Spotlight
Playing without stars Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka, defending champion Switzerland slumped to a first-round loss to Belgium in the Davis Cup on Sunday, while Andy Murray scored the decisive point to lift Britain past the United States and Novak Djokovic led Serbia to victory over Croatia.
After Federer and Wawrinka led Switzerland to its first Davis Cup title last year, the two top-10 players decided not to play Davis Cup this year, leaving Switzerland with a diminished team — and chances — against Belgium.

Russell Westbrook had his fifth triple-double in six games to help the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Toronto Raptors 108-104 in the NBA on Sunday.
The NBA scoring leader had 30 points, matched a career high with 17 assists and added 11 rebounds for his seventh triple-double of the season and 15th overall.

Lance Armstrong welcomed an investigative report into the murky past of cycling's governing body and said he hopes it can help the sport move on from an era that will always be remembered for the doping by himself and others.
The report turned up no evidence to sustain previous allegations that Armstrong paid the UCI to cover up a positive doping test back in his heyday, yet it explains in great detail how the UCI acted favorably toward Armstrong — a rider dubbed "cycling's pop star."

Lionel Messi is back to upstaging Cristiano Ronaldo again.
Messi broke Ronaldo's record for hat tricks in the Spanish league with his 24th treble — and 32nd in all competitions — in Barcelona's 6-1 thrashing of Rayo Vallecano on Sunday. That also meant Barcelona overtook Ronaldo's Real Madrid at the top of the league by one point, and put him level with his rival on 30 goals for the season in the competition — having trailed 25-13 in the scoring race through 15 rounds.

More than two million migratory birds were killed in Cyprus last autumn to feed an illicit taste for the delicacy on the Mediterranean island, a conservationist group said Monday.
The survey by Birdlife Cyprus was carried out in the key season between September and October and estimates the number of birds indiscriminately trapped in nets or with limesticks.

Every week, whenever possible, two of the most important people on the planet chat for about 20 minutes. It is a meeting held in complete secret.
The conversations between the United Kingdom's monarch and the prime minister take place in a room in Buckingham Palace with no one else present and no official records taken.

Katy Perry and Kim Kardashian were the queens of the night at Givenchy's star-studded dusk show in Paris, rocking all-black Givenchy outfits side-by-side as Kanye West, also in black, lurked in the back.
The remaining celebrity attendees, actresses Jessica Chastain, Amanda Seyfried and Noomi Rapace just didn't stand a chance.

Authorities say a man who allegedly stole a woman's car during their first date last month has been captured.
Waterford Township police say 53-year-old Gerald Tietz was arrested Saturday after the vehicle — which had the vanity plate "JSRYGRL" — was spotted in Cherry Hill.

Former pop star turned Islamic militant Fadel Shaker, who has been on the run for nearly two years, has said he wants to return to his "normal, natural life" with his friends and family.
In an interview with LBCI TV released Saturday, Shaker also denied fighting alongside the gunmen of Islamist cleric Ahmed al-Asir in the fierce 2013 clashes with the army in the Sidon suburb of Abra. At least 18 soldiers and dozens of gunmen were killed in the fighting.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a public appearance Sunday amid rumors about his health, as a relative dismissed the claims as gossip meant to derail ongoing nuclear talks with world powers.
State television aired pictures Sunday of the 75-year-old Khamenei addressing a group of environmental officials and activists at his residence in central Tehran. He appeared to look comfortable and healthy in the footage.
