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Washington and Moscow's top diplomats agreed Friday to keep working to ease tensions over Ukraine, with the United States promising a written response to Russian security demands and not ruling out a presidential meeting.

Champions Cup holders Toulouse's home game with Cardiff this weekend has been cancelled due to coronavirus cases among the hosts' squad, tournament organisers said on Friday.

In-form Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde fired an Olympic broadside when he streaked to a "completely wild" victory in the famed World Cup downhill in Kitzbuehel on Friday.

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

The Taliban's religious police have threatened to shoot women NGO workers in a northwestern province of Afghanistan if they do not wear the all-covering burqa, two staff members told AFP.

England captain Owen Farrell's prospects of featuring in the Six Nations suffered a fresh setback when club side Saracens said Friday he had sustained a fresh injury in training.

Rafael Nadal dropped a set for the first time at this year's Australian Open but played his best match since injury to overcome Karen Khachanov and steam into the fourth round on Friday.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro said Friday he was cutting short an official visit to Suriname and Guyana and returning home after his mother died.

British retail sales suffered a record drop in December as consumers shunned the high street due to Omicron concerns, having snapped up Christmas purchases the previous month, data showed Friday.

Rishabh Pant made a hard-hit 85 to spearhead India's bid to square the series in the second one-day international against South Africa at Boland Park in Paarl on Friday.

Unseeded American Amanda Anisimova said she was just "soaking in the moment" after stunning defending Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka in the third round on Friday.

Ghana's government on Friday said it was investigating a massive blast involving a truck transporting mining explosives that killed at least 13 people and wounded dozens more.

A philosophical Naomi Osaka said Friday she "is not God" and cannot always win after the defending champion was knocked out of the Australian Open in the third round by unseeded Amanda Anisimova.

Long shifts working in intensive care and the risk of catching Covid and passing it on to his wife and children left Joan Pons Laplana exhausted.

Families of victims of enforced disappearances allegedly perpetrated by an elite Bangladesh paramilitary group Friday called on the UN to ban the security force from serving as peacekeepers.

Security was beefed up across Pakistan's capital Friday, police said, a day after three people were killed and 22 wounded by a bomb in the eastern megacity of Lahore.

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.