Superstar forward Ilya Kovalchuk stunned the New Jersey Devils by retiring from the NHL on Thursday to return home to Russia.

In leaving, the 30-year-old Kovalchuk walked from $77 million left on the 15-year contract that he signed with New Jersey, including guaranteed annual salaries of at least $11 million over the next four seasons.

Manchester United expects striker Wayne Rooney to be sidelined for a month after injuring his hamstring in a training session ahead of a friendly against a Thailand All Stars team in Bangkok.

Rooney flew back to England in the early hours of Friday morning, having been in Thailand less than 24 hours.

Napoli has completed the signing of striker Jose Maria Callejon from Real Madrid.

Callejon has penned a four-year deal to 2017.

The driven matriarch of the Kardashian-Jenner clan is taking center stage with her own talk show, and Kris Jenner said she's ready for the spotlight.

"I'm definitely living my dream," Jenner said of Monday's launch of "Kris," a daily talk show getting a summer test run on Fox stations in a handful of major U.S. TV markets.

An Israeli soldier collapses onto the floor of a house in Lebanon, shot by Hizbullah fighters. As his squad mates clear out the second floor, a medic rushes over, pulling on latex gloves and digging into his first aid kit. Gunfire echoes down the stairs as he starts to work on the wound.

The Israeli military experienced this kind of brutal house-to-house warfare during its inconclusive 2006 war with Hizbullah. As it trains in a mock village in its base in the northern Israeli town of Elyakim, it is recreating similar battle scenarios as it prepares for the next confrontation with the Lebanese group. Officials say such a conflict could erupt at any time.

Some arrived in Porsches or BMWs, which were whisked away by valet parking attendants. The hotel lobby was awash with the celebrated and powerful including A-list actors, well-known artists and captains of commerce.

For one glimmering moment late last month, the Iranian capital was the talk of the world's art market after 80 works sold for $2 million, astonishing a country whose economy is battered by Western sanctions but still has pockets of wealth looking for investment havens for their money.

China's airlines and airports continue to have the worst flight delays in the world, according to a travel industry monitor.

A survey of flight times last month showed that Beijing's airport had the lowest proportion of flights leaving on time among 35 leading airports at just 18.3 percent, FlightStat Inc. reported on its website.

Thai police say they have rescued about 90 famished cats that they believed had been headed to Vietnam. They declined to say what fate they had rescued the felines from, but cats are considered a delicacy in their intended destination.

Police Col. Sakchai Sadmaroeng said Thursday his men stopped a pickup truck at a checkpoint Thursday and found six plastic cages full of cats in northeastern Nakhon Phanom province. The driver was arrested and faces charges including animal cruelty and illegal transportation of animals.

When Ali Farhat was summoned to the immigration department in the United Arab Emirates, the 33-year-old Lebanese restaurant worker knew he would have to pack up his family and leave fast.

Like many Shiite Muslims working in the oil-rich Gulf state, Farhat says he popped up on the country's deportation radar merely because of his sect, which its Sunni rulers associate with Hizbullah.

A Greek charter plane made an emergency landing at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Thursday after the pilot had sent out a distress signal, an airport official told Agence France Presse.

"The airport was placed on a state of alert after receiving a distress message about a technical problem but the aircraft landed without incident," the official said.