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Former China football coach and ex-Everton midfielder Li Tie pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting over $10 million in bribes, a court said, part of a broader crackdown on corruption in Chinese football.

US and European stock markets mostly rose Thursday heading into the Easter break, with traders still focused on inflation and the outlook for interest rates.

France's Toulouse fly-half Romain Ntamack will return from more than seven months out with a knee injury this weekend, the club's defence coach Laurent Thuery said on Thursday.

China is the biggest electric vehicle market in the world, a battle royale featuring both established carmakers as well as upstarts such as Xiaomi, which launched its first EV on Thursday.

Chinese consumer tech giant Xiaomi launched its first electric vehicle in Beijing on Thursday, injecting itself into a fiercely competitive sector in the world's largest car market.

Poland's prime minister on Thursday hailed the progress made in talks with Ukraine on farm imports and border blockades by Polish farmers that had frayed ties between the neighbouring allies.

Debt-plagued Thames Water revealed Thursday that it failed to raise a major cash injection from shareholders, blaming industry regulations that made its rescue plan "uninvestable".

Belgian world championship leader Thierry Neuville took control of the Safari Rally Kenya on Thursday after the opening special stage ahead of Estonia's Ott Tanak, both driving a Hyundai.

UK greenhouse gas emissions fell by 5.4 percent in 2023, largely due to a reduction in the amount of gas used in power stations, according to official data published on Thursday.

France's lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a bill forbidding workplace discrimination based on hair texture, which the draft law's backers say targets mostly black women wearing their hair naturally.

Europe's main stock markets advanced Thursday heading into an Easter break, after which focus was expected to stay with the outlook for interest rates.

A German court ruled Thursday that auto giant Mercedes-Benz knowingly installed emissions-cheating devices in some diesel vehicles, opening the door for owners to seek compensation.

Sharfuddoula Ibne Shahid said on Thursday it was a "great honour" to be named the first Bangladeshi to join the International Cricket Council's Elite Panel of umpires.

Battles and bombardment pounded the Gaza Strip on Thursday after Washington said Israel had agreed to reschedule talks that had been cancelled amid tensions between the allies.

Poland's prime minister on Thursday hosted his Ukrainian counterpart for long-awaited talks designed to ease friction over Ukrainian farm imports and border blockades by disgruntled Polish farmers.

Adele Nicoll has travelled a long way from the person who was "sad" and "rather lost" in 2020, to the extent she has a live chance of achieving the rare feat of competing in both a Summer and Winter Olympics.

France's parliament on Thursday began debating a bill targeting workplace discrimination based on hair texture which the draft law's backers say targets mostly black women wearing their hair naturally.

Athenians are choking in clouds of thick dust blown in from the Sahara along with unseasonably warm weather, weather forecasters and doctors warned on Thursday.

President Ferdinand Marcos said Thursday the Philippines will not be "cowed into silence" by Beijing after confrontations in the South China Sea that injured Filipino troops and damaged vessels.

China on Thursday announced the lifting of punitive tariffs on Australian wine, in a sign that the precarious bilateral relationship could be improving despite setbacks.

China has sent more than a million bottles of water from melting Tibetan glaciers to the Maldives, officials said Thursday, a gift from the world's highest mountains to a low-lying archipelago threatened by rising seas.

Swedish video game group Embracer said Thursday it was selling Gearbox Entertainment, the developer of the popular first-person shooter franchise "Borderlands", to US company Take-Two for $460 million.

Battles and bombardment pounded the Gaza Strip on Thursday, after Washington said Israel agreed to reschedule cancelled talks with tensions worsening between the allies.

Leukaemia survivor Rikako Ikee will compete for Japan in the 100m butterfly at the Paris Olympics after missing out on an individual place at the Tokyo Games three years ago.

In the English countryside, volunteers put the finishing touches to 1,475 metal silhouettes representing British military personnel who died on D-Day, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the landings.

The King of New Zealand's Indigenous Maori people made an impassioned call Thursday for whales to be granted the same legal rights as people in a bid to protect the hallowed yet vulnerable species.

Official campaigning for South Korea's upcoming general election kicked off Thursday, with President Yoon Suk Yeol's ruling party fighting to win back a parliamentary majority and thwart opposition attempts to derail his conservative agenda.

Kevin Durant scored 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead the Phoenix Suns to a 104-97 victory over reigning NBA champions Denver on Wednesday to keep things close at the top of the Western Conference.

A Japanese drugmaker whose dietary supplements are at the centre of a growing health scare reported on Thursday two more deaths potentially related to its tablets.

Asian investors trod carefully Thursday after a Federal Reserve official floated the idea of delaying or reducing interest rate cuts, while the yen held gains having briefly hit a 34-year low the day before.

World number three Jannik Sinner will face defending champion Daniil Medvedev in the semi-finals of the Miami Open - a rematch of the Australian Open final won by Sinner and last year's Miami title match.

Japan's Moon lander woke up after unexpectedly surviving a second frigid, two-week lunar night and transmitted new images back to Earth, the country's space agency said Thursday.