As the NBA season kicks off in America this week, a group of Saudi women and girls will be pursuing their own hoop dreams.

Women's basketball is gaining in popularity in a kingdom rife with public restrictions on female movement and activity. With the help of some U.S.-trained coaches, female enthusiasts are using basketball to push for greater rights for women on and off the courts in Saudi Arabia.

Tony Parker scored 23 points, including a big 3-pointer late in the game as the San Antonio Spurs opened their title defense with a thrilling 101-100 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday.

Manu Ginobili added 20 points for San Antonio, which shot 53 percent from the field. Tim Duncan had 14 points and 13 rebounds for his 14th double-double in a season opener, the most by any player in NBA history, according to Elias Sports.

Mario Balotelli sparked a dramatic fightback by Liverpool and Chelsea needed a late own goal to edge past plucky fourth-tier opposition as the two Premier League giants squeezed into the League Cup quarterfinals.

Late goals settled four of the five last-16 matches on Tuesday — and two were scored at Anfield as Liverpool came from behind to beat Swansea 2-1.

Japan midfielder Shinji Kagawa scored one goal and set up another Tuesday as Borussia Dortmund put aside its Bundesliga troubles with a 3-0 win at St. Pauli in the German Cup.

Dortmund, last season's beaten finalist, was looking for relief after losing its last four league games, and started strongly against the second-division side in Hamburg.

Mudslides triggered by monsoon rains swept through a tea-growing region of Sri Lanka on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people and leaving about 300 more feared missing, disaster officials said.

The landslides hit a well-known tea plantation east of Colombo in the early morning and some homes were buried in 30 feet (nine meters) of mud, officials said.

Lebanon suffers from severe gender inequality, according to the annual Gender Gap Index issued by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum on Tuesday.

The survey showed Lebanon falling to 135th place in the list of 142 nations after being ranked 123rd out of 136 countries surveyed last year.

Cristiano Ronaldo has picked up three awards at the Spanish league's gala including last season's best player.

The Real Madrid star was also given the "Best Forward of La Liga 2013-14" and best goal awards late Monday.

Six members of the Germany squad that won the World Cup were included among the nominees for the FIFA Ballon d'Or award Tuesday, joining Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar on the 23-man short list.

Mario Goetze, who scored the winning goal against Argentina in the World Cup final, was selected along with Germany teammates Toni Kroos, Philipp Lahm, Thomas Mueller, Manuel Neuer, and Bastian Schweinsteiger.

A portion of a Columbian mammoth skull and tusks have been uncovered in Idaho, and experts say a rare entire skeleton might be buried there.

Experts estimate the mammoth was about 16 years old and lived about 70,000 to 120,000 years ago in what was a savanna-like country populated with large plant-eaters and predators.

The winner of the Funniest Person in the World competition is a brown-haired, slightly rotund stand-up comic from Finland who boasts he has hit on the perfect solution to the planet's international monetary woes.

"Countries don't owe money to each other, countries owe money to banks," says Ismo Leikola. "If the countries owe money to banks how stupid are the countries to pay. Like the country has an army. The bank has four cashiers and a cleaning lady."