United in for Muller

Manchester United will step up their bid to sign Thomas Muller from Bayern Munich in a £60m deal after agreeing to sell Robin van Persie to Fenerbahce

Blackhawks take lead in Stanley Cup Finals

The scoreline ended a shutout streak for Lightning's goal-tender who had held opponents scoreless for over 113 minutes [AP]

The Chicago Blackhawks overcame a slow start to race past the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 in the opening game of the Stanley Cup Finals.
Trailing 1-0 deep into the third period, Tuevo Teravainen tied the contest with a wrist shot at 13:28 before Antoine Vermette came through with the game-winner with less than five minutes to play.
With the game looking like it would head to overtime, Chicago put pressure on the Lightning and when the puck came loose in their zone Vermette gathered and fired it past goaltender Ben Bishop to complete the comeback.
"We just had to stay patient and not get frustrated," Blackhawks goaltender Corey Crawford told reporters after making 22 saves.
Crawford made a stop on a Ryan Callahan shot just before Chicago's equaliser to keep his tem alive.
"I was a little more aggressive than usual. I just tried to take away any net he may have."
Chicago's outburst ended a shutout streak for Bishop who had held opponents scoreless for a total of 113:28, dating back to Game Six of the Eastern Conference final.
Bishop finished with 19 stops but the Lightning would lament their lost opportunity.
Both teams needed Game Seven wins in their conference final battles, but Tampa Bay's playoff road has been particularly tough.
They needed seven games to take down Detroit in the opening series and six to beat Montreal before their seven-game thriller with the New York Rangers.
Game Two of the best-of-seven series is on Saturday in Tampa Bay.

EU court allows ending life support for comatose man

 

 

 

Lambert's wife Rachel has been fighting for the right to stop his treatment [Getty]

Europe's top human rights court has allowed doctors to stop treatment of a French man left comatose after a car accident seven years ago, a case that has drawn nationwide attention amid debate about end-of-life practices.
The European Court of Human Rights on Friday confirmed a decision by a French court last year that Vincent Lambert had been clear he did not want to be kept in a vegetative state.
The court's ruling said withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration would not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
Lambert's family members disagree on whether to keep him alive artificially. His wife wants doctors to stop life support for him but his parents disagree.
"There's no relief, no joy to express. We'd just like his will to be done", Lambert's wife Rachel said following the ruling of the Strasbourg-based court.
The lawyer for Lambert's parents, Jean Paillot, expressed "great disappointment" and called on doctors to reassess Lambert's condition and "make a new medical decision", stressing that the initial decision had been taken in January 2014.
"We'll continue to fight", said Lambert's mother.
Euthanasia, which involves an act to kill the patient, is not legal in France. But end-of-life legislation allows doctor to stop treatments in certain cases, following a complex process that includes consultation with the family.
Vincent Lambert's case has prompted political movement on the issue.
A new bill, backed by the Socialist government, is currently under discussion in Parliament to allow doctors to keep terminally ill patients sedated until death comes.
Terminal or palliative sedation doesn't actively kill patients. It involves medicating patients until they die naturally of their illnesses or until they starve.
But critics say it means patients can be sedated for weeks before they die and that it may be more humane to opt for euthanasia.
All recent polls have shown that a large majority of French people favour legalising euthanasia.
Euthanasia is currently legal in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Irish FA accepted $5m from FIFA over 2009 playoff loss

Henry had handled the ball before passing it to Gallas who scored the equaliser [AP]

The Irish FA (FAI) accepted a $5m payment by FIFA to avoid a legal case over a controversial World Cup playoff defeat in 2009, world football's governing body has confirmed.
Ireland were knocked out in a two-legged playoff by France for the the 2010 South Africa World Cup, with the decisive goal in the second-leg coming after a handball by French striker Thierry Henry in extra-time.
With moral outrage over the goal in Ireland and beyond growing, FIFA and the FAI came to a financial agreement not to proceed with legal action.

It was a payment to the association... not to proceed with a legal case. John Delaney, FAI chief executive

FIFA confirmed on Thursday that the payment was a loan that would have been paid back had Ireland qualified for the 2014 World Cup.
"In January 2010 FIFA entered into an agreement with FAI in order to put an end to any claims against FIFA," it said in a statement.
"FIFA granted FAI a loan of $5m for the construction of a stadium in Ireland. At the same time, UEFA also granted the FAI funds for the same stadium.
"The terms agreed between FIFA and the FAI were that the loan would be reimbursed if Ireland qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Ireland did not qualify.
"Because of this, and in view of the FAI's financial situation, FIFA decided to write off the loan as per 31 December 2014."
Former Arsenal and Barcelona forward Henry stopped the ball going out of play with his hand, before crossing for William Gallas to score.
The game in Paris in 2009 ended 1-1 after with France progressing to the World Cup 2-1 on aggregate.
'Good agreement for the FAI'
FAI chief executive John Delaney criticised FIFA President Sepp Blatter at the time for his handling of the incident and accused the Swiss of being "disrespectful".
Speaking to Irish state broadcaster RTE on Thursday, Delaney said: "It was a payment to the association... not to proceed with a legal case.

Blatter resigns

"We felt we had a legal case against FIFA because of how the World Cup hadn't worked out because of the Thierry Henry handball, also the way Blatter behaved if you remember on stage, having a snigger, having a laugh at us.
"So that day when I went in and told him how I felt about him... there were some expletives used, we came to an agreement... It was a very good agreement for the FAI, a very legitimate agreement for the FAI."
FIFA is currently in the middle of the biggest crisis in football history.
Nine FIFA officials and five business executives were indicted by the US last Wednesday on corruption charges, with seven arrested in Zurich ahead of FIFA's annual congress on Friday.
Blatter was re-elected president for a fifth term but just four days after the appointment, he confirmed he will be stepping down. It was then reported that the FIFA boss was under investigation by the FBI.
There have also been renewed calls for Russia and Qatar to be stripped of hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Yemen president sacks Saleh nephew as military attache

President Hadi's exiled government and Houthi rebels have confirmed they will attend Geneva peace talks [Getty Images]

Brigadier Ammar Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, the nephew of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been dismissed by presidential decree from his role as a military attache in Ethiopia.
Thursday's announcement came on the same day that former al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) informant Hani Muhammad Mujahid told Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit that the brigadier had handed him funds for the 2008 attack on the US embassy in Sanaa, which killed 18 people.
President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi issued a presidential decree on Thursday "calling for the dismissal of Brigadier Ammar Mohammed Abdullah Saleh from his military duties as a military attache in Ethiopia".

Informant: Former Yemen President Saleh supported al-Qaeda

Saleh's nephew was the deputy director of the National Security Bureau at the time.
Mujahid also alleged that the brigadier had a close relationship with Qasim al-Raymi, AQAP's military commander.
The former informant made the claims to Al Jazeera for a documentary called Al-Qaeda Informant, which focuses on his allegations that former President Saleh supported, and even directed, AQAP while he was Yemen's leader.
Spain demand
During his work as an informant, Mujahid said he provided information about both the US embassy assault and an attack that killed eight Spanish tourists in July 2007. In both cases, he says his information was ignored.
On Thursday, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that Esteve Maso, a survivor of the 2007 car bomb attack at the Balqis Temple in Marib, Yemen, had called on Spanish judges and prosecutors to reopen their investigation into the bombing.
Maso lost his wife in the bombing, which also killed two Yemenis.
Judge Fernando Andreu of the Audiencia Nacional led the investigation in 2007.
A team of investigators went to Yemen at the time. But after giving an initial response to a request for information, Yemeni authorities failed to reply to Spanish investigators and so the case in Madrid was closed, pending new information.
Peace talks
Meanwhile, Yemen's Houthi rebels agreed on Thursday to join UN-backed peace talks in Geneva planned for June 14.