Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola credits much of his side’s recent improvment to “incredible” performances of Eli Juniour Kroupi, as well as the depth brought in by new signings.
MATCH REPORT: Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-2 AFC Bournemouth
An explosion that killed two people and damaged a residential building in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas was likely caused by a gas leak, according to local officials and state media.
The blast took place on Saturday amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States and wounded at least 13 others, the officials said.
list of 3 itemsend of list
“The initial cause of the building accident in Bandar Abbas was a gas leak and build-up, leading to an explosion,” fire chief Mohammad Amin Lyaghat said in comments broadcast on state television.
“My colleagues will give more details in the next few hours,” he said.
The semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that two people were killed in the blast, citing Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, the head of crisis management in Hormozgan province, where Bandar Abbas is located.
Another 13 people were undergoing treatment, it said.
State television said the explosion occurred at an eight-storey building, “destroying two floors, several vehicles, and shops” in the area.
Images carried by Press TV showed the building’s facade blown out, exposing parts of its interior, with debris scattered around.
After rumours circulated online about the Bandar Abbas explosion, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) denied that any of the buildings belonging to its naval forces in the province had been targeted, according to a statement carried by the Fars news agency.
Local newspaper Sobh-e Sahel showed footage of a man in a green security force uniform being carried out on a stretcher in a neck brace, and Tasnim later reported that one officer was injured after being called to the scene to help citizens.
The explosion took place amid fears of a military confrontation between Iran and the US, with President Donald Trump threatening to attack Tehran over a recent crackdown on antigovernment protests and Washington’s push to curtail the Iranian nuclear programme.
Ali Larijani, a senior Iranian security official, said on X on Saturday that work on a framework for negotiations with the US was progressing, downplaying what he described as an “atmosphere created by artificial media warfare”.
Trump, meanwhile, said he believed Iran wanted to make a deal rather than face military action.
“[Iran is] talking to us, and we’ll see if we can do something; otherwise, we’ll see what happens … we have a big fleet heading out there,” he told Fox News. “They are negotiating,” he added.
Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, lies on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman that handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.
The port suffered a big explosion in April of last year that killed dozens of people and injured more than 1,000 others.
Separately on Saturday, four people were killed in a gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to the state-run Tehran Times.
Paul George of the Philadelphia 76ers has been suspended 25 games for violating the terms of the NBA’s Anti-Drug Program, the league has announced.
The NBA did not disclose the nature of the violation or the substance that was involved. The 25-game suspension, by terms of the agreement between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association, indicates that this was a first violation by George.
list of 4 itemsend of list
The suspension will cost George – a nine-time All-Star – roughly $11.7m of his $51.7m salary, or about $469,691.72 for each of the 25 games missed.
George is expected to be eligible to return on March 25, when Philadelphia plays host to Chicago. The 76ers will have 10 games remaining in the regular season at that point.
Philadelphia entered Saturday at 26-21, sixth in the Eastern Conference. The 76ers are 16-11 when George plays, 10-10 when he does not.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Saturday in Milan to protest the deployment of ICE agents during the upcoming Winter Olympics, unbothered by the fact that agents would be stationed in a control room and not operating on the streets.
The protest in Piazza XXV Aprile, a square named for the date of Italy’s liberation from Nazi fascism in 1945, drew people from the left-leaning Democratic Party, the CGIL trade union confederation and the ANPI organisations that protect the memory of Italy’s partisan resistance during World War II, along with many other people.
list of 4 itemsend of list
Organisers handed out plastic whistles, which participants blew as music blared from a van. The protest was as much against the news that agents from a division of ICE would participate in security for the US delegation as against what many saw as creeping fascism in the United States.
“No thank you, from Minnesota to the world, at the side of anyone who fights for human rights,’’ read one banner. “Never again means never again for anyone,’’ read another, and “Ice only in Spritz,’’ a reference to a popular aperitif, read yet another.
News of the deployment of ICE agents has provoked a backlash in Italy. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala has said they were not welcome. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has been called to Parliament to testify about the deployment this week.
Protester Silvana Grassi held a sign that read “Ice = Gestapo.” She said the scenes of ICE agents in Minneapolis shooting and killing protesters and detaining children were deeply upsetting.
“It makes me want to cry to think of it,’’ Grassi said. “It’s too terrible. How did they elect such a terrible, evil man?’’
The ICE agents to be deployed to Milan are not from the same unit as the immigration agents cracking down in Minnesota and other US cities.
Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
“Even if it’s not the same ones, we don’t want them here,’’ Grassi said.
Paolo Bortoletto, also holding a banner, was aware that the officers would have an investigative and not a street role.
Still, he said, “We don’t want them in our country. We are a peaceful country. We don’t want fascists. It’s their ideas that bother us.”
Who: Real Madrid vs Rayo Vallecano
What: Spanish La Liga
Where: Bernabeu in Madrid, Spain
When: Sunday, February 1 at 2pm local time (13:00 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the buildup on Al Jazeera Sport from 10:00 GMT in advance of our text commentary stream.
Real Madrid continue to battle for form in a turbulent season and must quickly shake off their UEFA Champions League woes ahead of the visit of Rayo Vallecano in La Liga on Sunday.
list of 4 itemsend of list
Los Blancos missed out on an automatic place in the last 16 of Europe’s premier club competition when they were defeated at Benfica on Wednesday.
Attention now returns to keeping pace with league leaders and defending champions, Barcelona, on the domestic front.
Real Madrid coach Alvaro Arbeloa insisted he would stand by the team’s star players and give them as many minutes as possible, despite debate over whether the team can function effectively with them all on the pitch.
Los Blancos, whose defeat on Wednesday means they must play a further knockout round in the Champions League, have sometimes struggled for balance when too many of their attacking talents play together.
Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Junior have completed each of the last four games for Arbeloa, along with goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, while midfielder Fede Valverde started all four and was substituted once.
“I always want to have the best players on the pitch, and the more minutes they can be available to the team for me, the better,” Arbeloa told a news conference, when asked if those five players were “untouchable”.
“These are players who can shake up a match at any moment. There will be people who aren’t Madrid fans who don’t want them on the pitch, but I imagine Madrid supporters want their best players always available, always on the field.
“I think the five players mentioned are among the top 10 in the world, and so they have my full trust. And it’s not just my trust – their performance is what’s putting them on the pitch.”
French superstar Mbappe criticised the team for their inconsistency, and Arbeloa said Madrid are working on solving that issue.
“Look, we’re working to find the consistency we want in our game and at all levels, and I think right now it’s neither a time for disappointment nor a time for euphoria,” said Arbeloa.
“It’s a time for work, nothing more.”
Barcelona entertain Elche on Saturday evening with the chance to move four points clear ahead of Real’s game against Vallecano.
The threat of relegation hangs heavily over Rayo Vallecano, who have only won five of their 21 matches this season.
The away form does at least offer them some hope, with three of those victories coming on the road.
Only eight points separate the bottom nine clubs, of which Vallecano hold 16th position heading into Matchday 21.
The sides last met in a La Liga match at Vallecano on November 9. The match ended in a disappointing 0-0 draw for Real, part of the run that led to the departure of Alonso as coach.
Real ran out 2-1 winners in the La Liga match between the sides at Bernabeu last season.
Mbappe and Vinicius put Los Blancos two up in the game on March 9, before Pedro Diaz pulled one back before the break, but the away side were unable to impact the game further in the second half.
This will be the 48th meeting between Real Madrid and Rayo Vallecano. Los Blancos have won 33 of the matches, while Vallecano have won seven.
Antonio Rudiger, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Ferland Mendy have all returned to training following injuries but the defensive trio remains unavailable for first-team action.
Eder Militao remains a long-term absentee with a severe hamstring injury, which is expected to keep the central defender out until late March.
Raul Asencio and Rodrygo both saw red in the midweek Champions League defeat by Benfica, but are both eligible for La Liga selection.
Courtois; Valverde, Asencio, Huijsen, Carreras; Camavinga, Tchouameni, Bellingham; Rodrygo, Mbappe, Vinicius
Abdul Mumin and Andrei Ratiu will both miss out with knee and leg injuries, respectively. Ivan Balliu is battling to shake off a knock and may face a late fitness test.
Ilias Akhomach is pushing for his first start, following his loan move from Villarreal, having come on as a sub against Osasuna last time out.
Almost four years have passed since Elena Rybakina celebrated winning Wimbledon by humbly raising her right arm in the air.
“Maybe one day you will see huge reaction from me,” she told the crowd that day.
But that is not the understated 26-year-old’s style.
After ending her wait for another Grand Slam trophy with victory at the Australian Open, the Kazakh simply clenched a raised fist and briefly shook her head in a mixture of relief and disbelief.
But her return to the level that took her to her breakthrough success hinted that she may now, at last, be ready to consistently create those moments worthy of big celebrations.
World number one Aryna Sabalenka and second-ranked Iga Swiatek have established themselves as the dominant players on the women’s tour over recent years, winning eight of the 13 slams since Rybakina’s Wimbledon triumph.
But Rybakina demonstrated her potential to bridge the gap by beating Sabalenka 6-4 4-6 6-4 in Saturday’s Melbourne showpiece, having also overpowered Swiatek and sixth seed Jessica Pegula on her way to the title.
“I always believed I can come back to the level I was [but] we all have ups and downs,” Rybakina said.
“I thought maybe I will never again be in the final, or even get a trophy.
“But we’ve been putting in a lot of work as a team and in the moments when I was not that positive they would be helping out.
Victory takes Rybakina back to third in the world rankings – a career-high position she last occupied in September 2024.
She has won her past 10 matches against fellow top-10 players, after becoming the first player since 2019 to claim the Melbourne title by defeating top-10 players in each round from the quarter-finals onwards.
That is in addition to owning the highest winning percentage against reigning world number ones (minimum 10 meetings) since the WTA rankings were first published in 1975, winning 60.0% of those encounters.
“When Rybakina is fit and on fire she is untouchable,” British former player Annabel Croft said on BBC Radio 5 Live.
“Her ball-striking quality is so pure and her shots just sound different because of the way they come out of the strings.
“The depth she creates on the court, with her low and flat strikes, is fantastic.
Moscow-born Rybakina did not focus on becoming a professional tennis player until she was 17.
A keen gymnast and ice skater as a child, she was told she would not succeed in those sports because of her height.
She has represented Kazakhstan since 2018 after the nation’s tennis federation made an offer to financially support her
Despite her relatively late arrival in the sport, Rybakina won her first WTA Tour title in Bucharest in 2019 before reaching four finals in her first five events in an astonishing start to 2020.
She reached her first major quarter-final at the 2021 French Open but would not return to that stage at a Grand Slam until her Wimbledon title run the following year.
The start of Rybakina’s 2025 season was disrupted when her coach Stefano Vukov was banned for breaching the WTA’s Code of Conduct. The Croat denied any wrongdoing and was reinstated later that year.
She has since reemerged as the form player on the women’s tour, amassing the most wins of any player since the end of Wimbledon last year (38) and losing just once in her past 21 matches.
Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash said the grass-court major is an “obvious one for her [to target]” this year.
“Could she grab two Grand Slams in a year? Yes – and that will certainly edge her more towards the number one ranking in the world,” Cash said on BBC Radio 5 Live.
“She will need to stay fit, healthy and focused if she is to challenge. Maybe this second Grand Slam will motivate her to keep pushing on.
