Serena Williams' bid to win a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam title was thwarted again when she suffered her earliest exit at the majors in almost five years, prompting more questions over her long-term future at the highest level.
Her 6-2 7-5 French Open third round defeat by US compatriot Sofia Kenin on Saturday meant that she failed again to move level with Margaret Court's majors record set between 1960 and 1973.
She will be 38 in September and her 23rd and most recent Slam triumph was at the Australian Open in 2017 while pregnant.
After giving birth to daughter Olympia Alexis in September 2017, she returned to Grand Slam tennis at Roland Garros in 2018, making the last 16 where she had been set to resume her bitter rivalry with Maria Sharapova.
An arm injury torpedoed that meeting and stalled her assault on a fourth title in Paris after 2002, 2013 and 2015.
Defeat in the 2018 Wimbledon final to Angelique Kerber, and at the US Open championship match, where her now-infamous ...

Future imperfect: Serena faces more major doubts after Roland Garros shocker

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Tiger Woods said his frustrating two-under par 70 on Saturday left him out of contention for a sixth Memorial Tournament title, but he saw encouraging signs for this month's US Open.
"I'm so far back, and there's too many guys (ahead of him)," said Woods, who claimed his 15th major title at the Masters in April.
"I'm not going to win the golf tournament," he added.
"But, hopefully, I go out and play a positive round of golf tomorrow and get something out of my round like I haven't done the first three days and get some positive momentum going into the (US) Open."
Woods needed to gain ground after a double bogey at the par-five 15th stalled his momentum on Friday.
And he was charging over the first nine holes at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, where he holed out from a bunker for a birdie at the first.
He stuck his approach shot three feet from the pin for a birdie at the third, and birdied the par-five fifth and seventh to make the turn four-under for the day.
But he stalled with a 

Woods can't build Memorial momentum

The Gabba has been locked in to host Australia's opening Test of the 2021-22 Ashes series against England after a major upgrade to the stadium was announced.
The ground, where Australia haven't lost a Test since 1988, the longest active streak in world cricket, was overlooked for the first Test against India last summer.
It was instead played in Adelaide, and Australia lost, with players urging a return to Brisbane to kick off future home series.
With a Aus$35 million upgrade to public, corporate and media facilities announced on Saturday, Cricket Australia confirmed the Ashes opener would be at the Gabba.
"Nothing excites Australian cricket fans like an Ashes series on home soil," said CA chief Kevin Roberts.
"The upgrades to the Gabba will ensure that in hosting the first Test... fans in Queensland will get the first opportunity to enjoy world-class cricket while experiencing the upgraded facilities."
During the last Ashes in Australia, more than 130,000 fans flocked to the Gabba to 

Upgraded Gabba to host opening 2021 Ashes Test

A first trophy in seven years for Liverpool, and a first win in seven finals for Jurgen Klopp. The European Cup is heading back to Anfield for the sixth time and their manager is confident there is much more to come.
A beaming Klopp revealed after Saturday's 2-0 final victory over Tottenham Hotspur in Madrid that he had received a congratulatory phonecall from Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola.
Three weeks ago, the Reds were denied a first league title in 30 years by City, despite losing just once and racking up 97 points, but winning the Champions League makes up for that disappointment.
"We promised each other already that we will kick our butts next year again," Klopp said of his brief exchange with Guardiola in between speaking to the world's media at the Metropolitano Stadium.
"We will go for everything and we'll see if we get something." It was a sentiment shared by centre-back Virgil van Dijk as he spoke after being named man of the match in the final.
"In July when we start .

'Only the start' - Klopp predicts more good times ahead for Liverpool

Israel attacked Syrian military positions in the country's south early Sunday, killing three soldiers and wounding seven others, Syria's state-run media reported.
State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying the attacks struck military positions in the southern region of Quneitra, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They also caused material damage, it said.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed on Twitter that Israel targeted several military positions in Syria. He said the targets included two artillery batteries, several observation and intelligence posts and an SA2 air defense unit.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition's war monitor, said Israeli warplanes struck positions and an arms depot of Iranian troops and Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters.
The attacks came hours after the Israeli military said two projectiles were fired from Syria toward the Golan Heights.
The Israeli military said Saturday there were no reports of ..

Syria says Israeli attacks kill 3 soldiers, wound 7

The Syrian army's anti-aircraft defence was activated Sunday against "enemy missiles" fired from Israel at "positions" in southwest Damascus, the official Sana news agency quoted a military source as saying.
"At dawn Sunday, enemy air targets arrived from the occupied Golan", the military source said.
"Our air defence blocked and shot down these enemy missiles which targeted our positions in southwest Damascus.

Syrian air defence fires at 'enemy missiles' in Damascus: state media

Four were engineers who worked to maintain streets and protect wetlands. Three were right-of-way agents who reviewed property lines. The others included an account clerk, a technician, an administrative assistant and a special projects coordinator. In all, they had served the city of Virginia Beach for more than 150 years.
These 11 city employees and one contractor were wiped out Friday when a fellow city worker opened fire inside a municipal building. A day after the shooting, city officials sought to honor them by sharing their job titles and years of service in a somber slideshow.
"They leave a void that we will never be able to fill," said City Manager Dave Hansen, who had worked for years with many of the dead.
Police Chief James Cervera identified the assailant as DeWayne Craddock, who had been employed for 15 years as an engineer with the city's utilities department. He declined to comment on a motive for the rampage, which ended with Craddock's death in a gun battle with ...

Virginia victims had 150 years of combined service with city

Conservative businessman Nayib Bukele took office Saturday as president of El Salvador, tasked with turning around grinding poverty and rampant gang violence that are sending thousands fleeing to the United States.
Bukele was sworn in by the speaker of the National Assembly in a square in downtown San Salvador, as a large, boisterous crowd applauded and shouted "We did it!" The telegenic Bukele, 37, was elected in February to succeed Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a leftist former guerrilla who maintained close relations with his Nicaraguan and Venezuelan counterparts.
Bukele has said he will seek closer ties with the United States, home to 2.5 million Salvadorans.
With only 6.6 million people living in the small Central American country, its fortunes are closely linked to the United States which nearly a third of its citizens call home.
"I will be the president of all Salvadorans," Bukele pledged.
"Our country is like a sick child, we all have to take care of it." US President Donald Trump, 

Nayib Bukele sworn in as president of El Salvador

US president Donald Trump urged Britain to be "very careful" about involving Chinese tech giant Huawei in its new 5G network, in an interview published Saturday ahead of his state visit to London.
Asked about reports that Britain is planning to give the firm a limited role, Trump told the Sunday Times newspaper: "Well, you have other alternatives and we have to be very careful from the standpoint of national security." He added: "You know we have a very important intelligence gathering group, that we work very closely with your country (Britain) and so you have to be very careful."
The US has long voiced suspicions that Huawei is controlled by the Chinese government and thus a global security threat -- charges strongly denied by the firm and by Beijing.
Prime Minister Theresa May's government has insisted a decision has not yet been made on Huawei's involvement in building a 5G network in Britain.
Trump said he believed "things will all work out, you'll see".
In a wide-ranging ...

Trump urges UK to be 'very careful' over Huawei and 5G

The captain of a river cruise ship that collided with a smaller sightseeing vessel was charged Saturday over the accident in Budapest that killed seven South Korean tourists and left 21 missing.
The Mermaid carrying mainly South Korean tourists overturned and sank late Wednesday, seconds after colliding with the Viking Sigyn cruise ship on a busy stretch of the Danube in the heart of Budapest.
Strong currents have hampered the search for those missing -- 19 South Koreans and two Hungarians -- preventing divers from reaching the submerged boat.
The Sigyn's Ukrainian captain was charged Saturday, a Budapest court official told AFP, but gave no further details.
The 64-year-old was detained Thursday for questioning for "endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths", police have said.
The captain's lawyer, Balazs Toth, said the court had granted bail, but prosecutors were appealing and so his client remained detained.
"He is devastated by the number of victims and is asking .

Captain charged over Budapest boat tragedy

Ten people were killed and 20 wounded Saturday in a suicide car bomb attack in Raqa, a former stronghold of the Islamic State group (IS) in north Syria, a rights watchdog said.
The explosion claimed the lives of five civilians and five soldiers of the Syrian Democratic Forces  (SDF), a Kurdish-Arab alliance backed by Washington which wrested the city from IS in October 2017, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
The attack, for which no one has claimed responsibility, was preceded by a bomb explosion that left several people wounded in another part of the city frequently targeted by the Islamic State group, said the SOHR.
"The car bomb attack was targeting an SDF position," SOHR director Rami Abdel Rahmane told AFP. The explosion took place at the al-Naim square where IS had carried out beheadings when it was in control of the city.
On April 9, a double bombing claimed by IS killed 13 people, mostly civilians, in the jihadist group's former bastion.
IS jihadists 

10 dead in suicide car bomb attack in Raqa, Syria: NGO

Mohamed Salah was off injured within 30 minutes of last year's Champions League final but celebrating inside two minutes of this one.
The last props of the opening ceremony were not even down the tunnel when Salah lashed his penalty past Hugo Lloris before lingering to show his joy in front of the Tottenham fans, long after his team-mates had trundled away.
Salah has history with Spurs supporters, largely on account of being the main threat to Harry Kane winning the Golden Boot in recent seasons, but perhaps there was more to why he wanted to hang on the moment.
After all, it was on this stage last year, with club football's biggest prize in sight, that Salah saw his final ended early by a tug from Sergio Ramos and a tumble on his shoulder.
"Of course it was a big moment in the game," Jurgen Klopp said last year. "It was like wrestling. The shock of the boys was obvious." Taken off after half an hour, Salah lay in hospital, helpless while Liverpool were beaten 3-1 by Real Madrid and ..

Redemption for Salah as Liverpool beat Tottenham to win Champions League

One person was killed and 10 wounded in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Saturday when shots were fired near the site of a protest sit-in, a doctors' committee close to demonstrators said.
"After regular forces opened fire, there were casualties on Nile Street near the sit-in site," the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said in a statement.
The committee did not specify which forces opened fire or identify those killed or wounded.
A man died "who was hit with live rounds in the head," the committee said.
Soldiers and security forces blocked off the city's Nile Street on Saturday afternoon, while gunfire could be heard in the distance, an AFP reporter said. It was unclear who was firing.
The doctors' committee said three people were wounded by gunfire and most of the other casualties were hit with rifle butts and steel bars, without elaborating.
The military ousted president Omar al-Bashir in April after months of protests against his authoritarian rule.
Protesters have remained ...

One dead, 10 wounded as shots fired in Sudan capital

Tunisian authorities were on Saturday stopping 75 migrants saved at sea from coming ashore, according to a rights group and the captain of the ship which rescued them.
The migrants were adrift in international waters in a boat with a broken engine when an Egyptian tug boat brought them aboard, the captain said on condition of anonymity.
After notifying authorities in Italy and Malta, the crew headed for the southern Tunisian port of Zarzis where authorities refused to allow the ship to dock.
"We're in a critical situation, we're nearly 100 on board and we don't have more than two days of supplies of water and food," the captain told AFP by phone.
Tunisian rights organisation FTDES said the regional governor demanded government support before accepting the migrants, following an increase in new arrivals from neighbouring Libya in recent months.
Tunisian authorities did not respond to AFP's requests for comment.
The crew of the tug boat rescued 64 Bangladeshis, nine Egyptians, one ...

Tunisia stops rescued migrants from coming ashore

Mount Etna in southern Italy has burst into life, spitting molten lava high into the sky, though cloud cover Saturday ruined the view for those brave enough to venture up the flanks of Europe's highest volcano.
The National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) said there was "lively spattering" as fire and hot ash spewed high into the sky in an eruption which began Thursday and had slowed slightly by Saturday but still posed a risk to climbers.
The lava came from two eruptive fissures on the northeastern and south-southeastern sides of the New Southeast Crater.
The volcano on the island of Sicily previously erupted in December.
The latest lava show was not expected to pose any problems for nearby residential areas or for flights at the closest airport at Catania.

Italy's Mount Etna sparks into life

David Warner hit an unbeaten half-century on his official return to international cricket on Saturday as Australia romped to victory by seven wickets in their World Cup opener against Afghanistan.
The five-time champions bowled Afghanistan out for 207 in 38.2 overs on a warm day in Bristol and then made steady progress, reaching their target with more than 15 overs to spare, with Warner 89 not out.
The match was the first official Australian appearance in any format for Warner and former captain Steve Smith since the end of their year-long bans for ball-tampering.
The crowd booed the pair and two fans watched the game from a balcony dressed as sandpaper after the scandal last year in which Australia hatched a plot to use the material to alter the condition of the ball.
"It's good to be back and it's a good win for us," said man-of-thee-match Warner at the presentation ceremony.
"There were nerves getting back into the camp and getting back into the full intensity of training, but to ..

Cricket-WC-2019-AFG-AUS SCORES

Word of the arrest  via a friend's text message  hit Wayne Sankey like a thunderbolt.
"I said, 'You gotta be kidding me,'" Sankey recalled.
"And then I told the wife and she couldn't believe it. 'There's no way,' she said. 'Ray down the road?'" Ray Vannieuwenhoven was his next-door neighbour  a helpful, 82-year-old handyman with a gravelly voice and a loud, distinctive laugh, the kind of guy who always waved from his car.
The widower and father of five grown children had lived quietly for two decades among the 800 residents of Lakewood, a northern Wisconsin town surrounded by forests and small lakes.
Now authorities were saying this man was a cold-blooded killer.
They had used genetic genealogy to crack a cold case that stretched back well into the 20th century  a double murder 25 miles southwest of Lakewood.
For nearly 43 years, Vannieuwenoven had lived in plain sight, yet outside detectives' radar.
It was just too much to be believed. Was the guy next door really a monster? ...

Arrest in 43-year-old murder case stuns Wisconsin town

A man who repeatedly impersonates Saudi royals to con investors and live a lavish lifestyle has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for a ruse that fell apart when a victim saw him eating pork, which is prohibited in Islam.
Anthony Gignac, 48, received the sentence Friday in Miami for stealing at least USD 8 million while pretending to be "Sultan Bin Kahlid Al-Saud."
He bought a Ferrari, Rolex watches and rented a condo on an exclusive South Florida island with his loot. He pleaded guilty in March to wire fraud, impersonating a diplomat and other crimes.
The Miami Herald reports that US District Judge Cecilia Altonaga called him a "mastermind."
Prosecutors said it was at least the 11th time Gignac, 48, had been arrested for impersonating a Saudi prince.
"He was the so-called Saudi prince. He enveloped himself in the trappings of Saudi royalty. He had everyone believing he was a Saudi prince," Altonaga said.
Gignac was born in Colombia but was adopted by a Michigan family as a young ..

Man who impersonated Saudi prince to steal gets 18 years

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has reiterated the grouping's support for the legitimate rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the United Nations resolutions, the Pakistan Foreign Office said here Saturday.
The OIC is an international organisation consisting of 57 member states, with 53 countries being Muslim-majority nations.
The 14th OIC summit was held in the holy city of Makkah on Friday and several leaders of Muslim countries attended. Prime Minister Imran Khan represented Pakistan at the Summit.
Foreign Office said in a statement that the Summit in Makkah reiterated the Conference's principled support for the legitimate right to self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with UN resolutions.
India has made it clear that there is no scope for any third party role or mediation in Kashmir. The Ministry of External Affairs said in March that the Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India and is a matter strictly ...

Page 2713 - PTI Stories National

Future imperfect: Serena faces more major doubts after Roland Garros shocker

Woods can't build Memorial momentum

Upgraded Gabba to host opening 2021 Ashes Test

'Only the start' - Klopp predicts more good times ahead for Liverpool

Syria says Israeli attacks kill 3 soldiers, wound 7

Syrian air defence fires at 'enemy missiles' in Damascus: state media

Virginia victims had 150 years of combined service with city

Nayib Bukele sworn in as president of El Salvador

Trump urges UK to be 'very careful' over Huawei and 5G

Trump urges UK to be 'very careful' over Huawei and 5G

Captain charged over Budapest boat tragedy

10 dead in suicide car bomb attack in Raqa, Syria: NGO

Redemption for Salah as Liverpool beat Tottenham to win Champions League

One dead, 10 wounded as shots fired in Sudan capital

Tunisia stops rescued migrants from coming ashore

Italy's Mount Etna sparks into life

Australia's Warner stars in Afghan World Cup romp

Cricket-WC-2019-AFG-AUS SCORES

Arrest in 43-year-old murder case stuns Wisconsin town

Man who impersonated Saudi prince to steal gets 18 years