U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Gulf Arab officials on Saturday to ease their concerns about warming U.S.-Iranian ties and seek consensus on which Syrian opposition groups should be represented at upcoming peace talks.

Speaking after meeting in Riyadh with foreign ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council who have sided with Saudi Arabia in its spat with Iran and who back the rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, a key Iranian ally, Kerry and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir presented a united front.

Roger Federer was already a long way clear at the top of the list of men with the most wins in Grand Slam singles matches, so becoming the first to 300 almost seemed like a secondary consideration.

He reached the milestone at Rod Laver Arena on Friday, when he moved into the fourth round of the Australian Open with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over Grigor Dimitrov.

The International Olympic Committee says the new stadium for Tokyo 2020 will be completed two months earlier than planned to allow organizers time to stage more test events before the games.

Japanese organizers told IOC vice president John Coates during a two-day IOC "project review" that the completion date would be moved from January 2020 to November 2019.

Maria Sharapova reached a career milestone on Friday, which came as a nice surprise after a tough match.

"Oh, wow. I've won 600 matches?" Sharapova said, when an on-court interviewer congratulated her for the achievement earned by winning her third-round match Friday at the Australian Open.The No. 5-seeded player then thought a moment, and laughed nervously.

Kei Nishikori came to the Australian Open this year hoping to put his injury-ravaged 2015 season behind him.

Just five matches into the season, though, spectators at Margaret Court Arena cringed at a familiar sight on Friday: Nishikori plopped down in his chair during a changeover, grabbed his heavily taped right wrist and called for the trainer.

As images and reports of starvation in besieged Syrian communities drew an international outcry and two rare aid convoys this month, an urgent question arose: Why not drop food and other needed supplies by air?

Humanitarian access is a key issue as the United Nations tries to get Syrian parties to peace talks tentatively set for Monday. And it's the focus of a pledging conference on Feb. 4 in London, with the leaders of countries including Germany and Iran expected to attend.

An Italian ecumenical mission is in Lebanon this week to work out the final details of a pilot project to bring up to 1,000 refugees to Italy on humanitarian visas so they're not tempted to risk deadly sea crossings to get to Europe.

The U.N. refugee agency has welcomed the initiative, one of many types of private sponsorships that are enabling particularly vulnerable or needy refugees to reach safety and start new lives in third countries.

Dozens of makers of medicines and diagnostic tests have joined together in an unprecedented effort to tackle "superbugs" — infections that increasingly don't respond to drugs and threaten millions of people in countries rich and poor.

Altogether, 74 drugmakers, 11 makers of diagnostic tests and nine industry groups have signed a groundbreaking agreement to work with governments and each other to prevent and improve treatment of drug-resistant infections. They plan to announce the new agreement Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Israel's military has conducted a drill to prepare for simultaneous combat along its northern frontier with Syria and Lebanon.

It said Wednesday the two-week exercise that combined air, ground and naval forces was aimed at "preparing troops for a long-term multi-front conflict."

Syrian peace talks due next week are looking increasingly moot as a string of recent battlefield victories by government troops have bolstered President Bashar Assad's hand and plunged the rebels into disarray.

The government's advances add to the obstacles that have scuttled chances of halting — at least anytime soon — the five-year civil war that has killed a quarter of a million people, displaced half the country and enabled the radical Islamic State group to seize a third of Syria's territory.