Anscombe continues for injured Biggar for Wales vs Georgia at the Rugby World Cup

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European captain Luke Donald was delivering his Ryder Cup victory speech at Marco Simone when his celebrating players standing beside him started a chant that quickly swept through the grandstands. “Two more years” was the cry that was seemingly led by Rory McIlroy and drew a broad smile from Donald. Donald has tempered any talk of him staying on as captain after orchestrating Europe’s 16½-11½ victory over the Americans that won back the 17-inch golden trophy on Sunday. But the players clearly want him to go again. Donald has a solid core of established stars and up-and-coming talent if he wants to lead the defense of the trophy at Bethpage Black in 2025.

It was early in his NASCAR career that Ryan Blaney didn’t do a celebratory burnout following a victory, an act that caught the attention of Hall of Fame crew chief Dale Inman. Blaney was told by Inman to never do a burnout and so he didn't until he won Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway. The victory put Blaney through to the round of eight of NASCAR's playoffs with this weekend's elimination race ahead. Blaney and William Byron are the two drivers locked into the round of eight ahead of Sunday's race on The Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Former Patriots tight end Russ Francis died in a plane crash Sunday in Lake Placid, N.Y., the team announced Monday.

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After a summer where the Miami Heat were hoping to land Damian Lillard, the reigning Eastern Conference champions reported for training camp on Monday with a familiar refrain in mind. They believe they can contend for a title, and now the real work starts. Lillard wound up getting traded to Milwaukee, and that means Tyler Herro remains in Miami. He says he just wants to feel wanted, and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra says Herro is absolutely valued by the Heat.

LeBron James says his 18-year-old son is progressing in his rehabilitation from cardiac arrest in hopes of playing for the University of Southern California this season. Bronny James went into cardiac arrest during a workout at the Galen Center in late July. LeBron James praised USC’s training staff and coaches for saving Bronny’s life with their quick responses after Bronny was stricken. Bronny is attending classes at USC and spending time with his teammates while he gets back to full strength. LeBron said the health scare was frightening for the family, but ultimately made them stronger.

Saudi state media say a Saudi soccer team has refused to play a match in Iran because of a statue of a slain Iranian general placed on the sideline. The Saudi Al Ittihad club and its star striker Karim Benzema were scheduled to play Iran’s Sepahan in the the Asian Champions League late Monday. It was one of several matches made possible by a recent diplomatic rapprochement between the longtime Mideast rivals. But the Saudi team did not take to the field, apparently because of a bust of Gen. Qassem Soleimani. He is seen as having played a key role in training Houthi fighters in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has been at war with the Iran-aligned rebels since 2015.

Attorneys for former major league pitcher Trevor Bauer say he and a woman who accused him of beating and sexually assaulting her in 2021 have settled their legal dispute. Jon Fetterolf and Shawn Holley say both the parties' lawsuits were officially dropped Monday. The former Dodgers pitcher was placed on administrative leave by MLB in July 2021 after the allegations were made by the woman, who said Bauer assaulted her on two different occasions during what she said began as consensual sexual encounters between them. Bauer denied the allegation, saying the encounters were consensual.

Former NFL player Russ Francis, a tight end whose career in the league included multiple Pro Bowl appearances and a Super Bowl victory, was killed along with another aviation enthusiast when the single-engine plane the two men were in crashed shortly after takeoff from an airport in upstate New York. The 70-year-old Francis and 63-year-old Richard McSpadden had taken off from the Lake Placid Airport shortly after 4 p.m. Sunday in a Cessna 177 plane. The New York State Police say it crashed into an embankment. Francis was a first-round pick in the NFL draft in 1975. He played with the New England Patriots from 1975 to 1980. Francis joined the San Francisco 49ers in 1982, and was part of the team that won the Super Bowl in 1984. He rejoined New England in 1987 and retired the year after.

The Houston Rockets have told Kevin Porter Jr. that he can not be with the team in any capacity in the wake of his domestic violence arrest last month. Porter was arrested after an alleged attack on his former WNBA player girlfriend Kysre Gondrezick in a New York City hotel room Sept. 11. Prosecutors said that the attack left her with a fractured neck vertebra and a deep cut above her right eye. The 23-year-old Porter has pleaded not guilty to felony assault and strangulation and is due back in court in Manhattan on Oct. 16.

A long-awaited shakeup of the Atlantic Division's traditional pecking order might finally be approaching with young, retooled teams such as Buffalo and Ottawa finally appearing set to contend. The Boston Bruins lost key veterans to retirement after their stunning first-round playoff collapse. The Lightning not only lost two more contributors from their Stanley Cup teams, but face opening the season without goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. Aging rosters and an NHL salary cap that has remained flat for the past four years might finally be catching up to the Atlantic powers, and opening the door for the division's playoff-starved teams to compete.

Jimmy Butler had a new look for Media Day and the NBA world immediately took notice. The Miami forward arrived for the team’s first official day of work this season with piercings — eye, lip and nose — along with a new hairstyle and his fingernails painted black. It’s become a trend of sorts for Butler, who went through the Media Day gamut last year with dreadlocks in a deviation from his usual look. There's no word yet on whether Butler will keep the look for Miami's first practice on Tuesday.

Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys are still having trouble scoring touchdowns from inside the opponent's 20-yard line. Three blowout victories in four games are helping mask the issue. Now is the time for a solution with Dallas heading to San Francisco on Sunday. The unbeaten 49ers have beaten the Cowboys in the playoffs each of the past two seasons. The Cowboys came out of the 38-3 victory over New England at 29th in the NFL in red zone efficiency at 36.8%.

Pat Pellegrini was playing for Coventry in England’s second division two weeks ago. He was with Sevenoaks in England’s fifth division less than two years ago. On Sunday he scored his first test try for Tonga against Rugby World Cup defending champion South Africa. Pellegrini couldn’t convert and Tonga ultimately lost 49-18 in Marseille. But the Tongans were consoled by their three tries, the most the Springboks have allowed in the Rugby World Cup since their infamous loss to Japan in 2015, 18 games ago. Pellegrini also had a tournament souvenir he couldn’t have possibly imagined.

The Milwaukee Bucks have signed former Phoenix Suns guard Cameron Payne. The 29-year-old played 48 games for the Suns last season and averaged 10.3 points, 4.5 assists and 20.2 minutes. The 6-foot-1 guard was waived by the San Antonio Spurs last month. The Suns had sent Payne, a second-round pick and cash to the Spurs in exchange for a second-round pick in a move to clear cap space. Payne spent the last four seasons with Phoenix and was part of the Suns team that lost to the Bucks in the 2021 NBA Finals.

Rasmus Dahlin and the Sabres aren't running away from rising expectations in Buffalo that the team is finally ready to contend and end the team's NHL-worst 12-season playoff drought. Dahlin says it's “go time,” and there are no more excuses for a young, offensively talented team that fell two points of qualifying for the playoffs last year. The Sabres were one of the NHL's top-scoring teams and sought to address their defensive deficiencies by adding Erik Johnson and Connor Clifton in free agency. Otherwise, the roster mostly returns intact. Much is being expected on rookie goalie Devon Levi to make the immediate jump from college to the NHL.

The Philadelphia Flyers overhauled their front office, moved on from several veterans and are relying on young players in a rebuilding season. Team president Keith Jones and general manager Danny Briere have helped to re-establish goodwill with the club’s loyal fan base, a relationship that began to fracture after the passing of longtime owner Ed Snider in 2016. Now, fans’ loyalty likely will be tested as the Flyers expect to have growing pains as they try to get back to the perennial Stanley Cup contender they were under Snider.

Going into the second season under Lambert, the New York Islanders will again rely on the defense-first mentality. That approach has helped create opportunistic and timely scoring. The Islanders return mostly the same lineup that played in the first-round playoff loss to Carolina. Bo Horvat struggled after coming over from Vancouver just before the All-Star break, but should be better settled into his new surroundings. The Islanders had some success bringing up some young players to fill in for injuries, and will be looking to bring in some youngsters again.

James Harden skipped the Philadelphia 76ers’ media day and his status for training camp this week in Colorado is unclear because the franchise has yet to meet the disgruntled guard’s demand for a trade. The 34-year-old Harden’s relationship with the Sixers has been obliterated following an offseason in which he was fined $10,000 for publicly calling team president Daryl Morey a liar. Harden picked up his $35.6 million contract option this season in June with the expectation the team would try to trade him. When no deal materialized for the seven-time All-NBA player, he blasted Morey at a promotional event in China. Morey says they're working to resolve the situation in the best way for "all parties."

Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs hold on to beat Jets 23-20 with Taylor Swift, Aaron Rodgers watching

Perfect starts by Texas and Oklahoma have set up the 43rd meeting between the Red River Rivals where both teams will be ranked. The Longhorns were No. 3 in Sunday’s AP Top 25 and the Sooners moved up a couple of spots to a season-high No. 12. The Texas-Oklahoma rivalry has the second-most ranked matchups of any series in major college football. Michigan-Ohio State is No. 1. The Wolverines and Buckeyes have played 48 times when both teams were ranked, including last year.

The return of Champions League soccer to Old Trafford will be a reminder of happier times for Erik ten Hag when Manchester United hosts Galatasaray. It is a reminder of his achievements in his first season at the club when leading it back into European soccer’s elite competition. And also a reminder of one of his finest moments when guiding his former club Ajax to the semifinals back in 2019 and beating Real Madrid and Juventus along the way. It was that run that brought Ten Hag to the attention of many and his achievements at Ajax when winning three league titles in four years convinced United he was the man to bring the good times back to England’s most storied club.

Gareth Anscombe will continue as the Wales flyhalf while Dan Biggar is injured after coach Warren Gatland named his team to play Georgia at the Rugby World Cup three days early. Wales is already through to the quarterfinals with three out of three wins. It will secure first place in Pool C if it earns a minimum point against Georgia on Saturday in Nantes. Georgia has a draw and two losses. Wales has changed six of the starting XV that beat Australia by a record 40-6 in Lyon on Sept. 24. Dewi Lake, handed the captaincy, Dafydd Jenkins and Tommy Reffell have come into the forwards, and Tomos Williams, Anscombe and Rio Dyer into the backline. Biggar injured a chest muscle against Australia. Wales hope he's fitfor the quarterfinals.

China is simply relentless in its domination of the Asian Games. China won 132 gold medals and 287 medals overall at the games five years ago in Indonesia. China has already broken its mark for gold medals this time and is very close to matching the overall total from five years ago into Day 9 with five full days remaining. China has won 146 gold medals already. That is almost half of the 305 gold medals awarded so far. Its overall total stands at 269. Host nations typically get a “home field” bounce when hosting a large multi-sport event like the Asian Games.

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Government officials say a new inspection has been ordered at the stadium that hosted the 2004 Athens Olympics after rust was found along the iconic arched roof. The site was forced to close. The 70,000-seat Olympic Stadium and nearby Olympic Velodrome are covered by white-ribbed steel roofs designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. They are similar in style to work such as the Oculus Transportation Hub in downtown New York. It is the latest headache for Greek authorities in managing costly Olympic venues around the capital. Many of them remain underused or mothballed.

The NFL’s top preseason contenders played like it in the first quarter of the season. Defending champion Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas and Buffalo are 17-3 combined. The Chiefs, Eagles, 49ers, Cowboys and Bills are, in Dennis Green’s words, who we thought they were. Of the six teams with the best Super Bowl odds entering the season, only the Bengals haven’t lived up to expectations. Cincinnati is struggling because Joe Burrow is playing hurt. A calf injury has severely limited the NFL’s highest-paid player. Most of the frontrunners are winning despite not playing their best football.

VAR was supposed to put an end to all of this. But Liverpool became the latest team to count the cost of a blatant error by Premier League officials and the integrity of English soccer’s top division was called into question. The fallout from Luis Diaz’s wrongly-disallowed goal in Liverpool’s 2-1 loss at Tottenham on Saturday resulted in the Merseyside club issuing a statement. It said it would “explore the range of options available given the clear need for escalation and resolution.” It is not clear what those “options” are. But the tone of Liverpool’s statement revealed the club’s frustration after Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Darren England failed to award Diaz’s goal that was clearly shown to be onside.

Two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas and two of her teammates on Spain’s women’s national team have appeared before a judge as witnesses in the investigation of former soccer federation president Luis Rubiales for kissing a player on the lips. Putellas, Irene Paredes and Misa Rodríguez all answered questions from the judge in Madrid. Rodríguez appeared in court in the Spanish capital while Putellas and Paredes testified via video from Barcelona. Spanish state prosecutors have accused Rubiales of sexual assault and coercion for kissing Jenni Hermoso on the lips without her consent during the awards ceremony after the Women’s World Cup final in August.

Manchester United defender Lisandro Martinez will undergo surgery on his right foot for an injured metatarsal. Martinez has already been ruled out for an “extended period” after a recurrence of the injury that saw him miss the end of last season. He initially had surgery in April to repair his fractured metatarsal. United will play Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday. United manager Erik ten Hag also says Antony will be in contention to play again after returning from a leave of absence to address allegations of domestic abuse. United lost to Bayern Munich 4-3 in its opening game in Group A.

UNDATED (AP) — Georgia’s hold on No. 1 in The Associated Press college football poll loosened as the Bulldogs received a season-low 35 first-place votes out of possible 62. The Bulldogs needed a late touchdown to escape with a win at Auburn and still extended their streak to 16 appearances a…