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The Kansas City Royals have given six-time All-Star catcher Salvador Pérez the richest contract in club history, an $82 million, four-year deal that begins in 2022. The contract includes a club option worth an additional $13.5 million and has a $2 million buyout for 2026. The deal surpasses the four-year, $72 million contract the Royals gave to outfielder Alex Gordon in 2016. That deal wound up being a disappointment and Gordon retired after last season. Pérez is coming off a season in which he won his third Silver Slugger. He is also a five-time Gold Glove winner.

Oral Roberts became just the second No. 15 seed to advance to the round of 16 by stunning No. 7 seed Florida 81-78. Kevin Obanor and Max Abams carried the Golden Eagles to their second straight upset of the NCAA Tournament. Oral Roberts beat No. 2 seed Ohio State in the first round. Obanor scored 28 points and Abmas finished with 26 as the Golden Eagles overcame an 11-point deficit. Oral Roberts joins Florida Gulf Coast as the only No. 15 seeds to reach the round of 16. The Golden Eagles play No. 3 seed Arkansas next. 

Buddy Boeheim carried his father, Jim, to the Hall of Fame coach’s 20th Sweet 16 appearance, scoring 22 of his 25 points after halftime to lead 11th-seeded Syracuse past third-seeded West Virginia 75-72 in the NCAA Tournament. Jim Boeheim’s Orange got the better of another legend, Bob Huggins, in the second March Madness meeting between coaches with at least 900 Division I victories. Huggins won No. 900 when West Virginia beat Morehead State in the first round on Friday. Boeheim got his 982nd at Huggins’ expense. Syracuse advanced to face second-seeded Houston or 10th-seeded Rutgers in a Midwest Regional semifinal. Sean McNeil scored 23 points to lead the Mountaineers.

Ryan Blaney became the sixth driver to win in six races to start NASCAR’s Cup season, surging to the front with nine laps to go after Kyle Larson’s dominant performance at Atlanta Motor Speedway fell apart on a fading set of tires Sunday. Larson easily won the first two stages and led 269 of 325 laps on the 1.54-mile trioval. But Larson’s tires didn’t stand up to the punishing track after making his final pit stop with 56 laps to go. Blaney pulled away to win by 2.083 seconds in his No. 12 Team Penske Ford.

Max Scherzer will have the ball in his hands when he begins the final season of his seven-year, $210 million contract with the Washington Nationals. Scherzer will make his Nationals-record sixth opening day start April 1, facing the New York Mets in Washington. It’ll be a rematch of an exhibition mound matchup Sunday, when Scherzer allowed two homers and threw 90 pitches in five innings of a 6-2 loss to the Mets and starter Jacob deGrom in West Palm Beach, Florida. It’ll be quite a way to get things going for Major League Baseball as three-time Cy Young Award winner Scherzer faces two-time honoree deGrom.  

Manchester United now has only one route to ending a four-year trophy drought after losing 3-1 at Leicester in the FA Cup quarterfinals. That realistically leaves Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with only the Europa League to produce his first trophy as United manager. Leicester has the easier route to the FA Cup final after being drawn to play Southampton. The other semifinal will pit Manchester City against Chelsea which beat Sheffield United 2-0 on Sunday. In the Premier League West Ham threw away a 3-0 lead to draw 3-3 with Arsenal and Tottenham beat Aston Villa 2-0.

Matt Jones won the Honda Classic and is headed back to the Masters. Jones got his second career PGA Tour win Sunday, seven years after his first at the Houston Open. He finished the week at 12-under 268 and the five-shot margin over runner-up Brandon Hagy matched the Honda record. Jones started the week with a 9-under 61 that tied the course record at PGA National. He reclaimed the lead in the third round and kept it the whole way Sunday to finish off the win and secure his second Masters invitation.

Authorities are still investigating claims made by a man charged in a New Jersey slaying who has said he killed a total of 16 people in multiple states. A law enforcement official confirmed Sunday that Sean Lannon is the primary suspect in the killing of his ex-wife and three others found in a car in New Mexico. The official, who had direct knowledge of the probe, could not discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The official says investigators are searching missing persons records and other police reports to try to identify any potential victims. 

The Houston Rockets lost their team-record 20th straight game, falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder 114-112 when John Wall missed two shots in the final 10 seconds. Houston's skid is tied for the ninth-worst in NBA history and the longest since Philadelphia’s record-setting 28-game losing streak across the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. The Thunder led 113-112 when Lu Dort blocked Wall’s layup from behind in the closing seconds. Wall then missed a deep 3-pointer at the buzzer. Dort scored 23 points. Christian Wood had 27 points for Houston, Wall added 24 and Victor Oladipo had 23.

LONDON (AP) — Sikh leader Balwinder Singh Basra rolled up his sleeve to get a COVID-19 vaccine Sunday at the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Luton, north of London. And he wanted everyone to know about it. Unlike most of the…

Sister Jean Delores Schmidt gave an inspirational pregame prayer to her Loyola Chicago team before the eighth-seeded Ramblers met top-seeded Illinois in the second round. The 101-year-old chaplain to the team said, “As we play the Fighting Illini, we ask for special help to overcome this team and get a great win. We hope to score early and make our opponents nervous. We have a great opportunity to convert rebounds as this team makes about 50% of layups and 30% of its 3 points. Our defense can take care of that.” Just past the midway point of the first half, that prayer was being answered. Loyola was up 33-24 at halftime of the Midwest Region game.

CAIRO (AP) — Nawal Saadawi, a renowned Egyptian feminist, psychiatrist and novelist, whose writings have stirred controversy for decades in an overwhelming conservative society, died of age-related health problems in Cairo on Sunday, officials said. She was 89. Egypt’s Culture…

The games during the first week of the NCAA Tournament have still brought madness. But it’s a much quieter version. Restrictions due to the pandemic have limited crowds. Despite the restrictions, despite the lack of fans, the quiet atmospheres and being separate from friends and family, the joy is still there. Georgia Tech students roared inside Hinkle Fieldhouse until getting silenced by Loyola Chicago. Same with the hundreds of Grand Canyon students who were on hand for the first round matchup against Iowa. Coaches and players say it's different, but they are happy to be playing.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s weekly regional COVID-19 figures keep increasing and deaths rising as the country maintains more relaxed restrictions for now. The country's official death toll in the pandemic climbed to 30,061 Sunday, when the government reported 102 new…

WASHINGTON (AP) — A North Korean citizen was taken into U.S. custody on Saturday after being extradited from Malaysia to face money laundering charges, making him the first North Korean extradited to the U.S. to face trial. Mun Chol Myong…

As migrants surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Joe Biden’s administration has been caught on its heels and is now scrambling to manage a humanitarian and political challenge that threatens to overshadow its ambitious agenda. The White House dispatched Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to four Sunday news shows in an effort to stress that it was working to get things under control. Administration officials say Biden inherited an untenable situation that resulted from what they saw was President Donald Trump’s undermining and weakening of the immigration system. Images and stories from the border have begun to dominate the headlines, distracting from the White House’s efforts to promote the recently passed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. 

Lawmakers and advocates say if the suspect in the  deadly Atlanta-area shootings had been forced to wait before getting a gun, he might not have acted on his impulse. Police say the suspect legally bought a 9 mm handgun not long before the attack, which spread fear and anger through Asian American communities nationwide. Within hours, authorities say, he had killed eight people, seven of them women and six of Asian descent, in a rampage targeting massage businesses. Georgia and some other states are looking to create or expand waiting periods. But gun rights groups are opposed, and the legislation may face an uphill battle.

Local bars and halls run by Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts have fallen on hard times during the coronavirus pandemic. Organizers say many risk permanent closure after states ordered them, like other bars and halls, to shutter last spring. Local veterans groups argue that their facilities aren’t simply private watering holes and should have been allowed to reopen sooner. In New Bedford, Massachusetts, VFW Post 3260 dissolved and sold off its hall during the pandemic. Post leaders say the group fell victim to years of declining membership and a facility it simply couldn’t maintain with no revenue coming in.