With zero fanfare, an independent French pilot beat aeronautics giant Airbus by about 12 hours Friday in the race to fly the first electric plane across the English Channel — a symbolically important step toward making battery-powered flight viable in the long term.

Several people and companies in different countries are developing electric planes in hopes of offering a fuel-free, noise-free, emissions-free flight alternative for the future. So the battle to perform world "firsts" in electric planes is heating up as the technology becomes more durable.

A cancer-stricken Arizona girl who got a hefty contribution posted in Taylor Swift's name has received thousands of additional dollars in donations from people wishing her a "swift" recovery.

A GoFundMe fundraising site for 11-year-old Naomi Oakes accumulated more than $73,000 on Thursday, far surpassing its initial goal of $30,000. The largest contribution was the $50,000 donation posted online a day earlier in Swift's name. Since news of that donation spread, the site has gotten more than $6,000.

Officials say a foreigner who tested positive for MERS after arriving in the Philippines from the Middle East is now free of the virus and will leave the hospital this weekend.

Department of Health spokesman Lyndon Lee Suy said Friday the foreigner's close contact, a Filipino woman, is also well but will remain hospitalized until she completes a 14-day quarantine period on July 18.

Crystal Palace has signed France midfielder Yohan Cabaye from Paris Saint-Germain on a three-year deal.

Both clubs announced the move Friday for an undisclosed fee. Palace is thought to have paid a club record £10 million ($15.5 million) for the 29-year-old.

The yellow jersey seems to be an unlucky charm at this Tour de France.

German rider Tony Martin started Thursday's sixth stage in the lead and ended it in the hospital after breaking his collarbone in a crash that he caused near the finish line. He became the second race leader to pull out of the race, after Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara fractured two vertebrae in his lower back on Monday.

Her game in high gear, history in the offing, Serena Williams is perfectly content to let everyone else talk about what a victory in the Wimbledon final would mean.

A "Serena Slam" of four consecutive major titles. The third leg of a calendar-year Grand Slam. A 21st major singles trophy, one short of the Open-era record.

Toronto isn't ready to bid for the Olympics, but the head of the Pan Am Games knows he'll be judged by that measure.

The Canadian city is spending more than any previous Pan Am host to organize the multi-sport event, which opens Friday with more than 6,000 athletes from Newfoundland in Canada's far north to Argentina's Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of the hemisphere.

The chief executive of Adidas, a major FIFA sponsor, says he thinks UEFA President Michel Platini would be the best choice of successor to Sepp Blatter at the head of world football's governing body.

Herbert Hainer was quoted Friday as telling German weekly Focus: "For me, Platini is the most suitable candidate." He added: "He leads UEFA, with the best club teams worldwide and the strongest club competition, the Champions League. He has done a really good job in his two terms in office."

Canadian Brodik Henderson is hoping his prowess in the remote world of U.S. amateur sumo wrestling will translate into a professional career in the heartland of Japan's ancient sport.

The 20-year-old native of Victoria, British Columbia, who stands 6-foot-7 and weighs 360 pounds, will make his debut at the Nagoya tournament which begins on Sunday.

Giant pandas are the new couch potatoes of the animal world, according to a study Thursday that found the bears are just as sluggish as slow-moving sloths.

Researchers in China tracked five captive pandas and three wild ones for the study published in the journal Science.