NASA scientists are using former military surveillance drones to help them understand more about how tropical storms intensify, which they say could ultimately save lives by improving forecast models that predict a hurricane's strength.

The unmanned Global Hawk aircraft were designed to perform high-altitude, long-endurance reconnaissance and intelligence missions for the Air Force. Two of the original Global Hawks built in the developmental process for the military have found new life as part of NASA's research mission, studying storms that form over the Atlantic Ocean. NASA planned to launch one of the drones from its Wallops Flight Facility on Wednesday to study Tropical Storm Gabrielle, which re-formed in the Atlantic on Tuesday.

Italy and the Netherlands became the first European teams to qualify for next year's World Cup, and the United States, Costa Rica and Argentina also grabbed spots in the field on Tuesday.

Giorgio Chiellini scored in the 51st minute and Mario Balotelli converted a penalty in the 54th, giving Italy a 2-1 come-from-behind win over the Czech Republic in Turin. Goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon made his 136th international appearance, matching Fabio Cannavaro's Italian record.

Diana Nyad on Tuesday defended her 110-mile (177-kilometer) swim from Cuba to Florida to skeptics who questioned whether she got into or held onto a boat during part of the journey.

Nyad said she swam without holding onto any of the boats or people accompanying her.

New IOC President Thomas Bach will be tested quickly by two troublesome Olympics: the Winter Games less than five months away in the southern Russian resort of Sochi, and the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro — still three years away but setting off alarms.

Bach was elected to the top job on Tuesday, replacing Jacques Rogge as head of the International Olympic Committee. One of the first phone calls he received was from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is staking some of his prestige on the Sochi Games.

Shinji Kagawa has expressed frustration at being omitted from Manchester United's lineup this season after scoring in Japan's 3-1 friendly win over Ghana.

Kagawa, who has yet to see playing time this season under David Moyes, scored a superb equalizer in the second half Tuesday as Japan beat an experimental Ghana side.

Rafael Nadal's victory over Novak Djokovic in the U.S. Open final was the record 37th installment of the top rivalry in tennis right now — and what is on its way to becoming the greatest in the sport's long history.

So it was fascinating to hear Nadal reveal the deflating thought that crossed his mind before he faced Djokovic for the title at Flushing Meadows two years ago.

Evidence confirms at least eight massacres have been perpetrated in Syria by President Bashar Assad's regime and supporters and one by rebels over the past year and a half, a U.N. commission said Wednesday.

Calling Syria a battlefield where "massacres are perpetrated with impunity," the U.N. commission investigating human rights abuses in Syria said that in each of the incidents since April 2012 "the intentional mass killing and identity of the perpetrator were confirmed to the commission's evidentiary standards."

The next "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequel has been temporarily docked.

The release date for the fifth installment in the film series starring Johnny Depp has been removed from Disney's distribution schedule. It was originally scheduled to launch July 10, 2015.

A onetime roommate and friend of Lady Gaga who claimed after serving as her personal assistant for more than a year that the pop singer cheated her out of overtime wages can tell her story to a jury in November, a judge said Tuesday.

A jury can decide whether Gaga's demands left Jennifer O'Neill any personal time or whether she was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as she claimed in her 2011 lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe said. A trial is set for Nov. 4.

In this day of multiplexes and 3-D projection, the Chuan Mei theater in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan is a reminder of the way movie-going used to be.

Instead of computer-generated tickets and plush-sofa-like seats, patrons are given hand-stamped pieces of paper indicating the time of their performance and seated on simple metal chairs.