Chelsea sack Jose Mourinho: Hiddink to be named caretaker, Guardiola lined up for summer

Mourinho guided his side to the Premier League title in May but has suffered a freefall this season.

A 2-1 defeat to Leicester on Monday was their ninth of the campaign, leaving them in 16th place.

Mourinho leaves with Chelsea now just a point above the relegation places.

A Chelsea statement read: "Chelsea Football Club and Jose Mourinho have today parted company by mutual consent.

"All at Chelsea thank Jose for his immense contribution since he returned as manager in the summer of 2013.

Dustin Diamond, Actor Who Played Screech On 'Saved By The Bell,' Jailed For Stabbing Man

 Former "Saved by the Bell" actor Dustin Diamond will start serving his four-month jail sentence with work release in January for an altercation at a Wisconsin bar.

WISN-TV and WITI-TV report that Diamond appeared in Ozaukee County court Wednesday and withdrew his appeal of a disorderly conduct conviction. The sentence starts Jan. 15.

Teenager to be BEHEADED and crucified in Saudi Arabia for attending anti-government protest aged 15

Abdullah al-Zaher was arrested at the age of 15 and now faces being beheaded

A heartbroken dad has begged the world for help as Saudi Arabia prepare to behead and then crucify his teenage son.

Abdullah Al-Zaher was aged just 15 when he was arrested in the kingdom after attending a protest rally against the government.

Now just 19, he faces being executed and crucified along with 51 other people.

Speaking to the Guardian, his desperate dad Hassan Al-Zaher said: “Please help me save my son from the imminent threat of death. He doesn't deserve to die just because he participated in a protest rally.”

Murderer who strangled young mum to death celebrates release from prison on Facebook

Murderer

A convicted murderer who strangled a young mum to death with her own jumper has taken to Facebook to celebrate his release from jail.

Former taxi driver Merrick Rogers, 40, posted a photo of himself smiling and clutching a pint of Guinness after serving 15 years for the murder of Claire Streader, 24, in 1999.

Rogers - described as a 'dangerous young man' when jailed in 2000 - also took to Twitter.

Kobe Bryant’s Long Goodbye

Last week, about an hour before the Los Angeles Lakerswere to face the Timberwolves here at Target Center, Gary Vitti leaned against a wall outside the visitors’ locker room and exhaled. Vitti has been the Lakers’ athletic trainer for 32 seasons, but he has other responsibilities, too. He fields ticket requests. He helps manage the schedule.

“It’s like herding cats, man,” he said. “They’re all over the place.”

Vitti knew his biggest challenge of the night was still ahead: marshaling the players out of the arena and to the airport in a timely fashion. It had everything to do with Kobe Bryant, who was about to make his final appearance in Minneapolis on his farewell tour of N.B.A. arenas.

“The most disruptive thing is trying to get out of here after the game,” Vitti said. “He has to do his postgame therapy, and then he does his media, and then everybody wants a piece of him because they’re not going to see him again. I’m just trying to get these guys to the next city.”

The Rise of Hate Search

HOURS after the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, and minutes after the media first reported that at least one of the shooters had a Muslim-sounding name, a disturbing number of Californians had decided what they wanted to do with Muslims: kill them.

The top Google search in California with the word “Muslims” in it was “kill Muslims.” And the rest of America searched for the phrase “kill Muslims” with about the same frequency that they searched for “martini recipe,” “migraine symptoms” and “Cowboys roster.”

People often have vicious thoughts. Sometimes they share them on Google. Do these thoughts matter?

Yes. Using weekly data from 2004 to 2013, we found a direct correlation between anti-Muslim searches and anti-Muslim hate crimes.

Japan’s Top Court Upholds Law Requiring Spouses to Share Surname

Japan’s highest court on Wednesday upheld a law dating back more than a century that requires married couples to share the same surname, rejecting a claim that it discriminates against women by effectively forcing them to give up their names in favor of their husbands’.

The ruling was a blow to Japanese women seeking to keep their maiden names after marriage. Some couples have chosen not to register their marriages — opting instead to stay in common-law relationships with fewer legal protections — in order to keep separate surnames.