Fifth-ranked Juan Martin del Potro will miss the Australian Open as he continues his recovery from a knee injury.
"I hope you have a great 2019. Recovery is going great and I will tell you later where I will be making my comeback," the 30-year-old Argentine wrote on Twitter.
"Unfortunately it won't happen in Australia ... but I'm happy with my progress."
The U.S. Open finalist fractured his right kneecap after a fall at the Shanghai Masters in October.
The Australian Open begins Jan. 14.

Del Potro to miss Australian Open

PTI Automatic

Former France midfielder Samir Nasri has completed his expected move to Premier League team West Ham on a deal to the end of the season after he finished a doping ban.
The Hammers on Monday announced the signing of the 31-year-old Nasri, who is available to play from Tuesday after an 18-month ban for receiving an intravenous treatment at a Los Angeles clinic in breach of the World Anti-Doping Agency's rules.
Nasri has been without a club since leaving Antalyaspor of Turkey in January and previously played in the Premier League for Arsenal and Manchester City, the latter under now West Ham boss Manuel Pellegrini.
He has been training with West Ham and there is an option to extend his stay beyond the end of the season.
"I am very pleased to welcome Samir to West Ham United," Pellegrini said on whufc.com.
"He is a player I obviously know well from our time together at Manchester City and I am happy to be working with him again. He has been working very hard here in recent weeks to build .

Nasri completes move to West Ham as doping ban ends

Fulham says it will take the "strongest possible action" after Aboubakar Kamara was racially abused on social media following his penalty miss on Saturday for the Premier League team.
The forward was criticized for refusing to allow the club's designated penalty-taker, Aleksandar Mitrovic, to take a spot-kick during the 1-0 win over Huddersfield while the game was still goalless, and then failing to score.
Mitrovic scored in stoppage time to secure a crucial victory but Kamara was later abused on social media and Fulham has promised to act.
"We are aware that numerous damaging and hurtful comments have been posted on Aboubakar Kamara's social media account, and as a club that prides itself on our respect and civility, we condemn anyone who may be associated with this repulsive activity," the club said in a statement.
"This is not representative in the least of genuine Fulham supporters, many of whom have posted messages of support and encouragement to the player.

Fulham to act after Kamara racially abused on social media

Taiwan's leader said Tuesday the people of the island want to maintain self-rule despite recent electoral gains by the Beijing-friendly opposition party.
Taiwanese officials should not enter into any secret dialogue with China, President Tsai Ing-wen warned in a New Year's speech.
The opposition Nationalist Party won 15 of 22 major seats in local elections last month, reversing the advantage held by Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party. She has resigned as party head.
Beijing could woo China-friendly election victors ahead of the next presidential election in 2020. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has sought to isolate Tsai over her refusal to endorse the "one China" principle that designates Taiwan as a part of China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to speak about Taiwan on Wednesday at a gathering in Beijing to mark the 40th anniversary of a statement issued by China to open talks with the government in Taipei.

President Tsai says Taiwanese want to maintain self-rule

Police said a car slammed into pedestrians on a street where people had gathered for New Year's festivities in downtown Tokyo, injuring eight people.
Police took into custody a man in his 20s but did not further identify him. They say he is suspected of intentionally trying to kill people by driving the car through the street.
NHK TV footage showed a small van with the entire front end smashed and officers and ambulance workers rushing to the scene.
The crash occurred early Tuesday on Takeshita Dori, well known to tourists and pop culture and fashion fans, that runs right by Meiji Shrine in Harajuku.

Car slams into pedestrians on Tokyo road, injuring 8 people

President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, William Barr, once questioned the value of a wall along the Mexican border similar to the one the president has advocated, describing the idea as "overkill."
Barr was attorney general under President George H W Bush when he was asked in a February 24, 1992, interview whether he supported a proposal from Republican presidential challenger Pat Buchanan to erect a barrier of ditches and fences along the border to stop illegal immigration.
"I don't think it's necessary. I think that's overkill to put a barrier from one side of the border to the other," Barr replied on "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" on PBS.
"In fact, the problem with illegal immigration across the border is really confined to major metropolitan areas. Illegal immigrants do not cross in the middle of the desert and walk hundreds of miles," instead choosing more "certain specified routes." Those routes through more populated areas have since largely been closed off, pushing .

Trump's pick for AG once questioned value of border wall

A Panamanian car carrier heading from Japan to Hawaii caught fire in the Pacific Ocean, with some crew members abandoning the ship and the US Coast Guard and other vessels heading to its rescue Monday.
The Coast Guard said in a statement that crew members launched a life raft and four of the 21 mariners aboard left the Sincerity Ace wearing life jackets. The agency could not confirm if they reached the life raft. The remaining 17 crew members stayed on board to fight the fire.
The Coast Guard said other commercial vessels were helping with the rescue 1,800 nautical miles (3,333 kilometres) northwest of Hawaii. The statement doesn't say what caused the fire on the 198-metre ship.
"The distance involved here requires any and all available support, we thank the crews of the commercial vessels for volunteering to assist and have Coast Guard air support en route," Petty Officer 1st Class Les Elliott said in the statement.
One commercial vessel had arrived and was assessing possible rescue .

Car carrier on fire in Pacific, some crew abandon ship

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is using his annual report on the federal judiciary to highlight the steps the branch has taken to combat inappropriate conduct in the workplace.
In December 2017, Roberts asked that a working group be put together to examine the judiciary's workplace conduct policies. His request followed news reports about prominent federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski, who retired following accusations by women, including former law clerks, that he had touched them inappropriately, made lewd comments and shown them pornography.
The working group of judges and judiciary officials that Roberts asked be convened issued a report in June, finding that inappropriate conduct is not widespread among the judiciary branch's 30,000 employees but also is "not limited to a few isolated instances." The group offered a range of recommendations for further action.
Roberts, in his New Year's Eve report, endorsed those recommendations, which focus on revising the codes ..

Chief justice details efforts to combat workplace misconduct

Police picked up a group of 12 migrants from a beach in southwestern England as top British officials met Monday to discuss the increasing numbers of people attempting to cross the English Channel from France to England.
The British government agency that oversees immigration said nine men, two women and a 10-year-old child were in the group that reported being Iranian. They received health checks and were turned over to immigration officials for interviews, the Home Office said.
A surge of Channel crossings in recent weeks prompted Home Secretary Sajid Javid to call a crisis meeting with top officials from Britain's Border Force and National Crime Agency and senior government officials.
Javid said afterward that the government planned to put two more Border Force ships on patrol in the English Channel to protect both the lives of migrants making the risky journey and Britain's borders.
About 230 migrants tried to traverse the water from northern France to southern England in ...

12 migrants found on beach as UK mulls more Channel patrols

Dutch military police evacuated passengers from a departure area at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport for a short time Monday evening due to a bomb threat, police said.
The Royal Marechaussee police force said in a tweet that officers overpowered a suspect and quickly lifted the evacuation order. An update from the military force's Twitter account said the suspect was a 51-year-old Canadian man who was held for questioning.
The force in the Netherlands did not identify him. It said no explosives were found at Schiphol Airport.

Amsterdam airport departure area evacuated for bomb threat

China's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday denied knowledge of the detention of a former Canadian diplomat, as Chinese citizens rejoiced over a Canadian court's decision to release a top Huawei Technologies executive on bail.
The release of Huawei Technologies' chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, prompted an outpouring of support on social media for her and her company, which is based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.  Zeng Yuan, a university student in Beijing, was among many who believe the detention of former diplomat Michael Kovrig was related to Meng's case.
"It is a kind of declaration to the Canadian government," the finance student told The Associated Press. "This makes sense. China cannot sit and await its fate, and let them make ambiguous accusations against Chinese citizens."
Meng was detained Dec 1 at the request of the US, which accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of US sanctions.
After three days of hearings, a ..

Chinese welcome Huawei executive's release in Canada

Egypt says its security forces have killed at least 27 suspected militants in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula and along its porous border with Libya.
The military said Wednesday that forces destroyed 342 hideouts and weapons depots, dismantled 344 explosive devices and detained more than 400 suspects and around 3,000 illegal migrants, without giving a timeframe.
It says airstrikes destroyed 61 vehicles containing weapons and ammunition in the Western Desert.
It says one soldier was killed in a shootout with militants.
It wasn't possible to independently confirm the details as access to the northern Sinai is heavily restricted.
Egypt launched a nationwide operation against militants in February.
It has struggled to defeat a long-running insurgency in the Sinai that is now affiliated with the Islamic State group.

Egypt says 27 militants killed in Sinai, border with Libya

A Russian communications official has threatened to block Google in Russia unless it complies with a law banning certain websites.
The Russian government has been putting pressure on internet companies in what it has described as a campaign to block harmful content. Russia adopted a law in September requiring search engines to comply with the state registry of banned websites and omit the banned content from search results.
While the registry does contain websites promoting hate speech and self-harm it also includes a plethora of websites blacklisted for explicitly political reasons, such as a Ukrainian news website.
Russian news agencies on Wednesday quoted deputy Communications Oversight Agency chief Vitaly Subbotin as saying that authorities may push for amendments that would let them block search engines like Google if they fail to comply with Russian law.

Russian official threatens to block Google

Rosa Villarreal's three young sons jumped and ran around the field of Christmas trees like jackrabbits, their excitement palpable as they raced from evergreen to evergreen. The boys, ages 2, 4 and 6, were picking out a real tree this year  a new tradition their young parents hope will create lasting memories.
"I saw this video where the big tree, the mom decorates it, and the little tree, the kids get to decorate it," she said, as her husband, Jason Jimenez, snapped a photo of their toddler posing with a tiny tree just his size.
Christmas tree farmers across the U.S. worry families like Villarreal's are slowly dwindling. Artificial trees, once crude imitations of an evergreen, are now so realistic that it's hard to tell they are fakes even though many are conveniently pre-strung with lights and can fold up for storage at the push of a button.
Between 75 and 80 percent of Americans who have a Christmas tree now have an artificial one, and the $1 billion market for fake trees is growing 

Christmas tree farmers aim to boost sales via social media

A growing fleet of satellites is monitoring man-made greenhouse gas emissions from space, spurred by the need to track down major sources of climate changing gases such as methane and carbon dioxide.
While scientists and policy-makers agree that getting a firm grasp on the origins of emissions is key to tackling global warming, there is great political sensitivity surrounding the issue.
In 2009, President Barack Obama suggested during the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen that the United States might use satellites to monitor other countries' emissions.
Obama's call for sharing such information "so that people can see who's serious and who's not" annoyed China and other countries worried about outside monitoring of their emission figures.
Experts say precise country-specific emissions accounting from space remains a long way off.
But as negotiators at this month's climate summit in Katowice, Poland, puzzle over how to ensure countries provide accurate emissions data, a host of ...

Eyes in the sky capture carbon, other climate culprits

An Afghan official says the death toll from a suicide bombing on the outskirts of Kabul on Tuesday has climbed to 12.
Nasrat Rahimi, the Interior Ministry's deputy spokesman, says Wednesday that four security forces and eight civilians, including two women and two children, were killed in the suicide car bombing, which targeted a security convoy. He says 12 other people were wounded.
The Taliban, who effectively control nearly half the country and carry out daily attacks on security forces, claimed the bombing.

Death toll from Taliban attack in Afghan capital rises to 12

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been charged with tampering with the final audit report into a defunct state investment fund, adding to a long list of corruption allegations against him since his ouster in May elections.
Najib was charged along with Arul Kanda Kandasamy, the former head of the 1MDB fund, which is being investigated in the U.S. and other countries for alleged cross-border embezzlement and money laundering.
Najib pleaded not guilty Wednesday to abusing power to order the modification of the report in February 2016 before it was presented to the Public Accounts Committee, in order to protect himself from disciplinary and legal action. Kandasamy also pleaded not guilty to abetting Najib.
The auditor-general said last month some details had been removed from the 1MDB report.

Malaysian ex-PM slapped with new charge over 1MDB scandal

Dozens of South Korean soldiers are visiting the site of front-line North Korean guard posts to verify their removal as part of measures to reduce tensions.
The two Koreas each dismantled or disarmed 11 of their guard posts inside their 248-kilometer (155-mile) -long border. They later agreed to exchange inspection teams to verify each other's works.
A small group of journalists was allowed to enter the border to watch one of the South Korean teams departing to the site of a North Korean guard post on Wednesday morning.
Seven helmeted South Korean soldiers wearing backpacks were met by North Korean troops at the borderline where a signboard marking the military demarcation line stands.
North Korean soldiers are due to conduct similar verification on the South Korean side later Wednesday.

Korean border troops check removal of each other's posts

Sales for Michelle Obama's memoir have topped 3 million and the former first lady is extending her book tour into 2019.
Becoming," published four weeks ago, is among the fastest-selling nonfiction books in history and already among the best-selling political memoirs of all time.
ive Nation and Crown Publishing announced Tuesday that Obama will have 21 events next year, six of them in Europe. She has been appearing at such arenas as New York City's Barclays Center and Chicago's United Center, with guest interviewers including Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon.
er tour is now scheduled to end May 12 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

Obama extends tour as sales for 'Becoming' top 3 million

A former Canadian diplomat reportedly has been arrested in China.
The International Crisis Group says it's aware of reports that its North East Asia senior adviser Michael Kovrig has been detained.
The organisation said in a statement Tuesday that it's doing everything possible to obtain additional information about Kovrig's whereabouts and that it will work to ensure his prompt release.
News of Kovrig's detention comes after China warned Canada of consequences for its recent arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at Vancouver's airport. It's unclear if there's any link between the cases.
The International Crisis Group says Kovrig has been one of its full-time experts since February 2017.
According to the organization's website, Kovrig previously worked as a Canadian diplomat in Beijing and Hong Kong and at the United Nations.

Former Canadian diplomat reportedly arrested in China

Lebanon's president said Tuesday that Israel's operation to destroy what it says is a series of cross-border attack tunnels built by the militant Hezbollah group won't endanger the calm along the frontier, adding that his country takes the issue seriously.
Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, said that Lebanon is prepared to address the issue after assessing a full report on the situation.
Aoun said the United States has informed Lebanon that Israel has "no aggressive intentions," adding that his country harbored none either.
"We are ready to remove the causes of the disagreements, but after we get the full report and decide what are the issues we need to handle," Aoun said.
Israel launched an operation to destroy a series of tunnels last week, showing one to U.N. peacekeepers and calling it a violation of the cease-fire that ended the 2006 war with Hezbollah.
The peacekeeping force, or UNIFIL, has confirmed the presence of two tunnels.
On Tuesday, the mission's head, Maj. Stefano Del Col, .

AP

AP

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