Allyson Felix finally won the Olympic gold medal she craved most, gliding home with her seemingly effortless stride to take the 200-meters title and break Veronica Campbell-Brown's stranglehold on the event.

Aries Merritt added to a super sprint night for the United States, dominating the 110-meter hurdles final ahead of compatriot Jason Richardson. Behind them, Cuba's Dayron Robles, the 2008 champion, was smashing a hurdle in frustration after he pulled up lame with a right hamstring injury halfway through the race. In the heats, China's Liu Xiang, the 2004 champion, also pulled out injured.

Sarah Attar became the first Saudi woman to compete in Olympic track and field, wearing a headscarf and finishing last in her 800-meter heat Wednesday.

Attar smiled broadly and waved at the crowd as her name was announced. Three minutes later, wearing a white headscarf, green long-sleeved shirt and black leggings despite the 19-degree Celsius (66-degree Fahrenheit) temperature, she drew a huge roar of approval from the crowd of about 80,000 as she strode down the home stretch.

For the past 30 years, Israeli Judaic scholar Menachem Cohen has been on a mission of biblical proportions: Correcting all known textual errors in Jewish scripture to produce a truly definitive edition of the Old Testament.

His edits, focusing primarily on grammatical blemishes and an intricate set of biblical symbols, mark the first major overhaul of the Hebrew Bible in nearly 500 years.

A big U.S. government study shows that in the past decade, the proportion of children who have high cholesterol has fallen.

The results are surprising, given that the childhood obesity rate didn't budge.

Some 2,400 people crossed into Turkey overnight to escape the escalating violence in Syria, Turkey’s government-run news agency reported on Wednesday.

The Anadolu Agency said that the crowd included 37 Syrian army officials two of whom were generals and two colonels.

With one gold down, the Russians are trying to discount all the talk about another sweep in synchronized swimming.

But it's not working. It's clear everyone else is playing for silver.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has given a replica of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar's sword to Venezuelan fencer Ruben Limardo for winning a gold medal at the London Olympics.

The 27-year-old fencer has received a hero's welcome in Venezuela since returning from winning the country's first gold medal in 44 years.

Bayern Munich says Germany striker Mario Gomez has undergone surgery on his left ankle and will be out of action for three weeks.

Bayern says the 27-year-old Gomez had the operation on Tuesday.

Arsenal made its third offseason player signing on Tuesday, with Spain attacking midfielder Santi Cazorla joining from Malaga on a long-term contract for an undisclosed fee.

Arsenal has already signed Olivier Giroud from Montpellier for a reported 13 million pounds (€20 million) and Lukas Podolski from FC Cologne for an undisclosed fee.

A Russian booster rocket on Tuesday failed to place two communications satellites into a designated orbit, officials said, marring the prestige of the nation's space program a day after NASA landed a robotic vehicle on Mars.

Russia's Roscosmos space agency said the Proton-M rocket was launched just before midnight Monday from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The booster's first stages worked fine, but the upper stage intended to give the final push to the satellites switched off earlier than expected, it said.