The Albany Gazette - News from Albany, New York and the whole world

World number three Alexander Zverev said Friday that he needs to play even better if he wants to go far at the Australian Open, as the German chases a maiden major crown.

Eddie Howe confirmed on Friday that Newcastle would travel to Saudi Arabia for a training camp despite a fresh warning from Amnesty International that the kingdom was "trying to sportswash their appalling human rights record".

After six days and five nights fighting against the freezing wind, being "glued to the ice", barely sleeping, hardly eating, Charles Dubouloz is still on a high.

The Taliban will hold talks with Western officials in Oslo next week on human rights and humanitarian aid in their first official visit to the West since returning to power, the Norwegian and Taliban governments said Friday.

US singer and actor Meat Loaf, famous for his "Bat Out of Hell" rock anthem, has died aged 74, according to a statement on Friday.

Clinical top seed Ashleigh Barty kept her unblemished record this year intact with a straight-sets demolition Friday of Camila Giorgi to set up a fourth-round clash with American giant-killer Amanda Anisimova.

Hard-living and hard-rocking, the US singer known as Meat Loaf whose death was announced on Friday, took music into wild and operatic places to become one of the biggest-selling artists of all time.

China on Friday said the UN's religious freedom envoy will take part in the Winter Olympics torch relay, which organisers announced would be closed to the public because of coronavirus fears.

Energy giants TotalEnergies and Chevron said Friday they would leave Myanmar following pressure from human rights groups to cut financial ties with the military junta since last year's military coup.

China on Friday launched a special bullet train service to speed athletes to Winter Olympics venues in a bubble separating them from the rest of the population.

Defending champion Naomi Osaka was dumped out of the Australian Open third round on Friday by unseeded American Amanda Anisimova to open up the draw for title favourite Ashleigh Barty.

Washington and Moscow's top diplomats met Friday in Geneva for high-stakes talks on Ukraine, but with little hope of a breakthrough that would ease fears of a Russian invasion.

Tens of thousands of Indonesia's indigenous people are at risk of being expelled from their lands to make way for the construction of a new capital on jungle-clad Borneo island, a rights group warned on Friday.

Italian seventh seed Matteo Berrettini fought off exciting Spanish youngster Carlos Alcaraz and the effects of a heavy tumble to win a fifth-set tiebreaker and advance to the fourth round of the Australian Open on Friday.

Airbus has taken the extraordinary step of cancelling a multi-billion-dollar order of 50 planes from Qatar Airways, a major customer, in an escalating feud over the airline's grounding of A350 aircraft.

Malaysian badminton ace Lee Zii Jia, ranked seventh in the world, was Friday banned from tournaments for two years as a punishment for quitting his national team to go independent.

An air strike has destroyed a prison in the Huthi rebel stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen, leaving many dead or wounded, the insurgents said Friday as the Red Cross confirmed an attack.

Jessica Pegula revealed Friday the secret behind her run to the fourth round of the Australian Open -- spending every night down the casino.

With fish and turtles swimming around them, divers performed an underwater lion dance in a Malaysian aquarium on Friday, in a fresh take on the traditional Lunar New Year performance.

China condemned a French parliament resolution on Friday that accuses Beijing of carrying out a genocide against its Uyghur Muslim population, a move that has strained ties two weeks before the Winter Olympics.

A Taiwanese woman faces the death penalty for allegedly starting the island's deadliest fire in decades in an attempt to get back at a boyfriend she suspected was cheating on her.

South Korean tech giant Samsung has pulled an online advert in Singapore that featured a hijab-wearing Muslim woman hugging her drag queen son after it sparked a backlash from socially conservative corners.

Barcelona and Atletico Madrid will have to put recent struggles behind them this weekend as they continue their scrap to finish in La Liga’s top four.

Booming sales of home self-test kits for Covid are prompting Indian authorities to tighten the rules around their sale and fuelling long-held fears of underreporting as cases surge.

Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria on Friday hunted down Islamic State group fighters after an IS attack on a Kurdish-run prison housing fellow jihadists, a war monitor and Kurdish forces said.

An "immersive" Princess Diana documentary offering an "origin story" for the British royal family's latest woes was among the opening night movies at the online Sundance film festival Thursday.

The United Nations said destruction caused by Typhoon Rai in the Philippines had been "badly underestimated" in initial assessments, tripling the number of people "seriously affected" to nine million.

The story of a Chinese migrant worker whose plight sparked a wave of online sympathy after he tested positive for the coronavirus took another sad twist Friday, as police said his missing son was long dead.

Serbia's 77th-ranked Miomir Kecmanovic emerged as a big winner from the Novak Djokovic saga -- and capitalised on his good fortune by reaching the fourth round at the Australian Open on Friday.

Dominican rookie Chris Duarte led the injury-hit Indiana Pacers to a 121-117 NBA overtime triumph over Stephen Curry and the Golden Warriors on Thursday.

Swimming Australia looks set to ban skin-fold tests and the term "physique" while unreservedly apologising Friday for the way women have been treated in the sport.

It's the tale of a boy who cheats on his fiancee -- one misdeed too many in a selfish life -- and in desperation turns to a genie for help.