German sprinter Andre Greipel will start his ProTour cycling season at the Tour Down Under in January, hoping to add to his 14 stage victories in an Australian race that he has already won twice.

Tour director Mike Turtur said Friday that Greipel will ride for Belgian team Lotto Belisol. Greipel won the race in 2008 and 2010, and claimed three stage wins this year — including his 100th stage victory as a professional.

Brazilian authorities have detained 19 people for their alleged involvement in fan violence that marked the final round of the Brazilian league this month, with some of them likely to be charged with attempted murder.

Police in three states had arrest warrants for nearly 30 people in a joint operation being called "Red Card," with detentions made throughout the day on Thursday.

Barcelona says forward Gerard Deulofeu, who is playing on loan at Everton this season, will spend 6-8 weeks at his home club recovering from a leg injury.

Deulofeu injured a muscle in his right leg in Everton's 4-1 win over Fulham in the English Premier League on Saturday.

An international human rights organization has urged Lebanon to rein in sectarian tensions that have been on the rise amid a spillover of Syria's civil war.

Human Rights Watch said Friday that authorities should better protect minority Alawites — members of an offshoot Shiite sect — who are increasingly coming under attack by Sunnis in the northern city of Tripoli.

Singing star Adele has been honored at Buckingham Palace, being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire by Prince Charles.

The 25-year-old with the soulful voice has become a worldwide star since her debut album topped the charts in 2008.

A Vincent Van Gogh painting that has been hidden away at a Virginia estate for decades will have a new home at the National Gallery of Art.

The rarely seen 1890 painting, "Green Wheat Fields, Auvers," depicts a landscape in bright greens and blues from northern France when Van Gogh was living just north of Paris in Auvers-sur-Oise. The painting was given to the museum by philanthropist and art collector Paul Mellon, and it has been kept in his family's home in Upperville, Virginia, since 1955.

A trove of 85 works by Spanish surrealist master Joan Miro acquired by the Portuguese government from a failing bank is up for auction with an estimated value of 30 million pounds ($49 million).

Christie's auction house said Friday the collection is "one of the most extensive and impressive offerings of works by the artist ever to come to auction," and covers seven decades of Miro's career.

The European Space Agency has launched a satellite that it hopes will produce the most accurate three-dimensional map of our part of the Milky Way galaxy.

The agency says its Gaia satellite was lifted into space aboard a Russian-made Soyuz carrier system from French Guiana at 6:12 a.m. (0912 GMT; 4:12 a.m. EST) Thursday.

Christie's holds its first art auction in India on Thursday, aiming to tap into a budding market for prestige purchasing among the country's fast-growing ranks of millionaires despite an economic slowdown.

The inaugural sale of 83 lots in the financial hub of Mumbai features paintings from the private collection of one of India's first families of contemporary art as well as pieces from six of the nine Indian artists deemed "national treasures" whose works cannot leave the country. It is expected to total $6 million to $8 million.

Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. said their curved TVs will get bigger and sport the sharpness four times the regular HD television sets.

The world's two largest TV makers will display ultra-HD TVs with curved screens that measure 105 inches diagonally in Las Vegas next month, they said in separate statements Thursday.