Liga - Mourinho says farewell to Real Madrid in message

Eurosport - Jose Mourinho of Real Madrid (PA Sport)

FootballEspana.

The 50-year-old has spent three years at the Santiago Bernabeu, winning the Copa del Rey in his first season and last year La Liga with a record points tally and number of goals scored.

However, on from a trophyless 2012-13, hit with continued reports of disharmony in the dressing room, Mourinho has agreed to leave the club at the end of the season by mutual consent.

Ahead of that departure, which will come after Saturday evening’s home League match with Osasuna, the Portuguese posted a message on Madrid’s official website.

“I wish everyone associated with Real Madrid much happiness in the future,” stated Mourinho.
“I appreciate the support of lots of fans and respect the criticism of others.

“Once again, a lot of happiness to everyone and, above all, good health. Hala Madrid!”

Read the original article on Football Espana - The ultimate website for English-speaking fans of Spanish football

World Cup - Neymar: England are no threat at all

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Eurosport - Neymar doesn't see England as contenders for World Cup glory

PA Sport.

The Barcelona-bound 21-year-old, who will leave Santos this summer, is preparing to face Roy Hodgson's side in a friendly at the Maracana on Sunday evening.

He claims England's players are high achievers at club level but pose little threat in the international game.
And with Brazil hosting the 2014 World Cup and looking to win the tournament for a sixth time, he cannot envisage the Three Lions mounting a challenge.

Speaking in The Sun, Neymar said: "I have respect for a lot of the England players as they have achieved great things at their clubs.

"But, as a national team, I don't look at England and think they are going to be a real threat at the World Cup.

"We want to win the World Cup in front of our home fans and the two nations I look at as a real threat are Germany and Spain.

"After that it's a group including Argentina, Holland, Italy and one or two more. But England I don't even think about."

Oklahoma City Tornado: Five Killed In New Storm

Oklahoma City Tornado: Five Killed In New Storm

Sky News

Police officers have said a mother and baby were among five killed after a tornado struck a highway near Oklahoma City.

Highway Patrol trooper Betsey Randolph said officers found the bodies of the woman and her daughter near a vehicle along Interstate 40 between El Reno and Yukon.

The tornado hit during the evening rush hour, smashing vehicles along a major highway near the city, with reports of several motorists injured and others missing.

The Oklahoma medical examiner's office confirmed five people had been killed and 50 others hurt - five of them critically.

Ann-Dee Lee, of the Office of Emergency Management, said 80,000 people had been left without power - with nearly 64,000 in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

She told Sky News: "We have numerous reports, although we do not have data, of other injuries and homes that were damaged, but we expect to have a lot better information in the morning when the sun comes up."
Two thousand passengers at the city's Will Rogers World Airport were moved into underground tunnels and no flights were arriving or departing.

Flash flooding and severe thunderstorm warnings were in place for several areas.

The warnings also covered the town of Moore, where 24 people were killed by a deadly storm on May 20.
Reports said four confirmed tornadoes had struck in the area around Oklahoma City, with winds up to 90mph and hail.

Extensive damage has been reported around the cities of El Reno and Yukon, according to KFOR television.

Lara O'Leary, a spokeswoman for the local ambulance agency, said: "There is very low visibility with the heavy rain ... so we're having trouble getting around.

"The damage is very, very widespread."

The region is in part of the US Midwest known as "Tornado Alley".

Asteroid 1998 QE2: Giant Rock Passes Earth

Asteroid 1998 QE2: Giant Rock Passes Earth

Sky News

An asteroid that is capable of wiping out life across the globe is hurtling towards a close encounter with the planet.

The giant rock, named Asteroid 1998 QE2, will make its closest approach to Earth later tonight.

Although it will keep a safe distance of 3.6 million miles - roughly 15 times the distance between Earth and the Moon - the 1.7-mile long object is of great interest to astronomers.

Using powerful telescopes, they should be able to glimpse the asteroid's very own moon and observe some of the space rock's surface features.

Martin Archer, a space plasma physicist, warned that if the asteroid were to strike, "it would certainly have implications for life on Earth on a global scale".

"It would flatten everything within 200 miles and cause damage within 1,000 miles but a lot of dust would be released into the atmosphere, blocking the Sun," he said.

"It could certainly cause extinction for certain species.

"However, this is by no means the closest near-Earth object we've seen. We had one a couple of months ago that was well within our geostationary satellites.

"We certainly don't have to worry about this one at all."

Radar astronomer Lance Benner, who is based at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said scientists expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images of the asteroid as it skims past Earth.

He said: "Whenever an asteroid approaches this closely, it provides an important scientific opportunity to study it in detail to understand its size, shape, rotation, surface features, and what they can tell us about its origin.

"We will also use new radar measurements of the asteroid's distance and velocity to improve our calculation of its orbit and compute its motion farther into the future than we could otherwise."

Mr Archer said scientists are yet to discover every object that could one day pose a risk to life on Earth.
However, Alan Fitzsimmons, of the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen's University Belfast, told Sky News that asteroid strikes are rare.

"Luckily objects of this size or larger only hit us about once every four million years," he said.

"Radar observations of 1998 QE2 will let us check it's not coming near us for a long time to come."

Travel warning over Turkey protests

 

Press Association - Thousands of people gather in support of demonstrators staging a sit-in to prevent the uprooting of trees at an Istanbul park, in Ankara, Turkey (AP).

Press Association.

The Foreign Office is advising against all but essential travel to parts of Turkey in the light of anti-government demonstrations.

Britons have been warned not to get involved in the protests.

The travel advice was changed on Saturday, with the message on the Foreign Office website reading: "Demonstrations are taking place in Istanbul and in other cities across Turkey, including Ankara. Police are using tear gas and water cannons in response. We advise British nationals to avoid all demonstrations."

The demonstrations are into a second day. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for them to end but indicated the government would press ahead with redevelopment plans that sparked the protests in the first place.

Speaking in a televised address, he said police would break down the protests at a main square in Istanbul. He added that officers may have used tear gas excessively and that this would be investigated.

The protests grew out of anger at heavy-handed police tactics on Friday to break up a peaceful sit-in by people trying to protect a park in Istanbul's main Taksim square from government plans to revamp the area. Officials have said the plans include building a shopping centre and the reconstruction of a former Ottoman army barracks.

The park demonstration turned into a wider protest against Mr Erdogan, who is seen as becoming increasingly authoritarian, and spread to other Turkish cities despite a court decision to temporarily halt the demolition of the park.

More than 2,500,000 British nationals visit Turkey every year, according to the Foreign Office.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office(Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

May renews calls over badger cull

 

Press Association - Queen guitarist Brian May will lead a rally against planned badger culls

Press Association.

 

Rock star Brian May has renewed calls for the Government to abort plans to cull thousands of badgers in the bid to tackle bovine TB.

The Queen guitarist, 65, met with animal welfare supporters for a march through Westminster in protest of the cull - with pilots in west Gloucestershire and west Somerset, two bovine TB hot spots, due to start on Saturday.

If successful, the Government plans to roll out culling more widely in hot spots for the disease - which can be transmitted from badgers to livestock and between cattle. But experts, including scientists behind the long-term trial, have raised concerns that the policy will have "unimpressive" results in reducing TB and suggested that it does not make economic sense.

Mr May, a long-time supporter of the campaign to spare badgers from execution, said: "The great bit of new information is it has now been demonstrated that the cull cannot make economic sense. It will lose the taxpayer money rather than save it. That was really the last shred of reason that you could give for this cull going ahead. It is a very good time for Mr Cameron to reconsider and withdraw from this monstrous cull, in the public interest."

The pilot culls aim to ensure free-running badgers can be killed humanely, with marksmen observed by independent experts to check they are killing the protected animal swiftly, and post-mortem examinations carried out to assess speed of death. The pilots will also assess whether sufficient badgers can be killed in an area to have an effect in reducing TB in cattle, following a long-term study which found that culling 70% of badgers in an area could reduce the disease in herds by 16%.

The Government said the cull is necessary as part of efforts to stop increasing outbreaks of TB in dairy and beef herds, which saw 28,000 cattle slaughtered in England last year. Without action, infection and costs would continue to soar, officials said.

Labour, which opposes the Government-sanctioned plan, have tabled an Opposition Day debate for Wednesday.

Mr May said: "It would be very rude of the Government to start a cull when there is a major debate coming up. Our point is to save wild animals from abuse and there is no doubt this cull is going to cause intense pain on a massive scale to badgers. You cannot call it humane, which is apparently what these pilot culls are about. It has become increasingly apparent to me that, although we call ourselves a nation of animal lovers, we treat them appallingly."

A poll released on Friday revealed that the public is divided on the issue of culling, with around a third (34%) opposing the policy, and almost as many (29%) backing it. The remainder of those questioned did not know or had no strong views on a cull.

The British Veterinary Association, which is supporting the cull, urged protesters not to hinder the pilot schemes, so information could be gathered by independent experts to assess if shooting free-running badgers could be done humanely. Nigel Gibbens, the Government's chief veterinary officer, told Sky News how badgers would be killed "quickly, without causing suffering".

Athletics - Rutherford: 'Gold medals don't put food on the table'

Eurosport - Athlete Greg Rutherford holds his long jump gold medal during a parade as it passes St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London

Eurosport.

 

The 26-year-old has been forced to bring out his own kit line, called 'GRavity', after failing to agree a new deal with sports giants Nike and has been supplementing his income with various appearances on television.

Rutherford rose to national prominence on 'Super Saturday' at the Olympics when he secured Britain's first long jump gold since Lynn Davies in 1964 on the same night Jessica Ennis secured heptathlon glory and Mo Farah delighted the home fans with the first of his two golds.

"I thought I was quids in," Rutherford told the Daily Telegraph. "I was sitting there thinking, 'This is going to be brilliant. My Nike contract is up for renewal at the end of the year and I’m going to have all the other endorsements coming in'.

"All track and field athletes do the sport purely for the love of it, but people have to remember that you still have to earn a living. You can't do athletics if you don’t. So after winning the gold I was thinking: 'This will make everything easy. I won’t have to worry about finances and I can just concentrate on becoming the best athlete I can be’. But in reality it doesn’t work like that. Or it hasn’t in my case."

"(Nike) offered me a contract but the clauses were such that, by the end of this year, I would end up earning probably less than I would have done on my old junior contract, I would be completely tied to it and unable to do nothing else, as they would own all my image rights.

"To sign a contract for a lower amount with horrible clauses, why would you do that? You're in a scenario where you have to say, 'I'm not prepared to accept that'."

Rutherford has admitted that people on Twitter have attacked him for spending so much time on television but he says that he is not doing it out of choice.

"I'm not poor. I’d be lying if I said I was," he told the Telegraph. "But if people believe that the reason I go on TV is because I love the sound of my own voice, that is completely and utterly wrong.

"Range Rover gave me a lease car that I can drive for free, which is amazing, and Omega gave me a watch.
"That's all fantastic, and there have been some free clothes here and there, but ultimately it doesn't put food on the table, so you are in a scenario where you are forced to do promotions and appearances.

"But that creates a vicious circle because if you’re doing things like speaking events, you’re then taking away from your training."

Rutherford's career timeline prior to his stunning breakthrough has been a catalogue of injuries, setbacks and some podium places, although never top spot.

However, he shocked the world when he won gold thanks to a 8.31m leap at the Olympic stadium,
Rutherford's main target this year is claiming World Championship gold in the long jump in Moscow in August, but earlier this month he admitted sprinting is something he’d like to attempt at some point too.