Every year on March 17, the Irish and the Irish-at-heart across the globe observe St. Patrick's Day. What began as a religious feast day for the patron saint of Ireland has become an international festival celebrating Irish culture with parades, dancing, special foods and a whole lot of green. Best wishes for a safe, happy & pleasant day of love, peace and joy.
As it tries to reclaim tens of millions of dollars pocketed illegally by corrupt former officials, FIFA has admitted for the first time that ExCo members sold their votes to help South Africa secure the 2010 World Cup.
Tennis star Maria Sharapova has lost several major sponsors after admitting that she failed a drug test at the Australian Open. The former world champion has been the highest-paid female athlete in the world for 11 years in a row, Forbes reported last year. She earned US$29.7 million last year — including US$23 million from endorsements and appearances, according to Forbes.
Governments have been using various tools to fight the spread of the Zika virus in Latin America: fumigation, spraying of insecticides and even a plan to distribute mosquito repellents to athletes during the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Soccer's law-makers gave the green light this weekend to the use of video technology to aid referees in live matches starting no later than the 2017-18 season. The International Football Association Board (IFAB), the games law-making body, approved a two-year trial period allowing technology to be used in four questionable cases: to determine if a goal has been scored, sending off, penalties and mistaken identity.
With five months to go before the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian organizers are struggling to sell tickets for South America’s first games. The IOC president Thomas Bach said the locals will buy up tickets at the last minute.
The Rolling Stones will perform a free outdoor concert in Havana on March 25, the band's publicist announced on Tuesday, a milestone event in a country where the Castro brothers' regime once banned the group's music as an ideological deviation.
In an underdog win for a movie about an underdog profession, the newspaper drama “Spotlight” took the Oscar for the best picture at the 88th Academy Awards. Tom McCarthy’s film about The Boston Globe’s investigative reporting on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests won over the favored frontier epic “The Revenant.”
FIFA elected on Friday Gianni Infantino to replace disgraced president Sepp Blatter in an unexpected turn of events. UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino defeated expected frontrunner Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain, former FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan and former FIFA executive Jerome Champagne.
The five contenders for the FIFA throne pitched the regional confederations in Zurich on Thursday in a last-ditch plea for votes in Friday’s election. Sheikh Salman, Gianni Infantino, Prince Ali, Jerome Champagne and Tokyo Sexwale made their appeals to CONCACAF, UEFA and Oceania congresses staged at various hotels in the Swiss city where Sepp Blatter’s successor will be 26 February.