Entertainment

BIRMINGHAM, England: Australia batsman David Warner was dropped for his team’s Champions Trophy washout against New Zealand on Wednesday for attacking England player Joe Root in a bar, inflaming tensions between the fierce rivals ahead of the Ashes series and leaving his test spot in jeopardy. While Cricket Australia maintained it was an alleged “physical altercation,” its English counterparts used stronger language by saying Warner “initiated an unprovoked …

LONDON: Six-time Olympic champion Chris Hoy, who spearheaded a golden period of British track cycling dominance, announced his retirement Thursday, content he had nothing left to prove after a long and stellar career. Britain’s most successful Olympian, who won two golds at the 2012 London Games to add to three from Beijing four years earlier and his first in Athens in 2004, said the time was …

BEIRUT: Rain fell in waves and thunder cracked as the annual Beirut Marathon got under way early Sunday, with a slightly depressed turnout thanks to the weather. Those who did show up for the marathon or other races were undeterred, however. Over 33,000 people registered for the race, but the rain and rivers of water they caused in the streets clearly kept …

LONDON: Ireland’s Katie Taylor moved a step away from becoming one of the first Olympic women’s boxing champions on Wednesday when she produced a clinical performance to reach the lightweight final. The four-time amateur world champion, at the forefront of the campaign to get women’s boxing into the Olympics, beat Tajikistan’s Mavzuna Chorieva 17-9 in front of another raucous crowd …

LONDON: The Olympic flame took a festive, valedictory lap around London on Thursday, taking in some of the sun-drenched capital’s most famous landmarks and getting a royal welcome on the second-to-last day of its trek across Britain. The torch – carried by athletes, charity workers and celebrities – thrilled thousands of Londoners as it swept across Regent’s Canal in Camden, …

LONDON: Women’s rights campaigners called on Wednesday for an end to sex discrimination at the Olympics, urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ensure there are equal numbers of sports and medals for men and women. Representatives from various European women’s groups met in London for a symbolic burial of the Olympic Charter, saying its principles of condoning any form …

LONDON: The Olympic stadium, the beating heart of the Games when the world’s greatest athletes come to London in 82 days’ time, was formally opened on Saturday by a nine-year-old girl who lives down the road. Niamh Clarke-Willis, who can see the Olympic Park from her home in the east London borough of Hackney, stepped out into the infield of …

LOS ANGELES: Paramedics say they took Whitney Houston’s daughter to a Los Angeles hospital Sunday morning for unspecified medical reasons. The Beverly Hills Fire Department says Bobbi Kristina Brown was taken from the Beverly Hills Hilton around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, less than a day after her mother died in a room at the same hotel. The 18-year-old’s condition was not …