Wall Street was poised to open with losses again on Wednesday, one day after markets kicked off the new year giving back some of last year's big gains.

On a warm summer afternoon, Tina Taniguchi was on her hands and knees scraping dirt off an oblong depression in the ground. Thick brown hair peeked out from her coconut leaf hat. Splotches of mud stuck to her T-shirt and speckled her smiling face.

Taniguchi smiles a lot when she's working in her corner of the Hanapepe salt patch on the west side of Kauai — a terracotta plot of land about the size of a football field — dappled with elliptical pools of brine, crystallizing in clay beds.

Poland became the first team through to the United Cup semifinals with a dominant 3-0 win over China in Perth on Wednesday after France completed a sweep of Italy in Sydney to progress to the quarterfinals.

Top-ranked Iga Swiatek beat No. 14 Zheng Qinwen 6-2, 6-3 in the women's singles to give Poland an unassailable 2-0 lead after Hubert Hurkacz's 6-3, 6-4 win over Zhang Zhizhen in the men's singles.

Luke Littler reached the final of the world darts championship at the age of 16 on Tuesday, extending one of the most unlikely stories in the history of the sport.

Littler, an unseeded player from Runcorn in northwest England who started throwing darts as a toddler, beat 2018 champion Rob Cross 6-2 to get into Wednesday's title match against Luke Humphries.

It's small in stature, big on activity and known for a "smile," and it's ready to compete with 200 other dog breeds.

Say hello to the Lancashire heeler, the latest breed recognized by the American Kennel Club. The organization announced Wednesday that the rare herding breed is now eligible for thousands of U.S. dog shows, including the prominent Westminster Kennel Club show.

The powerful earthquake that shattered the peace of New Year's Day in central Japan did not spur massive tsunamis like those that scoured the Pacific coast in 2011, killing nearly 20,000 people and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

The tsunamis that did roll in along the Sea of Japan, on Japan's western coast, were mostly just a few feet high, rather than waves up to 5 meters (15 feet) tall predicted in alerts issued just after the magnitude 7.6 quake struck on Monday afternoon.

South Korean police on Wednesday raided the residence and office of a man who stabbed the country's opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, in the neck in an attack that left him hospitalized in an intensive care unit, officials said.

The assault occurred when Lee, the leader of the liberal opposition Democratic Party, was passing through a throng of journalists after visiting the proposed site of a new airport in the southeastern city of Busan on Tuesday. The attacker, posing as a supporter, approached Lee asking for his autograph before he took out a 17-centimeter-long (6.7-inch) knife to attack him.

The European Union imposed sanctions on the world's biggest diamond mining company and its chief executive officer on Wednesday as part of what it called its "unwavering commitment" to Ukraine in the war against Russia.

The move targeted Alrosa, which accounts for about 90% of Russia's diamond production, and CEO Pavel Marinychev. The EU headquarters said the company "constitutes an important part of an economic sector that is providing substantial revenue" to Moscow.

Thousands of doctors walked off the job in Britain on Wednesday, the start of a six-day strike over pay that was set to be the longest in the history of the state-funded National Health Service.

Managers said tens of thousands scheduled appointments and operations will be canceled during the walkout across England and Wales by junior doctors, those in the first years of their careers. The doctors, who form the backbone of hospital and clinic care, plan to stay off the job until 7 a.m. on Tuesday.

Russia said Wednesday it shot down 12 missiles fired at one of its southern regions bordering Ukraine, as Kyiv's forces seek to embarrass the Kremlin and puncture President Vladimir Putin's argument that life is going on as normal despite the 22-month war.

The situation in the border city of Belgorod, which came under two rounds of shelling on Wednesday morning, "remains tense," said regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov, writing on Telegram.