Tony Parker scored 22 points, and Danny Green made seven 3-pointers and added 21 as the San Antonio Spurs used a dominant third quarter to down the Oklahoma City Thunder 112-77 on Wednesday and take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.

Tim Duncan added 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Manu Ginobili and Boris Diaw had 11 points apiece off the bench.

Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his award in the Legion of Honor, the best-known recognition in France.

Armstrong was given the rank of "Chevalier" — or Knight — in the "Legion d'Honneur" in 2005, the last year of his seven consecutive Tour de France victories. He was later stripped of those titles for doping.

Mexico's World Cup players are being banned from eating beef, a move aimed at avoiding positive doping tests from meat contaminated with the performance-enhancing drug clenbuterol.

Coach Miguel Herrera said Wednesday he had told his players more than a month ago not to eat red meat.

Bordeaux tried and failed to hire former France great Zinedine Zidane as its coach for next season, despite prolonged discussions, the club's president Jean-Louis Triaud said Wednesday.

Zidane, who played for the club from 1992-96, was widely touted in the French media to replace Francis Gillot next season but his attachment to Real Madrid, where two of his sons have come through the team's youth ranks, proved a crucial factor in turning down a move.

Surprising new research shows a small but diverse community of bacteria lives in the placentas of healthy pregnant women, overturning the belief that fetuses grow in a pretty sterile environment.

These are mostly varieties of "good germs" that live in everybody. But Wednesday's study also hints that the make-up of this microbial colony plays a role in premature birth.

They suffer searing headaches, a burning fever and so much pain in their joints they can barely walk or use their hands. It's like having a terrible flu combined with an abrupt case of arthritis.

Hospitals and clinics throughout the Caribbean are seeing thousands of people with the same symptoms, victims of a virus with a long and unfamiliar name that has been spread rapidly by mosquitoes across the islands after the first locally transmitted case was confirmed in December.

Exotic sea creatures called comb jellies may reshape how scientists view early evolution — as their genes suggest nature created more than one way to make a nervous system.

These beautiful but little-known translucent animals often are called "aliens of the sea," for good reason. Somehow, they rapidly regenerate lost body parts. Some even can regrow a very rudimentary brain.

CNN's Don Lemon braced himself after being recognized by a viewer on a Harlem street.

"I don't always agree with you," the person began, ominously. "But keep it up. I'm not always supposed to agree with you."

A Nazi salute isn't illegal racial discrimination provided it's intended as a personal statement, Switzerland's top court ruled Wednesday.

The Federal Tribunal's ruling, entitled "Hitler salute in public not always punishable," said the gesture is a crime only if someone is using it to try to spread racist ideology to others, not simply declaring one's own conviction.

The United Arab Emirates is finally acknowledging it is standing in for one corner of George Lucas' galaxy far, far away.

Abu Dhabi's government-backed twofour54 media hub said Wednesday that the next installment of "Star Wars" is currently filming in the Middle Eastern emirate. It was the first official word from the Gulf nation that filming had begun.