Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa is facing at least three months out on the sidelines after undergoing surgery on a back problem.

PETE JENSON IN SPAIN: Atletico are eight points off the lead in La Liga, on Thursday night they were dumped out of the Copa del Rey by a third division side and Liverpool loom on the horizon in Europe.

The 31-year-old has been out since November after a herniated disc injury and it was feared he would be out for the rest of the season, but now the player is confident of starting the Liverpool clash.

Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool side return to the scene of last season's Champions League triumph for the first time, where they beat fellow Premier League outfit Tottenham 2-0.

Liverpool are this country's most successful club in European competition so they should at least appreciate what befell them here; and old fashioned away goal smash and grab.

IAN LADYMAN: Football has a bigger heart and much greater intelligence than many may think and during this tricky time we are beginning to see it but the game needs to do more to publicise it.

Roma are reportedly interested in signing Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa as the Italian side look to add to their depleted striking options for next season.

PETE JENSON IN SPAIN: Atletico know it's unlikely but they have to cling to something. The horizon will look very dark for them otherwise - they would stand to lose around £88m from missed revenue

The magnitude 1.3 quake took place in the Chinese city of Hunchun at 19:38pm local time today with a focal depth of zero metres, reported China seismic network.

Alek Sigley's wife Yuka Morinaga said she received her last message from him on Monday. The 26-year-old, who is based in Tokyo, usually speaks to Mr Sigley every day on WhatsApp.

Alek Sigley hasn't been heard or seen since Tuesday morning and is believed to be detained in North Korea.

President Trump still isn't saying for certain he will meet Kim Jong-un at the DMZ, just hours before he takes his trip there.

Two Bradley Fighting vehicles were seen being driven past the Nationals' baseball stadium on Tuesday. Two M1 Abrams tanks and an armored M88 recovery unit will be at the 'Salute to America' event.

Donald Trump is closing down Washington D.C.'s airspace for his 'biggest fireworks ever' and Air Force One flyby, causing two hours of delays and cancellations for July 4 travelers in the capital.

As final preparations are made for Donald Trump's elaborate 'Salute to America' July Fourth celebration in Washington on Thursday, not everyone is as excited as the president himself.

Alek Sigley, 29, last made contact with his family on June 25, sparking concerns he had been detained in the secretive nation's capital, Pyongyang.

Alek Sigley, 29, landed in China safe and well on Thursday after spending nine days detained in the communist country.

Two projectiles, believed to be short-range ballistic missiles, were fired from South Hwanghae province Tuesday, before North Korea issued a statement condemning joint US-South Korea military drills.

North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un supervised test-firings of an unspecified new weapons system today, seen as an attempt to build leverage ahead of negotiations with the United States.

Japan's military last year said it was 'possible' that North Korea had achieved miniaturisation, but Tokyo now appears to have upgraded its assessment (pictured, a recent North Korean weapons test).

Jacob Bogle, a researcher from the US, analysed satellite images of North Korea taken since 2003 and found that a uranium plant at Pyongsan appears to be leaking waste into a nearby river.

Images of the Sinpo South Shipyard suggest circumstantial evidence of the construction of a new ballistic missile submarine, according to the report on Wednesday.

The Mount Kumgang resort was opened in 1998 to encourage cross-border tourism but the arrangement ended in acrimony when a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a soldier in 2008.

John Bolton ripped apart Donald Trump's efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula as ineffective, claiming it will get worse with time. 'North Korea isn't our friend and never will be,' Bolton said.

Ri Sol-ju was seen alongside husband Kim Jong-un during his visit to the Mount Kumgang resort this week, marking the first time she has been seen in public in more than four months.

Smiling Grape Adventure Tours, based in Cambridgeshire, will take guests to Pyongyang's best pubs, bars and microbreweries in March 2020.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rode a white horse up sacred mountain Mount Paektu in Ryanggang on his second symbolic visit in less than two months, in photos released on Wednesday.

Alex Meads, now 23, was excommunicated by the London-based Korean Friendship Association's 'paranoid' chairman, Dermot Hudson, earlier this year.

Donald Trump on Tuesday brushed aside threats of a Christmas surprise from North Korea, joking maybe he would get a 'beautiful vase' from Kim Jong Un instead of a missile test. 

Four aircraft are believed to have to have made the unusual move of flying missions over and around the Korean Peninsula between Tuesday and early Wednesday at the same time.

The dictatorship has threatened to take 'unspecified action' if sanctions are not lifted by 2020. Four US planes flew over the North Korean peninsula on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Hours after making headlines for an eye-catching display in Vale's 4-1 FA Cup defeat by Manchester City, Tom Pope took to Twitter to controversially answer a question from a fan.

Port Vale striker Tom Pope has apologised over what some observers perceived to be an anti-Semitic social media post. The League Two strikers recently gave his take on the possible outcome of a world war.

If you want to take your ski holiday completely off-piste, then forget the Rockies, Sierra Nevada mountains or the Alps - try the Middle East. Or perhaps North Korea...

EXCLUSIVE: Millionaire financier David Rowland held talks with North Korean leaders in the capital Pyongyang about managing the personal fortunes of the rogue state's ruling family.

Staff Sergeant Byun Hui-su fought back tears as she said being a soldier had been her 'childhood dream' and that she wanted to help guard the tense border with communist North Korea.

North Korea has not yet confirmed any cases of the coronavirus, formally known COVID-19, but has closed the land border with China, where 254 people died yesterday from the outbreak.

The prisoner, who used the pseudonym Kim Il-soon, exposed the monstrous practice after surviving the hell of Kaechon concentration camp, which is located north of Pyongyang.

Alek Sigley, 30, had been a Masters student at Kim Il-sung University, in Pyonyang, for three semesters when he was whisked out of the foreign student dormitory by two men on June 25 last year.

Actor Michael Palin, 77, compared the current lockdown with living in North Korea as the nation is under 'strict government control' ahead of Channel 5's re-transmission of his documentary about nation.

Pop star Prince blasted fellow singers Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran in an astonishing handwritten note contained in an archive found in the late star's Minnesota home.

Sporting a vibrant purple off-the-shoulder top, Katy, 35, caught the eye while leaving the celebration later that evening.

Katy Perry was in attendance at Madonna's Madame X show on Friday night, and she did not hesitate to bestow the Queen of Pop with that very moniker-a 'queen'-before kissing her ring.

Last year, Katy Perry released her holiday jingle Cozy Little Christmas. And on Sunday, the singer, 35, announced that the song's music video would be coming out one year after its original release.

in the sassy clip, the 35-year-old pop star gets up close and personal with quite the curious creature. Katy slipped her top off so she could relax with a massage from a cheeky reindeer.

The TV presenter, 60, mocked the technique, which many use to help ease anxieties. ASMR is a feeling of relaxation, characterised by a tingling sensation

Perry made a grand entrance out of a giant red Christmas tree ornament. She was accompanied onstage by backup dancers dressed as purple gift boxes wrapped in red patent leather bows.

He recently revealed that he's looking forward to starting a family with his fiancée Katy Perry after they exchange nuptials.

On Monday, Orlando Bloom was spotted spending some solo time practicing his snowboarding skills in Aspen, Colorado.

The singer, 35, took to Instagram on Monday morning to celebrate the actor, 43, who she described as 'loving, kind, compassionate, supportive, talented and deeply spiritual'.