdown in Houston, Texas.
While the 10 Democrats seeking the party nomination found common ground in their determination to oust Donald Trump, and on the urgency of tackling climate change, their differences were on stark display when it came to health care reform -- a stated priority for them all.
In a high-octane clash, Biden accused his fellow septuagenarians, senators Sanders and Warren, of pushing pipe dreams without a plan to fund them.
"I lay out how I can pay for it, how I can get it done, and why it's better," the former vice president said of his plan, ..

Biden fights off rivals in Democratic 2020 debate

Valencia should be looking forward to a prestigious double-header against Barcelona in La Liga and Chelsea in the Champions League, instead find themselves in full-blown crisis after the sacking of coach Marcelino Garcia Toral.
Marcelino was fired on Wednesday and replaced by the former Barcelona, Real Madrid and Spain midfielder Albert Celades, who faces a tough baptism at the Camp Nou on Saturday.
The sacking of Marcelino, 54, by Valencia's Singaporean owner Peter Lim has exposed frictions at a club that had been revived by the coach since his appointment in 2017.
The two-time former Champions League runners-up are fresh from successive top-four finishes in La Liga and last season beat Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final to lift their first silverware in 11 years.
However, Marcelino, the ex-Sevilla and Villarreal boss, was critical of the club's transfer policy over the close season, including attempts to sell Spain striker Rodrigo Moreno to Atletico Madrid.
Rodrigo ended up ...

Valencia in crisis as Barcelona and Chelsea clashes loom

Japanese tennis superstar Naomi Osaka announced on Friday she was splitting with her coach, her second break-up this year as she battles for form and slips down the world rankings.
On the eve of the Pan Pacific Open tournament in Osaka, western Japan, the 21-year-old announced she would no longer be working with Jermaine Jenkins, who joined her team after her triumph at the Australian Open in January.
"Writing this to let you guys know that me and Jay won't be working together anymore," Osaka tweeted.
"I'm super grateful for the time we spent together and the things I learned on and off the court but I feel like now is a (sic) appropriate time for a change... Thank you for everything, it was a blast," added Osaka.
Osaka had already caught the tennis world by surprise when she announced she was parting ways with coach Sascha Bajin, who had overseen her stunning rise to win two grand slams -- the US Open in 2018 and the Australian Open title in January.
But her results since Melbourne ..

Naomi Osaka changes coach for second time this year

Cristiano Ronaldo returns to Italian league action after his four-goal spree for Portugal as Juventus head for Fiorentina on Saturday also boosted by coach Maurizio Sarri's highly-anticipated debut on the bench after a bout of pneumonia.
The ex-Chelsea coach missed his first two league games with the Serie A champions against Parma and his former club Napoli.
But the 60-year-old will be on the bench for the first time on Saturday as Juventus look to make it three wins this season before their Champions League opener at Atletico Madrid midweek.
Ronaldo's four goals in Portugal's European qualifying win over Lithuania during the week were enough to send shivers down the spines of Fiorentina fans.
The 34-year-old overtook Ireland's Robbie Keane as the all-time top scorer in Euro qualifiers, with 25 goals, and will be looking to impress further with the winner of the Best FIFA Football Awards to be named in Milan on September 23.
Ronaldo will lead the Juventus attack along with Douglas ...

Sarri back, Ronaldo firing on all cylinders as Juventus head for Fiorentina

Her high heels clacking on marble tiles, a defiant Saudi woman turned heads and drew gasps as she strutted through a Riyadh mall -- without a body-shrouding abaya.
The billowy over-garment, usually all-black, is customary public wear for women in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom, where it is widely seen as a symbol of piety.
Last year, de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hinted during an interview with CBS that the dress code may be relaxed, saying the robe was not mandatory in Islam.
But despite his sweeping liberalisation drive, the practice continued as no formal edict followed. Some women subsequently mounted a rare social media protest against the restriction, posting pictures of themselves wearing the figure-concealing garment inside out.
Despite the risk of provoking arch-conservatives, many others now leave their cloaks open in the front or wear them in bright colours. Mashael al-Jaloud has taken the cultural rebellion a step further -- she stopped wearing ...

'Rebel' Saudi women shun obligatory abaya robe

Vulnerable and afraid, a 16-year-old boy sat on the floor of his home in rural eastern China and tried to hack off his genitals with a scalpel, an act of desperation against a body he did not want.
Too scared to talk to family in a society that still classifies transgender people as having a "mental illness", instead he attempted surgery on himself after watching online tutorials of the procedure.
He wasn't able to go through with it and stopped after the first painful cut -- but he didn't go to the hospital or tell anyone what he had done.
Now aged 23, that boy identifies as Alice, and concedes it was a dangerous, potentially fatal, move.
"I was desperate and scared," Alice told AFP, adding: "It was this feeling in my stomach that I had to get it over and done with."
In China, where no official numbers of transgender people exist, there are few medical facilities that offer gender reassignment surgery and little professional information on hormone treatment, forcing people to turn to 

China's transgender community risk self-surgery and illegal drugs

Frontrunner Joe Biden came out swinging in the third Democratic debate for the White House nomination, clashing with his top two rivals over the future of health care in America and dismissing their plans as unrealistic pipe dreams.
Biden, under pressure to appear in command as the candidate to beat in 2020, pushed back hard against senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren during the debate in Houston, Texas a showdown seen as a tough test of the 76-year-old's stamina.
In a high-octane clash with his fellow septuagenarians, the former vice president warned Sanders's plan to finance universal healthcare "gets him halfway there," while Warren has yet to indicate how hers will be paid for.
"I lay out how I can pay for it, how I can get it done, and why it's better," Biden said of his plan, which maintains and builds on the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare.
Warren, a rising star in the race, and Sanders each put up a spirited defence of their proposals.
"Those at the very top, ..

Biden comes out fighting in Democratic White House debate

President Benjamin Netanyahu has denied a media report that Israel spied on cell phones in the vicinity of the White House -- and President Donald Trump said he believed him.
Speaking on a trip to Russia, Netanyahu said on Thursday there was no eavesdropping on cell phones around the US presidency because he had forbidden spying against the United States.
"I have a directive: no intelligence connection in the United States, no spying," he said. "It's rigorously enforced without any exception. It's a complete fabrication."
Online news outlet Politico reported that US officials believe Israelis were most likely to be behind several so-called stingray scanners, which mimic cell phone towers to intercept nearby calls and text messages, that were discovered in downtown Washington in 2017.
Several former national security officials told Politico that forensic analysis on the devices by the FBI and other agencies tied them to Israeli agents.
"The devices were likely intended to spy on ...

Netanyahu, Trump deny report of Israeli spying near White House

A group of Mexican police officers who killed eight people in a supposed shootout has been suspended over allegations they in fact executed them and staged a cover-up, authorities have said.
The officers said they were on patrol last Thursday in the northern city of Nuevo Laredo, on the US border, when a group of suspected drug traffickers opened fire on them from a black pickup truck.
The police -- authorities did not specify how many -- gave chase and shot dead five men and three women in the ensuing shootout, according to their report.
But witnesses told the National Human Rights Commission the officers in fact rounded up the deceased at their homes, killed them in cold blood, then left a fake crime scene.
As part of the alleged cover-up, the officers planted guns on their victims and dressed them in combat fatigues marked with the insignia of the Northeast Cartel, a drug trafficking gang active in the area, witnesses told investigators.
The government of Tamaulipas state, where ...

Mexico suspends police over suspected executions

Fires recorded in the Brazilian Pantanal, a biodiversity sanctuary in the southern Amazon rainforest, have quadrupled in 2019 compared to the same period last year, the country's space research agency has said.
The number of fires recorded by satellite since January in the Pantanal hit 4,515, an increase of 334 per cent from the same period in 2018 where only 1,039 fires were recorded, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said on Thursday.
The Pantanal, which is the world's largest tropical wetland and located primarily in Brazil along with parts of neighbouring Paraguay and Bolivia, is 80 per cent flooded during the wet season from October to May. That leaves the vegetation, which is particularly rich and diverse, vulnerable to fires during the summer dry season.
On Thursday, the fire-affected Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul declared a state of emergency, which would allow the government to quickly release funds to fight the blazes. The local government estimated ...

Fires in Brazilian wetlands quadruple in 2019: report

President Donald Trump has said he believes that Iran's leadership wants a meeting, adding to expectations that he is trying to arrange a summit with his Iranian counterpart at the upcoming UN assembly.
"I can tell you that Iran wants to meet," he told reporters at the White House.
Trump has repeatedly indicated he is ready to meet with President Hassan Rouhani, who is expected to attend the UN General Assembly in New York this month. However, the Iranians have so far not given a positive response.

Trump says Iranian leadership 'wants to meet'

The US Justice Department has said that it would unmask the long-protected name of a Saudi official who allegedly had ties to the Al-Qaeda perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Responding to years of pressure from families of the victims of the attacks, the FBI and the Justice Department decided to declassify the name of the Saudi official "in light of the extraordinary circumstances of this particular case."
The case has long threatened to embarrass the Saudi government, which has repeatedly denied links to Al-Qaeda, and leave it exposed to claims of damages that could reach into the billions of dollars.
The person was the third of three main Saudi officials referred to in an FBI report into the attacks as having allegedly assisted some of the attackers after they arrived in the United States.
In all 19 men, 15 of them Saudis, took part in the plot to hijack four airliners and crash them into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and possibly the White House or ...

US to reveal Saudi official allegedly tied to 9/11 attackers

Some 1,300 people are still unaccounted for in the Bahamas following Hurricane Dorian, officials have said, down from the 2,500 previously reported.
The Bahamian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) attributed the drop to cross-referencing names of missing persons with those in shelters.
"It's very fluid," NEMA spokesman Carl Smith told reporters on Thursday at a press conference in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas.
The Bahamian authorities have put the death toll from the devastating Category 5 storm at 50 so far. But they have said they expect that number to rise significantly and a former prime minister said he feared the final toll could be in the hundreds.
"Based upon information I have, based on my knowledge, there are hundreds of people who died," the Nassau Guardian newspaper quoted former premier Hubert Ingraham as saying on Wednesday.
"I pay no attention to 50," Ingraham said after touring hurricane-ravaged Abaco Island. "Hundreds of people have died in Abaco, and ..

1,300 still missing in hurricane-hit Bahamas: officials

Havana awoke on Thursday to long lines at gas stations and public transportation stops after President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned the country to expect fuel shortages and blackouts that he blamed on US sanctions.
The fuel crisis immediately raised fears of a return to the extreme austerity of the 1990s "Special Period" following the collapse of its main benefactor, the Soviet Union.
"I'm worried. Terrified!" said Katia Morfa, 36, as she took her seven-year-old daughter to school. "When they announce these kinds of measures, it gives us Cubans chills from head to toe. It's inevitable that we think of the dark and very sad days of the Special Period," Morfa told AFP.
In a televised address late Wednesday, Diaz-Canel said the "low availability of diesel" will affect transportation, power generation and distribution of merchandise. He said no fuel had arrived in the country since Tuesday and the situation will persist until Saturday when an oil tanker is expected to arrive in port.
The US ..

Cubans fear return to 90s austerity amid cuts

Argentine lawmakers have unanimously approved a draft emergency food law to free up resources for social programs amid a worsening economic crisis.
"We are facing a problem of hunger, malnutrition and a sharp drop in income," opposition lawmaker Daniel Arroyo, a co-author of the bill, told the lower house Chamber of Deputies on Thursday.
Soaring inflation and rising poverty have stirred outrage at austerity measures introduced by centre-right President Mauricio Macri's government in order to comply with the terms of a record USD 57 billion IMF bailout.
Thousands of protesters have been camped near the Congress building since Wednesday to demand more funds be released for welfare programs and for soup kitchens and schools.
The bill, yet to be approved by the Senate, would provide a 50 per cent increase in food assistance programs to growing numbers of poor.
"We all have to help in a complicated context in which there are many people who are having a hard time," said Arroyo, a member of 

Argentine lawmakers approve emergency food bill

Europe's chief Brexit negotiator warned European lawmakers Thursday that he has no reason to be optimistic that Brussels and London will agree an orderly divorce.
Michel Barnier's stark assessment came as MEPs said there can be no Brexit deal without the "Irish backstop" clause that Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson has demanded be stripped from any accord.
"I can't objectively tell you whether the contacts we have undertaken with Mr. Johnson's government will lead to an agreement between now and mid-October," Barnier told parliamentary group leaders.
Mid-October is when Johnson would have to come to Brussels for a summit of EU leaders with either a new withdrawal agreement or a request for a delay to Brexit, but the British leader insists he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than postpone the October 31 withdrawal.
"We don't have any reasons to be optimistic," Barnier said.
Next week, MEPs will vote in the Strasbourg parliament on a motion to reaffirm and reinforce the European .

EU's Barnier warns not optimistic of finding Brexit deal

A once splendid but long dilapidated Egyptian palace built for a trailblazing Ottoman governor is being restored to its former glory and is on course to open next year, according to authorities.
The 210-year-old palace of Mohamed Ali Pasha -- credited with being the founder of modern Egypt -- combined western and Muslim styles of architecture.
Opulently furnished with priceless paintings, high ceilings and stunning chandeliers, much of the restoration process involves the careful cleaning of these delicate artefacts.
Work on the paintings has been particularly intricate.
"Tests were done on the colours until we were able to reach the actual components of the original colours", said Mohamed Sadeq, the site's executive manager.
"We started removing the previous restorations that were done over the years until we reached the original colours." Significant work has also been required to repair the exteriors of buildings.
A car bomb claimed by an Islamic State affiliate -- targeting a ...

Palace of modern Egypt's 'founder' to return to former glory

Democrats stepped up their impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump Thursday even as the party's leaders remained dubious about the political value of the move 14 months before the next presidential election.
The House Judiciary Committee approved new procedures that will permit it to demand more documents and testimony from the White House, declaring for the first time that its probe of the president is focused on "impeachment".
Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said the measures will serve to enhance an "aggressive series of hearings" aimed at determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment against the president.
"The resolution before us represents the necessary next step in our investigation of corruption, obstruction, and abuse of power," Nadler said before it was approved by the Democrat-controlled committee.
The investigation is focused along four specific lines: allegations that Trump illegally interfered with the Russia election meddling investigation, that .

Democrats intensify 'impeachment' probe of Trump

The skin and blubber of bottlenose dolphins in the English Channel contain alarmingly high concentrations of mercury and other toxic pollutants, researchers said Thursday.
Biopsies taken from scores of the coastal dwelling mammals revealed levels among the highest ever observed for the species, as reported in the Scientific Reports journal.
The toxins -- which become especially concentrated in mother's milk -- have been linked to declining birthrates among numerous marine mammals.
Long-lasting industrial chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) linked to cancer and other diseases in humans were banned in most nations in the 1970s and 1980s, but are still found across a large range of marine wildlife.
The toxins become more concentrated as they work their way up the food chain to top predators, whether fatty fish such as tuna or mammals such as dolphins and killer whales.
One family of chemicals called PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyl) -- used in industrial products ...

English Channel dolphins riddled with toxins

Harry Maguire faces his old club Leicester for the first time this weekend with the Manchester United defender looking up the Premier League table at his high-flying former employers.
When Maguire made his world-record ?80 million ($97 million) move to Old Trafford this summer, it was widely seen as a step-up for the 26-year-old, the opportunity to prove himself on a larger stage.
But as Brendan Rodgers brings the Foxes to Old Trafford, he does so with Leicester five places and three points above United in the early-season league table.
Transport for Greater Manchester, who have become known in the city for their witty electronic message boards warning of forthcoming events, even joined in the debate billing the fixture as a "Race for 6th!" this week.
But, with Leicester currently sitting in third and supporters daring to dream of the unforgettable 2015-16 campaign when their club ended the season as champions, Maguire could be forgiven for looking slightly enviously at the team mates 

AFP

AFP

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