(Reuters) – London has moved a step closer to getting its own National Football League team, British prime minister George Osborne said on Friday, after meeting with NFL team owners, executives and players ahead of this year’s first game at Wembley Stadium. Osborne met Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and NFL executive vice president Mark Waller at Downing Street to discuss what it would
The New York Yankees clinched a playoff spot nine days after the legendary Yogi Berra died, beating the Boston Red Sox 4-1 to record their 10,000th win in franchise history. The milestone victory carried added significance Thursday for the Yankees who claimed a wild card spot and also avoided a series sweep to the rival Red Sox. “It is a relief,” said Yankees infielder Alex Rodriguez.
The Texas Rangers clinched a wild card berth and moved to the cusp of their sixth division title with a 5-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels. Adrian Beltre blasted a three-run double for Texas who can do no worse than a wild card after their third straight Major League Baseball win. The Rangers are three games up on Houston in the American League West with three games left in
By Tom Perry and Lidia Kelly BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia bombed Syria for a third day on Friday, mainly hitting areas held by rival insurgent groups rather than the Islamic State fighters it said it was targeting and drawing an increasingly angry response from the West. The U.S.-led coalition that is waging its own air war against Islamic State called on the Russians to halt strikes on targets other than
By Mirwais Harooni and Jessica Donati KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban fighters were holding out against Afghan troops in Kunduz on Friday, a day after government forces recaptured most of the northern city that had fallen to the militants in their biggest victory of a 14-year insurgency. The Taliban said it had shot down the aircraft, but the U.S. military, which still has several thousands troops in Afghanistan after NATO’s combat
A spokesman for Yemen’s Saudi-backed government denied a television report on Friday that it had decided to break off diplomatic relations with Iran. “The cabinet has not discussed until now the matter of severing diplomatic relations with Iran and no decision was taken,” spokesman Rajeh Badi said, commenting on the unsourced report from state-owned Aden television. Iran is an ally of the Houthi fighters who seized control of the country
By Anton Zverev MOSCOW (Reuters) – International monitors say they have spotted a new kind of Russian weapons system in rebel-held Ukraine this week, possible evidence of Moscow’s continued interest in Ukraine even as it focuses on Syria. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is monitoring a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, reported that its monitors had seen a mobile TOS-1 ‘Buratino’ weapons system for the first time.
By Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations backed a Saudi-led resolution on Friday to support Yemen in setting up a national inquiry into human rights violations, having ditched an attempt led by the Netherlands to mandate an independent U.N. investigation. Human Rights Watch, criticizing the move, said Yemeni authorities had neither investigated nor prosecuted serious international crimes committed since 2011, “nor has the Saudi-led coalition
By Ivana Sekularac and Gergely Szakacs BATROVCI, Serbia/BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Border closures and tighter controls caused by record numbers of migrants are clogging up trade in southeast and central Europe, driving up costs and forcing transport companies to seek other routes. Freight traffic through Serbia was severely disrupted when Hungary and Croatia closed their borders last month to cope with tens of thousands of migrants, most bound for richer nations
