The tournament which started as the AFC Youth Championship in 1959, was held every year until 1978 before transitioning into a biennial event in 1980. India did not participate in the tournament in the first four editions of the Championship. 1963 was the first time they entered a team in the Championship as they crashed out in the group-stages of the tournament held in Malaysia. This was a period where there were no qualifiers played and teams participated directly in the main tournament....

That notion evidently extends to elements of the Taliban. Mark Sedra, a Canadian expert on Afghanistan, says high-level U.S. officials, who he declined to name, admitted during a private Washington think-tank conference earlier this year that there was no purely military solution to Afghanistan’s problems and expressed a “willingness” to negotiate with “moderate” Taliban figures. Four administration officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing policy deliberations, told NEWSWEEK that Washington has already assented to efforts by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to talk with Taliban factions that do not share the nihilist religious extremism of Supreme Leader Mullah Omar....

Last week, Biden signed an executive order that would split in half $7 billion of Afghan assets frozen in the U.S. after the Taliban takeover. Afghanistan will receive $3.5 billion, while the other half will go to American victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks. The move has been widely criticized, with many calling Biden a “thief.” “[The attacks on] 9/11 had nothing to do with Afghans,” said one sign at a protest attended by more than 3,000 people....

Their annual event, AFI Docs, will take be streamable from June 17 to 21 at docs.afi.com instead of in Washington, D.C., due to the coronavirus pandemic. Opening night will showcase Boys State, a project from Jesse Moss (Dirty Money and The Overnighters) and Amanda McBaine (The Bandit) which recently won Sundance’s Grand Jury prize. IMDb’s synopsis of the film reads that it follows “a thousand 17-year-old boys from Texas join together to build a representative government from the ground up....

Giving in to social-activist shareholders, as Aflac did, doesn’t make you popular among the CEO set. But boy, was it the smart thing to do. Compare Aflac’s enhanced shareholder-friendly image with the embarrassment suffered by Verizon, Blockbuster and Merck, all of which—like Aflac—advertise heavily to the public. A majority of Verizon’s and Blockbuster’s holders approved nonbinding say-on-pay proposals despite management and board opposition, as did 49.2 percent of Merck’s. The whole question has been a distraction to dozens of firms—but not Aflac....

The Leicester City forward dethroned Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to be named Africa Player of the Year at Thursday’s Glo-Caf gala in Abuja, having played a key role in the Foxes’ remarkable 2015-16 Premier League triumph. Mahrez scoops top personal prize While admitting pipping Aubameyang and Liverpool’s Sadio Mane to the award was no mean feat, he is hoping to help the Greens conquer the continent when Africa’s biggest football showpiece kicks off in Gabon....

The title of this splendid, Booker Prize-winning novel sums it up: no redemption is at hand. Everything David holds valuable is smashed or violated in its turn, most terribly his daughter, who’s raped on her remote farm by black strangers she refuses to condemn. David can’t understand her stoicism; she rejects his rage. Despite the snarled moralities that keep this story dark, light and air seem to push up between the sentences like tiny, repeated miracles....

Now he has quite a night to remember, one shared with his father from Venezuela who watched him play in the United States for the first time in 10 years. Rodriguez had his first two major league hits, including a tiebreaking RBI single, as the Rangers opened their final homestand with a 4-3 victory over the Houston Astros on Monday night. “This is my second-best moment after seeing my two daughters born,” Rodriguez said....

In a press release, the FCC said Tuesday that wireless provider had been collecting money for 885,000 supposed members of the government’s Lifeline program who were not actually using the service. The program was established in 1985 with the intention of helping low income earners obtain traditional phone service. In 2005, the program was modernized by allowing the federal subsidies to be used for wireless and broadband services. The FCC said that the 885,000 supposed subscribers amounted to 30 percent of Sprint’s Lifeline base, and 10 percent of the entire Lifeline program....

MORE: Best Bengals of all time The Bengals tight end suffered an ankle injury during the game in January, which led to four months of rehab and wearing a boot for most of the summer. Even though he is recovering from the injury (the boot comes off next week) Eifert said he will never play in another Pro Bowl. Though the boot is coming off, it’s unclear when Eifert will be ready to take the field....

The odds were stacked against him, as the 0-5 Lakers embarked on a week that included games against the Charlotte Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans and San Antonio Spurs. MORE: Barkley vowed not to eat | Shaq, Barkley ruin True Detective | Lakers beat Hornets | Highest-paid players Barkley’s fast did not last long, as the Lakers won their first game over the weekend against the Hornets, 107-92. Lakers big Ed Davis was all too happy to help Barkley find a meal, and he expressed that over Twitter....

Democrats brought one of Trump’s main legislative priorities to the finish line just as party leaders were working to highlight allegations of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress against the president. And on the same day the House took the historic step of introducing impeachment articles against Trump, the president had kind words for the House Democratic caucus, saying in a tweet that Democratic support for a revised trade agreement “would be great for our Country!...

In America, we have a severe problem with untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—and it doesn’t just affect veterans. At the moment, approximately one in 11 people will get diagnosed PTSD in their lifetime. Many people who have PTSD have difficulty connecting to loved ones or engaging at work, and statistically speaking, the majority go on to suffer from this condition for their entire life. In addition to the intangible, personal costs to individuals who suffer from PTSD, there’s also a huge drain on the American economy....

Actually, that person probably had more to say than Patrick Mahomes, because it is not customary for a quarterback to stand on the sideline and scream his lungs out to disrupt the opposition while his team’s defense is on the field.​ Mahomes only could watch. That is the absurdity of the NFL’s overtime rule, that Kansas City’s best player could have no impact on breaking a tie between the Chiefs and the Patriots because of the vagaries of a coin flip....

For someone whose work as a computer scientist is legendary, Joy is mighty worried. To quote: “The 21st-century technologies–genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR)–are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses… will not require large facilities or rare raw materials… It is no exaggeration to say that we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation states....

Looney, the 6-9, 220-pound power forward from Milwaukee’s Hamilton High ranked by Sporting News as the No. 10 player in the Class of 2014, selected the Bruins over Duke, Florida, Michigan State, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Looney’s father said of the postponement that, “everything hadn’t been vetted and we can’t have students’ pictures in any type of publication without them signing on.” That was corroborated later in a Twitter post from Looney himself....

The land war came to an end after exactly 100 hours; a White House official noticed the round number coming up at midnight Wednesday, and the temporary cease-fire was set to begin then. Operation Desert Storm, which started just six weeks before with the launching of the air war, produced a stunning victory for Bush, a triumph of almost Biblical proportions–his enemy slain in countless numbers, his own soldiers hardly touched by the battlefield’s scouring wind....

The Aggies also won’t have a spring game — at least not like the one most schools will have. Because Texas A&M’s Kyle Field is undergoing a $450 million renovation, Texas A&M announced Friday that spring football drills will be held on campus and the Aggies won’t have a traditional spring game for this year and next. “I am disappointed we will not be able to hold a few scrimmages or the spring game inside Kyle Field the next couple of years,” A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said....

Aguero surpassed Eric Brook’s tally, which had stood for 78 years, by notching his 178th goal for City in their 4-2 win at Napoli on Wednesday evening. Aguero 2/1 to bag 2+ v Arsenal The Argentine has scored at least 28 goals in five of his six full seasons in England, including a personal high of 34 under Pep Guardiola last season, and his achievement will be recognised with a presentation before Sunday’s game against Arsenal....

Greg and Travis McMichael were each sentenced to life plus 20 years, without the possibility of parole. William Bryan was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. “I’ve read somewhere, and I don’t remember where it was, that at a minimum, Ahmaud Arbery’s death should force us to consider expanding our definition of what a neighbor may be and how we treat them,” Judge Timothy Walmsley said before the sentencing....