Arsenal and Newcastle to meet i as Champions League race intensifies

Arsenal and Newcastle set up a Premier League showdown next weekend as the race for the remaining Champions League spots intensified Sunday.

After a weekend of upsets and comebacks in the Premier League, the six-way battle to qualify for European club soccer’s top competition looks set to go down to the wire.

With the top five qualifying for the Champions League next season, just six points separate second-placed Arsenal and seventh-placed Nottingham Forest with two rounds to go.

And only two points separate Arsenal and Newcastle in third ahead of their penultimate league game at the Emirates Stadium next Sunday.

Arsenal rallied from two goals down against champion Liverpool to draw 2-2 at Anfield on Sunday, and Newcastle beat Chelsea 2-0.

Manchester City is a point further back in fourth after being held 0-0 by last-placed Southampton on Saturday.

Forest’s chances were hit by a 2-2 draw against relegated Leicester that led to owner Evangelos Marinakis appearing to remonstrate with manager Nuno Espirito Santo on the field after the match.

Europa League finalists Manchester United and Tottenham maintained their woeful domestic form — both losing 2-0 at home.

Miami LB Adarius Hayes was driver in 2-car crash that killed 3 in other vehicle, police say

LARGO, Fla. >> Miami Hurricanes linebacker Adarius Hayes was one of the drivers in a two-vehicle crash that left three people dead and at least two others injured, police said Sunday.

The three who died as a result of the crash were all in a Kia Soul, which collided with a Dodge Durango being driven by Hayes on Saturday afternoon, police said. No tickets or criminal charges have been filed, though the investigation is continuing.

A 78-year-old woman who was driving the Kia has died, police said Sunday. There also were two children — ages 10 and 4 — killed in the crash, both of them passengers in the Kia, police said.

Another passenger of the Kia was hospitalized with serious injuries, police said, and Hayes also was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

“There were no signs of impairment with either driver of the vehicles,” Largo Police public information officer Megan Santo said in a statement distributed Sunday.

Pedersen makes it 2 wins out of 3 at Giro to take back pink jersey

VLORE, Albania >> Even goats and a dog couldn’t distract Mads Pedersen.

The third stage of the Giro d’Italia all went to plan for Pedersen, who won a bunch sprint to reclaim the leader’s pink jersey with his second victory in this year’s race.

Pedersen, who rides for Lidl-Trek, edged Corbin Strong by half a wheel at the end of the hilly 160-kilometer (99-mile) leg that started and finished in the Albanian coastal city of Vlore.

Orluis Aula was third.

Pedersen also won the opening stage on Friday but had seen pre-race favorite Primoz Roglic take the pink jersey from him on Saturday.

Pedersen has moved back into pink, ahead of two more sprint stages back in Italy. The Danish cyclist has a nine-second lead over Roglic and is 14 seconds ahead of Mathias Vacek.

— The Associated Press