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The Tianjin Tigers continued their impressive form against the Changchun outfit following last weekend’s 5-1 thrashing of Guizhou Zhicheng. Chen Jingang’s men were defeated by an 81st-minute winner from Acheampong after an assist from Muzepper Mirahmetjan. The Ghana international was replaced in the stoppage time by Haoyu Mao while Nigeria international John Obi Mikel featured for the entire duration of the outing. Super Eagles striker Odion Ighalo lasted from start to finish but could not help his side from suffering their fifth loss of the season....

The book in question is Sinatra and Me: In the Wee Small Hours, written by Tony Oppedisano and due out on June 8 from Scribner. The publisher told Newsweek it stands behind the book and does not believe the criticisms about its contents are valid. Sinatra and Oppedisano were more than three decades apart in age, but Oppedisano explains in his book that Sinatra came to trust him through his association with their mutual friend Jilly Rizzo, who was a close Sinatra confidante before he died in 1992....

Don’t tell Packers running back Johnathan Franklin that it’s just a cliché. For him it is reality. Last year’s fourth round pick out of UCLA was considered one of the top running backs in the 2013 draft. He injured his neck on a kickoff in Week 12 last season against the Vikings and was recently informed that his career is over. Just like that. “Unfortunately this week I have been ruled out of returning for the 2014/15 season and returning to play in the NFL,” Franklin wrote on Twitter....

Hoiberg reiterated that championship theme throughout his first news conference as the team’s head coach. MORE: Hoiberg once clowned Noah’s shooting | Don’t worry about coaches leaving, college fans “This team is ready to compete for a championship,” Hoiberg said. The team definitely has the talent to compete, as Hoiberg pointed out while running through the roster. He says his system will be great for Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler....

At only 28, Freeman is already the battle-worn veteran presence on the Atlanta roster, and he’s become the quiet leader of an upstart Braves squad that finally appears ready to win again. The last winning season was 2013, and not long after that, the first baseman became the de facto veteran. “I kind of felt veteranish at 24 years old with the way the organization went,” Freeman told Sporting News....

“Ronaldo has so many unpleasant traits it is very easy for him to be cast in a more villainous role,” wrote Daniel Taylor in the Guardian before a season that started with the 21-year-old asking United for a transfer and proceeded to see him routinely booed by fans embittered by his histrionics in Germany. In the eye of a storm, Ronaldo had a less theatrical encounter that still leaves an impression on a similarly once-famous teenage footballer....

The 31 year-old running back is coming off his eighth 1,000 yard season with the 49ers, but turns 32 in May and has earned nearly $6.5 million in each of the last two seasons, a high asking price for an aging running back. MORE: Who your fan base hates for 2014 | Worst QB situations | Manning returns for SNL’s 40th anniversary With the younger and faster Carlos Hyde in the backfield waiting to take the reins, Gore isn’t feeling too confident that the Niners will re-sign him....

Gasol says on Tuesday that after speaking with Bulls players Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, “instinct told me to pick Chicago.” MORE: NBA scrambling after LeBron decision | Melo back to Knicks | Free-agent tracker The 7-foot (2.13-meter) Spanish forward says Chicago was a logical choice since “without doubt it is one of the championship favorites in the East alongside Cleveland.” The 34-year-old Gasol, who departs the Los Angeles Lakers after five-plus seasons, says while the Spurs and Thunder were options “nothing is guaranteed wherever you sign....

French government spokesman Gabriel Attal told news channel BFMTV that, whether for business or tourism, all travelers coming into France from the U.K. will need a negative COVID-19 test less than 24 hours old, and will need to isolate for two days. The new measures will take effect on Saturday. According to a statement from French Prime Minister Jean Castex, they apply to vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. Only non-French people and French citizens with “an urgent health or legal reason” will be allowed to travel from France to the U....

The suspension was first reported by French news agency AFP. Amid rising cases of COVID, the French Interior Ministry’s Paris Prefecture had enacted the mandate at the end of December. It required all persons operating in public in France to wear a mask, even when outside. However, Paris’ Administrative Tribunal struck down the mandate, allowing people in the iconic French city to once again wear masks by choice. The decision comes just one day after a similar mandate was struck down in the Yvelines Department, near the city of Versailles....

Baptiste Lormand, 45, who reportedly also held Mexican citizenship, owned the Surtidora Don Batiz restaurant in Polcanco, an upscale neighbourhood in Mexico City. He was found dead at 2 a.m. local time on Saturday morning on a dirt road in Tlalpan, south of the city, according to French media outlet rfi. His business associate, who has not been named by Mexican prosecutors, was also found dead alongside the Frenchman....

The newly strengthened chancellor was quick to deny that he had pushed Lafontaine out or that his government would undergo any radical changes. There would be no dumping the radical Greens from the ruling coalition–or, indeed, any sharp policy reversals. “There is no crisis,” Schroder said, affirming his commitment to the controversial course charted by the departed Lafontaine. But a lot of people were betting, and hoping, that he didn’t mean it....

Every coach or manager has their preference - be that style of play, formation or players. Some can be properly forgiving or removed from emotional preference while others can close the door completely in some player should they failed to perform in any match. While Benjamin Mora did more than his predecessors to highlight and be inclusive towards the likes of Afiq Fazail, Azrif Nasrulhaq and Mahali Jasuli - there’s a fair few players that seemed to have lost the faith of the coach during his tenure....

But why is Friday the 13th deemed to be so unlucky? While there are vaguely biblical roots surrounding the origins of why Friday falling on the 13th of the month has become a bad omen, an important moment in the modern history of this superstition was the publication of the novel Friday, the Thirteenth written by Thomas William Lawson in 1907, which tells the story of a New York City stockbroker who plays on superstitions to create chaos on Wall Street....

Douglass, who was to become “the most famous black man in the world,” was born a slave in Maryland in 1818. A handsome, light-colored youngster, he never knew his white father and was neglected by his mother. He endured some of the traditional horrors of slavery, but his master’s wife taught him to read, and with a book of speeches he managed to buy, young Frederick taught other slaves to read....

The consensus appeared to be that the tone and tactics of the debate in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday night were a less than edifying advertisement for the American electoral process. “Chaotic, childish, mad, grueling,” were the first four words of the assessment by Liberation journalist Isabelle Hanne. “Debate moderator Chris Wallace…at times looked like a schoolteacher overwhelmed by unruly students,” she wrote, describing the debate as a “a mind-boggling spectacle for this traditionally solemn meeting watched by tens of millions of Americans....

Five years ago the United States was freshly embarked on a war, of sorts. It was a war made possible by modern technology and made attractive to modern sensibilities. It was a war waged by people who thought their aim was worth killing for but not dying for. The aim, President Clinton said, was to build a “democratic, multiethnic Balkans region.” The disintegration of Yugoslavia, which began when the Cold War ended, had demonstrated that “Europe” is still just a geographic expression, not a noun denoting a competent political entity....

Money to study diversity in cannabis businesses. Ten million for the National Endowment for the Arts and another $10 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities—that’s on top of the $75 million for the humanities endowment in an earlier stimulus package this year. House Democratic leaders have put together a $3 trillion coronavirus stimulus package that is chock-full of items that have little connection to combatting the deadly outbreak or helping Americans who have been hit-hard by the pandemic and its economic fallout....

This week world leaders reconvene in Doha, Qatar, for the first attempt at a free-trade conference in the world refashioned by Seattle. Doha was chosen for its distance from the Western activists who disrupted the last trade summit, but that was before September 11 shifted the concern to Arab terrorists. Now security has been tightened to include armed guards in gas masks and U.S. Navy vessels offshore. But if all goes well, the real action will take place, once again, behind closed doors....

That was in 2009. Discrimination of this sort has been an ingrained yet lamentable part of the military’s recruitment, retention and promotion practices for many years. But my fellow officers and I couldn’t have imagined that, 12 years later, our disagreement with these policies would get us labeled “racist,” “sexist,” “bigoted” or “extremists” worthy of “eradication” and “elimination” from the USMC. Yet the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps said as much in his February 22 “core values” memo....