For the first time in four years, Novak Djokovic is without a big title to start the year. Or any title.

The Serb is used to arriving at the BNP Paribas Open with the Australian Open in his back pocket, having won the season's first Grand Slam three straight years. He lost in the quarterfinals in Melbourne in January, and then lost in the semifinals at Dubai last month.

Scientists have crowdsourced a network of volunteers taking water samples at beaches along the U.S. West Coast in hopes of capturing a detailed look at low levels of radiation drifting across the ocean since the 2011 tsunami that devastated a nuclear power plant in Japan.

With the risk to public health extremely low, the effort is more about perfecting computer models that will better predict chemical and radiation spills in the future than bracing for a threat, researchers say.

Veterinarians at the San Diego Zoo have performed an operation on a newborn gorilla that was delivered by cesarean section.

The zoo says the 4.6-pound (2 kilogram) female was born Wednesday but seemed to have breathing problems. On Friday morning, a team fixed a collapsed lung that probably occurred during delivery.

Rhode Island authorities say a 71-year-old man with Alzheimer's disease and dementia had lived with his dead wife's body for at least two days before officials entered the home this week.

Police in Johnston say the man's 67-year-old wife died a few days ago and he wasn't aware that she had passed. Authorities say there were no signs of foul play.

Officials at an upstate New York school district say a kindergartner spent a day at the wrong school after getting on the wrong bus.

Schenectady (skeh-NEHK'-ta-dee) city school district officials say the series of mistakes began Wednesday morning when the 5-year-old girl boarded the wrong bus, which was driven by a substitute driver.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who led the regime's negotiating team at failed peace talks this year, underwent a successful heart operation in Lebanon on Friday, Syrian television reported.

Muallem, the chief diplomat of President Bashar Assad's regime throughout the three-year civil war, had undergone tests for a suspected blocked coronary artery, a medical source in the Lebanese capital told Agence France Presse.

Real Madrid defender Alvaro Arbeloa will be sidelined for nearly two months by a knee injury, putting the Spain international's participation at the World Cup in jeopardy.

Arbeloa said his right knee "is worse than thought but if everything goes well, I'll be out from six-to-eight weeks."

Arsenal could be without Germany playmaker Mesut Ozil until the end of April in another blow to the Gunners' hopes of winning the English Premier League title.

Manager Arsene Wenger said on Friday the club-record signing will be sidelined "a minimum of three and a maximum of six weeks" with a hamstring injury.

Saudi Arabia says a man has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 63 the deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.

The Health Ministry said Friday the latest victim, a 19-year-old, died in the city of al-Kharj, southeast of Riyadh. Two of his sisters are in hospital on suspicion they have been infected with the virus. If they prove to be positive, it would further raise the number of people infected.

Uli Hoeness won't appeal against his prison sentence for tax evasion, and said on Friday he's quitting as president of Bayern Munich to prevent damage to the European champions.

Hoeness, one of the most prominent figures in German football, was convicted on Thursday of evading millions of euros (dollars) in tax through an undeclared bank account and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. The verdict drew a largely positive response in a country where tax evasion is deeply and increasingly frowned upon.