Australian Open organizers say early-round losers at January's Australian Open will receive a significant pay rise as part of what they say is the biggest purse in tennis history.

Responding to player demands for a bigger slice of prize money, Tennis Australia has moved to avert a potential boycott of the opening Grand Slam of the year.

Oklahoma City Thunder made it a dozen successive NBA wins with a 100-92 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday, led by Kevin's Durant's season-high 41 points and 13 rebounds.

The Los Angeles Clippers are just behind the Thunder in their own winning streak, notching an 11th straight victory, while New York and Memphis were the other leading teams to win. However Golden State's surprising form surge ended in an unlikely locale, putting in a lax defensive performance and suffering a defeat at the hands of the lowly Sacramento Kings.

Mario Gotze scored a hat trick on Wednesday as defending champion Borussia Dortmund routed Hannover 5-1 in the German Cup to set up a quarterfinal at Bayern Munich.

"It was outstanding," said Dortmund coach Jupp Klopp on the club's 103rd birthday. "The whole team played a fantastic game, with brilliant football. We're really keen on this competition."

 A 20-year-old Boston University sophomore and a self-described "cellist-nerd" brought the Miss Universe crown back to the United States for the first time in more than a decade when she won the televised contest Wednesday.

Olivia Culpo beat out 88 other beauty queens to take the title from Leila Lopes of Angola during the two-hour competition at the Planet Hollywood casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

It's not your Apple's iPhone.

A Brazilian company has begun selling smartphones with the iPhone brand after winning the legal right to use the name in Latin America's biggest country. Adding insult to Apple Inc.'s injury, the phone runs on Android operating system from archrival Google Inc.

Miss Lebanon 2012 Rina Chibany will compete on Thursday in the Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas.

Chibany, who reserved her spot in the pageant after beating 15 contestants in the national competition, among them her twin sister first runner-up Romy, will join 88 women from around the world who are preparing to don evening gowns, show their interview skills and strut in swimsuits in hopes of becoming the next Miss Universe.

Egypt's ousted president Hosni Mubarak was transferred to a Cairo military hospital on Wednesday, after slipping and injuring his head and chest in prison, a security official said.

For months, there have been conflicting reports about the health of the 84-year old Mubarak, who was sentenced in June to life in prison for failing to stop the killing of hundreds of protesters during last year's uprising. He is the first Arab president to serve a prison sentence.

In the days since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a shell-shocked nation has looked for reasons. The list of culprits cited include easy access to guns, a strained mental-health system and the "culture of violence" — the entertainment industry's embrace of violence in movies, TV shows and, especially, video games.

"The violence in the entertainment culture — particularly, with the extraordinary realism to video games, movies now, et cetera — does cause vulnerable young men to be more violent," Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said.

Arsenal has secured the futures of five key players, with Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs, Aaron Ramsey, and Carl Jenkinson signing new deals.

Arsenal has lost a string of top talent in recent years, including Robin van Persie and Cesc Fabregas.

Cristiano Ronaldo said he would like to win the world player of year prize but he places more importance on helping Portugal win its first international trophy.

He added in an interview posted on the Portuguese Football Federation website on Wednesday, "Careers are made by trophies that are won collectively, not individually.