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Six months ago England winger Jonny May's chances of featuring at this Rugby World Cup looked slim as new head coach Steve Borthwick left him out of the Six Nations squad.

Shanghai Masters third seed Holger Rune crashed out of the tournament in straight sets on Friday, the highest-profile of several top-20 players to be knocked out that day.

Argentina coach Michael Cheika has made 11 changes to his team for their must-win final World Cup Pool D match against Japan in Nantes on Sunday.

Following Thursday's devastating strike on a village wake in Ukraine, here are the five deadliest known attacks on civilian targets since the start of the war, in chronological order:

Samoa assistant coach Tusi Pisi said his side can "make history" by beating England in the Rugby World Cup on Saturday.

Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi hopes his players' experience of the Indian Premier League and local conditions will stand them in good stead during the World Cup.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to imprisoned activist Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran, many of whom are removing their hijabs despite a harsh crackdown.

Britain's main opposition Labour party on Friday welcomed a big local election win in Scotland as a sign its electoral fortunes were changing head of a UK general election.

China's Liu Huanhua produced an incredible final lift of 233kg to snatch Asian Games weightlifting gold from Olympic and world champion Akbar Djuraev on Friday.

The rise of South Korean diasporic cinema -- characterised by films like Lee Isaac Chung's "Minari" and Justin Chon's "Jamojaya" -- has allowed the artists involved to feel less alone, one filmmaker told Busan International Film Festival attendees on Friday.

India crushed Bangladesh by nine wickets on Friday to set up a gold medal match against Afghanistan as they bid to become Asian Games champions on their first attempt.

Iga Swiatek will play Coco Gauff in the China Open women's semi-finals, after the world's second and third-ranked players both won in Beijing on Friday.

Russian missiles smashed into residential buildings in east Ukraine's Kharkiv on Friday, killing a 10-year-old boy, just hours after a strike killed more than 50 people attending a wake in a nearby village.

Sub-Saharan Africa will have a "stronger voice" at the International Monetary Fund as it will get a third seat on the global lender's executive board, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva told AFP.

England coach Gareth Southgate says VAR has done nothing to resolve the issue of controversial refereeing decisions, admitting he has never liked the technology.

Revelations that the Dutch king's grandfather was a card-carrying member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party have stunned the Netherlands and its royal family, whose popularity was already in free-fall.

At least 40 people have died in flash floods inundating India's northeast, officials said Friday, as army teams plotted helicopter rescues for more of the thousands stranded in the deluge.

New Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann named Mats Hummels and Thomas Mueller, World Cup winners in 2014, in his first squad for a tour of the United States in October.

Iranian campaigner Narges Mohammadi has for decades campaigned on the most sensitive issues in the Islamic republic, opposing pillars of the clerical system including capital punishment and the obligatory hijab, and defiantly refusing to give up her campaigning even behind bars.

Bangladesh head into their World Cup opener against Afghanistan on Saturday with coach Chandika Hathurusingha saying a place in the semi-finals is a "realistic" goal for his side.

Breakdancing made its Asian Games debut on Friday ahead of an even bigger landmark appearance at the Olympics in Paris, while India reached the men's cricket final in Hangzhou.

Peter O'Mahony is more likely to have his close friend Anthony 'Axel' Foley who died in Paris in October 2016 on his mind than reaching the 100-cap milestone when Ireland play Scotland in the Rugby World Cup on Saturday.

Shanghai Masters third seed Holger Rune crashed out of the tournament in straight sets on Friday, becoming the second top-20 player to be knocked out that day.

India and Australia will play their 150th one-day international when both teams open their World Cup campaign in Chennai on Sunday.

Relatives and officials gathered in the central Syrian city of Homs on Friday morning for the first funerals of dozens of people killed in a drone attack on a military academy.

With its manicured lawns and ancient cross-stones, the church of Saint Gregory in Goris is a haven of peace in the chaos of a city full of Armenians fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh.

South Koreans hoping to taste authentic North Korean cuisine abroad may be out of luck, with Pyongyang-run restaurants across northern China saying they will refuse to serve their capitalist compatriots.

Hong Kong led the charge as most Asian markets posted gains Friday, shrugging off Wall Street losses ahead of key US jobs data due later in the day.

False claims about meat taxes, references to a debunked conspiracy theory and myths about bendy bananas -- are members of Britain's ruling Conservatives following Donald Trump's electoral playbook?

The 2026 Asian Games in Japan can "wipe away" public doubts over holding major sporting events, a senior official told AFP, following a wide ranging corruption scandal surrounding the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Indian rescuers are searching for over 100 people missing in a flash flood caused by a glacial lake bursting its banks, a risk scientists warn is increasing with climate change.

Luxembourg's residents may be classified as the wealthiest in the European Union, but the sky-high cost of buying or renting a home in the country has made living there nearly impossible for some.