A Missouri funeral director is sending his father out with a bang. His father's ashes, anyway.

Greenlawn Funeral Homes will hold its first Firework Memorial program on Saturday night, when fireworks packed with James Carver's cremated remains will be launched skyward as part of his family's goodbye.

He might have got away with it if it hadn't been for his supermarket loyalty card.

A British fraudster who pretended to be quadriplegic and sometimes comatose for two years to avoid prosecution has been convicted after police caught him on camera driving and strolling around supermarkets.

Four former Blackwater security guards were convicted Wednesday in the 2007 shootings of more than 30 Iraqis in Baghdad, an incident that inflamed anti-American sentiment around the globe and was denounced by critics as an illustration of a war gone horribly wrong.

The men claimed self-defense, but U.S. prosecutors argued that they had shown "a grave indifference" to the carnage their actions would cause. All four were ordered immediately to jail.

Pope Francis has welcomed the victorious Bayern Munich team to the Vatican after its 7-1 Champions League rout of Roma, telling the players they "played a wonderful game" and receiving a signed jersey in return.

CEO Karl Heinz Rummenigge said it was "a great honor" for the German club and announced Bayern would donate one million euros in proceeds from a future friendly match to the pope for charitable purposes.

Archaeologists in Greece have uncovered a rare wooden statue preserved in the muddy depths of an ancient well in Piraeus, the port of Athens.

A Culture Ministry statement said Tuesday that the roughly half-meter (20-inch) high dressed male figure was found without its head, hands and feet, together with broken pottery dating to about 100-86 B.C. It was unclear who the statue might depict.

Serena Williams was routed 6-0, 6-2 by Simona Halep at the WTA Finals on Wednesday in one of the most one-sided losses of the 18-time Grand Slam champion's career.

The last time Williams managed to win just two games in a WTA Tour or Grand Slam match was in 1998 when she was just 16.

North Americans, get set for the fourth and final eclipse of the year.

On Thursday, most of North America will have prime viewing of a partial solar eclipse. The new moon will hide part of the sun from view. The eclipse will unfold slowly following its start near the Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia.

The U.S. government is closing a gap in Ebola screening at airports while states from New York to Texas to California work to get hospitals and nurses ready in case another patient turns up somewhere in the U.S. with the deadly disease.

Under the rule going into effect Wednesday, air travelers from the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea must enter the United States through one of five airports doing special screenings and fever checks for Ebola. A handful of people had been arriving at other airports and missing the checks.

Few might remember his knee surgery just three weeks before the World Cup, or the two goals he scored in a 2-1 victory over England in his first match in the tournament.

The last and most memorable image of Luis Suarez is the striker biting Giorgio Chiellini in the shoulder in a group stage match against Italy, a play that earned him a four-month suspension.

The Champions League returned on Tuesday with a 40-goal bonanza as Bayern Munich thrashed Roma 7-1 for its biggest victory on the road and Luiz Adriano scored five as Shakhtar put seven goals past BATE Borisov.

On a record-busting night, Chelsea wasn't far behind in a 6-0 win over Maribor, but Manchester City remained without a victory in three matches after wasting a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 at CSKA Moscow.