Six world champions on the grid for the opening Grand Prix of the season represents an unprecedented array of talent for Formula One, yet few would count on anything other than another Sebastian Vettel title this season.

Kimi Raikkonen's return from a year away in rally racing has added one more former champion to F1 ranks this season, joining Vettel, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, and Jenson Button.

The leader of Syria's main opposition group rejected calls Friday by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan for dialogue with President Bashar Assad's government, saying they were pointless and unrealistic as the regime massacres its own people.

As the prospects for diplomacy faltered, Turkey's state-run television TRT said two Syrian generals and a colonel defected to Turkey on Thursday.

If the Manchester clubs expected things to come much easier after dropping out of the Champions League, they were in for a real shock on Thursday.

England's two leading teams face a battle to reach the quarterfinals of the Europa League, the continent's second-tier club competition, after United was outclassed in a 3-2 home loss to Athletic Bilbao and City slumped to a 1-0 loss at Sporting Lisbon in the first legs of their last-16 matches.

A fire at a high-rise hotel in Bangkok's main tourist district sent smoke billowing through the upper floors, killing at least one foreigner and injuring almost two dozen other people, authorities said Friday.

When firefighters arrived at the 15-story Grand Park Avenue Bangkok hotel Thursday evening, they saw people screaming for help from the upper floors, said firefighter Rampan Kaewyongkod.

Clashes between the army and Tuareg rebels in northern Mali have forced 172,000 people to flee their homes since mid-January, the United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA) said Thursday.

"The number of people displaced by the conflict reached more than 172,000 at the beginning of March, including more than 90,000 who have fled abroad, mostly to Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger," read a statement from the agency.

Gutsy "American Idol" contestant Jessica Sanchez took on Whitney Houston's biggest hit, delivering a performance that awed the show's judges.

When host Ryan Seacrest asked the panel to name Wednesday night's top two singers among the 13 finalists, Steven Tyler was ready.

Britain's defense secretary insisted on Thursday that the country's troops are committed to their mission in Afghanistan, after the number of U.K. personnel killed in the conflict passed 400.

Ministers have expressed fears that the deaths of six soldiers killed when an explosion hit their armored vehicle in the southwestern Helmand province on Tuesday evening would prompt new concern over the 11-year-long campaign.

Darting down the bumpy streets of Gaza wearing a cheap pair of sneakers, Palestinian runner Bahaa al-Farra dodges potholes and traffic as he trains to compete against the world's best athletes at the London Olympics.

Although an Olympic medal is a near impossibility, the 400-meter runner takes to the city streets for about three hours a day, speeding down crowded avenues in the morning before hitting the gym in the afternoon.

More work needs to be done to keep young Americans from using tobacco, including creating smoking bans and increasing taxes on tobacco products to deter youth, the U.S. Surgeon General's office said in a report released Thursday.

The report said it's particularly important to stop young people from using tobacco because those who start smoking as teenagers can increase their chances of long-term addiction. They also quickly can develop reduced lung function, early heart disease and other health problems.

Flying in formation around the moon, a pair of NASA probes began mapping the lunar gravity field in hopes of figuring out why Earth's only natural satellite is shaped the way it is.

The probes kicked off their science campaign late Tuesday two months after arriving back-to-back at the moon over the New Year's weekend.