A Seattle man trying to dribble a football 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) to Brazil in time for the 2014 World Cup died Tuesday after being hit by a pickup truck on the Oregon Coast.

Police in Lincoln City, Oregon, said 42-year-old Richard Swanson was hit at about 10 a.m. while walking south along U.S. Highway 101 near the city limits. He was declared dead at a local hospital. The driver has not been charged.

England defender Rio Ferdinand has retired from international football to focus on his Manchester United career.

Ferdinand was recalled to the England squad in March by Roy Hodgson after almost two years out of the national set up.

At the height of her success, high jumper Blanka Vlasic had to relearn how to leap.

There was really no other choice for the 29-year-old Croatian. A fragment of a bone in her left ankle broke off and embedded into her Achilles, requiring surgery to shave part of the tendon on her takeoff foot.

San Antonio held the Golden State Warriors' vaunted backcourt to a miserly 13 points, laying the foundation for a 109-91 victory on Tuesday that gave the Spurs a 3-2 lead in the NBA Western Conference semifinals.

The Indiana Pacers also moved within one win of a place in the conference finals by beating the New York Knicks, taking a 3-1 lead.

Google is expected to use its annual software developers' conference to showcase the latest mobile devices running on its Android software, while also unveiling other features in its evolving product line-up.

The gathering, scheduled to begin Wednesday morning in San Francisco, provides Google Inc. with an opportunity to flex its technological muscle in front of a sold-out audience of engineers and entrepreneurs who develop applications and other features that can make smartphones and tablets more appealing.

Vietnam's booming Internet scene is littered with failed startups that tried to take on Google and other entrenched U.S web companies. That's not deterring a newly launched Russian-Vietnamese outfit which believes it can unseat the American search engine in this fast-growing Asian market and also contend with a jittery, authoritarian government seeking to clamp down on freedom of expression online.

Like Google rivals elsewhere, Coc Coc, or "Knock Knock" in English, believes the ubiquitous search engine doesn't get the nuances of the local language. It says its algorithms make for a better, quicker search in Vietnamese, while its local knowledge means the information served will be more relevant — and hence more valuable.

A large rainforest plant known as a corpse flower because of its awful smell has bloomed again at an Ohio State University greenhouse, and there's more excitement because another corpse flower there is expected to open soon, a spokeswoman said.

A 6-foot (1.8-meter) titan arum, nicknamed Woody after former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes, opened Tuesday to reveal its bold, reddish-purple color and release its rotting-flesh smell a little over two years after it first flowered.

Lebanese members of the Syrian leader's Alawite sect fear their tiny community will be a casualty of the civil war raging in the neighboring country.

Already, Sunni Muslim extremists have stoned a school bus, vandalized stores and beaten or stabbed a number of men in a wave of attacks against Lebanese Alawites, stoking fears of even more violence should Syrian President Bashar Assad be removed from power.

FIFA has extended bans for nine players found guilty of match-fixing in Lebanon to apply worldwide.

A Lebanese player has been banned from all soccer-related activities for life, and eight Estonian players each received one-year suspensions.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion says it will offer its once-popular BlackBerry Messenger service on competing devices.

CEO Thorsten Heins said Tuesday that the time is right to offer BBM on rival devices. He says iPhone and Android versions will be available for free.