Indiana's heavy offseason investment in squad development paid off Wednesday when Luis Scola, Donald Sloan and Lance Stephenson combined for all 12 points in a decisive fourth-quarter run, sending the still unbeaten Pacers past division rival Chicago 97-80 and to its best start since 1971-72.

"They brought all of us in to make the bench a little deeper than it was last year, and I think the guys on the bench know their role," Sloan said. "So it just fits."

Lionel Messi returned to form with two goals as Barcelona secured its spot in the knockout stage of the Champions League. Fellow Argentina forward Gonzalo Higuain also had a brace for Napoli. And Samuel Eto'o scored for his fourth different team.

On a night of standout individual performances Wednesday, Schalke goalkeeper Timo Hildebrand had a game he'll want to forget. His failed clearance led to Eto'o's opening goal in Chelsea's 3-0 win, which put Jose Mourinho's side atop Group E.

Lindsey Vonn eased into her first day of downhill training on Wednesday, with the four-time overall World Cup champion holding back on her opening run just to get used to that kind of speed again.

By her fifth and final pass at the U.S. Ski Team's speed center on Wednesday, Vonn was charging so hard through the two-mile course that she bent over in exhaustion soon after finishing, trying to catch her breath.

Chemical weapons inspectors said Thursday that Syria has provided video and photographic evidence that shows a chemical weapons site near war-torn Aleppo has been dismantled and abandoned.

In a mission update by the OPCW, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said photographs and footage provided by Syria showed the building empty and with "extensive battle damage."

With pen and paper in hand, it took Assaad Chaftari five minutes at his home nestled in a cluster of pine trees in the mountains overlooking Beirut to write a public apology for his role in the atrocities committed during Lebanon's civil war.

Thirteen years later, he's still the sole senior figure from the slew of militias that prosecuted that bloody conflict to do so. That Chaftari alone has taken that bold step says as much about his own searing sense of remorse and desire to atone as it does about Lebanon and where it stands more than two decades after the country's 15-year bloodletting claimed the lives of an estimated 150,000 people.

The website of Brazil's biggest news outlet published photos Wednesday it says show pop star Justin Bieber spray painting graffiti on a wall. And it adds that police want to question him about it.

The O Globo newspaper reported that photographers snapped photos of Bieber as he painted graffiti on a wall of the former Hotel Nacional in Rio de Janeiro Tuesday morning.

Paleontologists on Wednesday unveiled a new dinosaur discovered in the U.S. that proves giant tyrant dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus rex were around 10 million years earlier than previously believed.

A full skeletal replica of the carnivore — the equivalent of the great uncle of the T. rex — was on display at the Natural History Museum of Utah alongside a 3-D model of the head and a large painted mural of the dinosaur roaming a shoreline.

Christie's auction house in New York says Pablo Picasso's model of his famed Chicago sculpture didn't sell at auction after bids failed to meet a minimum reserve.

Authorities had hoped the sheet metal model would bring between $25 million and $35 million when it went up for auction Monday in New York.

Twitter has set a price of $26 per share for its initial public offering, which means the company's stock can begin trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange in the most highly anticipated IPO since Facebook's 2012 debut.

The price values Twitter at more than $18 billion based on its outstanding stock, options and restricted stock that'll be available after the IPO. That's more than Macy's, which has a market capitalization of $17 billion, and Bed Bath & Beyond, which is around $16 billion.

A prison official says Pakistan has freed former President Pervez Musharraf from house arrest after he received bail earlier this week.

Wajad Ali says prison officials were withdrawn on Wednesday night from Musharraf's home on the outskirts of Islamabad.