A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld the convictions and sentences of three men, including a Lebanese, found guilty in Ohio of recruiting and training terrorists to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati turned down 10 issues on appeal in the Toledo case involving Mohammad Amawi, Marwan el-Hindi and Wassim Mazloum.

Juventus and its fans are hoping to turn their attention from the courtroom to the pitch when the club starts its title defense against Parma on Saturday.

The drama of coach Antonio Conte being banned for 10 months has seemingly had little effect on the defending Serie A champion as stand-in Massimo Carrera has already steered the team to two trophies.

Sony's cellphone division is cutting 1,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its global workforce, mostly in Sweden over the next two fiscal years through March 2014.

Sony Mobile Communications said Thursday the job cuts are an effort to reduce costs and boost profits.

China's manufacturing activity fell to a nine-month low in August, a survey showed Thursday, stepping up pressure on Beijing for more interest rate cuts and stimulus measures to revive growth in the world's second-largest economy.

HSBC Corp. said a preliminary version of its monthly purchasing managers' index fell to 47.8 from July's 49.3 on a 100-point scale where numbers below 50 indicate a contraction. It said one component, new export orders, fell at its fastest rate in three years.

Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz shed 450,000 shares of Facebook in the past few days for proceeds of about $9 million — a tiny chunk of his total stake.

Moskovitz was Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard roommate when they founded Facebook in 2004. He disclosed in a regulatory filing late Tuesday that he sold the shares on Friday, Monday and Tuesday in blocks of 150,000.

Australia will enter its Rugby Championship test against New Zealand on Saturday in the grip of overlapping losing streaks and with experts in both nations forecasting those droughts will continue.

The Wallabies must win in Auckland to avoid a defeat in the three-match Bledisloe Cup series against the All Blacks which would extend to 10 years the span since Australia last held the trans-Tasman trophy.

Police say a western Pennsylvania woman blamed her nonexistent twin sister for stealing items from ahotel room.

The Beaver County Times (http://bit.ly/Sm5XDv ) reports Wednesday that police charged 31-year-old Jennifer Brown, of Rochester, with false reports and theft.

Part of an early 19th-century wall near a panoramic terrace overlooking an ancient square in Rome has collapsed.

No one was injured when about 9 meters of the Pincio wall fell over above Piazza del Popolo before dawn on Wednesday. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno inspected the damage and promised the wall would be repaired in two weeks.

A member of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden has written a firsthand account of the operation, triggering more questions about the possible public release of classified information involving the historic assault of the terror leader's compound in Pakistan.

U.S. military officials say they do not believe the book has been read or cleared by the Defense Department, which reviews publications by military members to make sure that no classified material is revealed.

Doctors are reporting a new benefit from weight-loss surgery — preventing diabetes. Far fewer obese people developed that disease if they had stomach-shrinking operations rather than usual care to try to slim down, a large study in Sweden found.

The results, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, are provoking fresh debate about when adjustable bands and other bariatric procedures should be offered.