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BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Hundreds of fans spent hours in front of the team hotel in Brasilia to try to get a glimpse of the Brazilian players Sunday.

There was not a lot they could see from outside the gates, but they were rewarded when goalkeeper Julio Cesar showed up. Cesar stayed with the fans for nearly an hour, signing jerseys and posing for photos.

Brazilian players were allowed to welcome relatives inside their hotel Sunday, a rare opportunity to be with their loved ones during the tournament.

Nearby, a few Cameroon fans stayed outside their team's hotel, but no player had showed up to greet them by early afternoon.

Brazil will play Cameroon on Monday in their final Group A match. The hosts need at least a draw to advance to the second round, and a win will likely secure first place. Cameroon is already eliminated after losing its first two matches.

— By Tales Azzoni — www.twitter.com/tazzoni

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WAINWRIGHT'S SUPPORT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright showed up at Busch Stadium displaying his backing of the U.S. World Cup team.

A day after beating the Philadelphia Phillies 4-1 to improve to 10-3, Wainwright had the American flag painted on his face when he went out to stretch with his St. Louis teammates before Sunday's series finale.

The native of Brunswick, Georgia, is an avid soccer fan and said he was looking forward to the U.S. game against Portugal later Sunday. Wainwright kept the paint on during the playing of the national anthem, then removed it before the first pitch.

Wainwright, who attended 1994 World Cup matches in Orlando, Florida, said his wife did the painting.

"Let's do this," he said.

— Steve Overbey

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REX IN RIO

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Compared to running with the bulls, this offseason excursion was quite tame for Rex Ryan.

The New York Jets coach was spotted at Maracana Stadium in Rio during Sunday's World Cup game between Belgium and Russia. Last July, Ryan joined thousands of thrill-seekers in the annual running of the bulls at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, Spain.

Ryan spent some time around world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal when the national team was training at the NFL club's practice facility in New Jersey before the World Cup. No doubts on Ryan's loyalties, though. Portugal faces the American squad later in the day in the jungle city of Manaus, and Ryan was wearing a U.S. shirt at the Maracana on Sunday.

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STICKER SHOCK

CURITIBA, Brazil (AP) — Panini sticker album swappers were doing a brisk trade Sunday morning in Curitiba, just as they have been since the start of the World Cup.

Over 100 people of all ages gather at Ukraine Square every morning to try to fill their albums with the likes of Brazilian star Neymar, Argentina wonder Lionel Messi, or Portuguese phenom Cristiano Ronaldo.

But even though Miraslov Klose matched the World Cup record of 15 goals scored in the finals, the Germany striker's card was no hotter a commodity than any other one as collectors just look to fill their sticker albums, period.

"It's been as busy as this since the World Cup started, no difference from morning to morning," said 20-year-old Thiago Zortea as he shuffled through cards in search of a certain number so he could make a trade. "Klose is no different from (Japan's Keisuke) Honda."

The dealing will go on right until the July 13 final, with vendors attaching themselves to the square to sell drinks and popcorn to hungry parents and kids, as they all entertain swaps with one another.

— By Paul Logothetis — www.twitter.com/PaulLogoAP

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WIMBLEDON'S WORLD CUP

LONDON (AP) — Andy Murray says the World Cup is a big focus of conversation at Wimbledon.

"Pretty much when you walk into the locker room most mornings, that's what almost all of the players are talking about," Murray said Sunday on the eve of his title defense.

England has failed to advance out of the group stage, meaning more interest might be focused on Wimbledon and Murray's play here. Defending champion Spain, with Rafael Nadal one its biggest boosters, is also out after losing both group matches.

"I mean, a lot of the Spanish guys have been a little bit quiet the last few days," Murray said, smiling.

He said the World Cup also "gives me something to do in the evenings."

"I don't have to listen to people talking about me playing at Wimbledon," he said. "I can just watch the football."

— By Dennis Passa — http://twitter.com/DennisPassa

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TWITTER GAFFE

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Landon Donovan is still the biggest name in American soccer. He's just not playing for the U.S. at the World Cup.

So an unfortunate tweet from Samsung Mobile Arabia went viral for all the wrong reasons Sunday when the company posted: "Best of luck to Landon Donovan & the USA team."

The 32-year-old Donovan, the American career leader in goals and assists, was cut from the squad last month. He was part of a Samsung ad campaign that included the likes of Argentina star Lionel Messi and England's Wayne Rooney.

The account also tweeted well-wishes to another endorser Sunday: "Cristiano Ronaldo is all set for today's match. We wish Portugal team all the very best." At least Ronaldo is indeed on Portugal's squad for the game against the United States.

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GOALS APLENTY

SAO PAULO (AP) — With his team already comfortably qualified for the round of 16, and only positioning at stake in a matchup with Chile, Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal turned his attention to World Cup games at large, saying he was pleased with the offensive brand of football seen so far.

"The forwards are proving themselves here, especially the strikers who play in European leagues. They've all scored, more than once," he said Sunday.

Van Gaal had particularly warm words for German striker Miroslav Klose, his former player at Bayern Munich, who with a goal against Ghana on Saturday tied Brazilian great Ronaldo as the top career World Cup scorer with 15.

"That is very impressive," Van Gaal said. "I congratulate him."

Van Gaal noted that Klose "comes on for two minutes — he's done it for me too— and scores."

— By Aron Heller — www.twitter.com/aronhellerap

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Associated Press reporters will be filing dispatches about happenings in and around Brazil during the 2014 World Cup. Follow AP journalists covering the World Cup on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Sports/world-cup-2014

MITROVICA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse hundreds of ethnic Albanians angry because minority Serbs reinforced a barricade separating parts of central Mitrovica.

At least seven police officers were injured and five cars set ablaze by protesters.

NATO armored vehicles staked out a downtown bridge. The alliance leads a 5,000-strong peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

Lt. Col. John Cogbill of Richmond, Virginia, who is in the U.S. contingent, said peacekeepers were called up Sunday to support police efforts to contain the crowd.

This week, Serbs used trucks and bulldozers to remove mounds of earth used to block ethnic Albanians from crossing the bridge and placed large flower pots instead.

Serbia rejects Kosovo's 2008 secession and backs the Serb minority's defiance of Pristina authorities. Most Kosovars are ethnic Albanians.

BAGHDAD (AP) — "Allah, please make our army victorious," rang out the despairing voice of a worshipper making his way through a crowd to reach the ornate enclosure of the Baghdad tomb of a revered Shiite imam. Others in the crystal and marble mosque somberly read from the Quran or tearfully recited supplications.

"We pray for the safety of Iraq and Baghdad," said Mohammed Hashem al-Maliki, a Shiite, squatting on the marble plaza outside the shrine of Imam Moussa al-Kazim in northern Baghdad. "I live close by, and I tell you I have not seen people this sad or worried in a long time," the 51-year-old said as his 10-year-old daughter, Zeinab, listened somberly.

While the Iraqi capital is not under any immediate threat of falling to the Sunni militants who have captured a wide swath of the country's north and west, battlefield setbacks and the conflict's growing sectarian slant is turning this city of 7 million into an anxiety-filled place waiting for disaster to happen.

Traffic is nowhere near its normal congestion. Many stores are shuttered and those that are open are doing little business in a city where streets empty hours before a 10 p.m. curfew kicks in. Arriving international and domestic flights are half empty, while outgoing flights to the relatively safe Kurdish cities of Irbil and Suleimaniya are booked solid through late July as those who can flee.

The number of army and police checkpoints has grown, snarling traffic. Pickup trucks loaded with Shiite militiamen roam the city, including in Sunni and mixed areas, chanting religious slogans. A climate of war reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's days permeates state-run television broadcasts dominated by nationalist songs, video clips of army and police forces in action and reruns of speeches by Nouri al-Maliki, the Shiite prime minister.

Interviews with Iraqis vowing to fight or declaring their readiness to die for Iraq are daily fare, along with footage showing young volunteers at signup centers or in trucks being ferried to army camps.

The Iraqi capital has seen little respite from violence for more than three decades, from the ruinous 1980-88 war with Iran, the first Gulf War over Kuwait in 1991, to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent years of turmoil that peaked in 2006 and 2007, with Sunni-Shiite bloodletting that left tens of thousands killed and altered the longstanding sectarian balance, turning Baghdad into a predominantly Shiite city.

Baghdadis, Sunnis and Shiites alike, are renowned for their resilience, but they fear the threat posed by the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, whose interpretation of Islamic Shariah law is similar in its harshness to the Moghul hordes that sacked the city in the 13th century, turning, tradition says, the water of the Tigris red with the blood of its slaughtered residents and black with the ink of the thousands of books they threw into the river.

Shiites fear they will be massacred if the Sunni militants take the city or even parts of it, while Baghdad's Sunni residents worry the Shiite militiamen, with the full acquiescence of the Shiite-led government, will target them in reprisal attacks if the Islamic State continues its battlefield successes.

"They are coming to destroy life and humanity," al-Maliki, the worshipper at the Imam al-Kazim shrine, said of the Sunni militants.

A government employee who was injured in a 2004 blast blamed on Sunni militants in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, he was one of several hundred Shiites seeking solace and peace at the shrine one recent evening. Around him in the plaza, families sat in circles as their children energetically ran about as the day's searing heat finally relented.

But reminders of the dark days that may be ahead were only a stone's throw away.

Across the plaza, a giant screen displayed the text of June 13 edict by Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, calling on Iraqis to join the security forces to fight the Islamic State fighters, and reminding them that the insurgents have threatened to march on Shiite shrines in Baghdad, Samarra, Najaf and Karbala.

Just outside the mosque gates, Shiite clerics addressed dozens of Shiite militiamen in ski masks and combat fatigues. Though unarmed, their presence near one of Iraq's most revered Shiite shrines added to the sense of impending war — and was a reminder of the quick erosion of government authority following the security forces' humiliating defeat in the north, where Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, fell after troops abandoned their positions and weapons.

Since then, tens of thousands of Shiite militiamen of the so-called "Peace Brigades" have staged parades in Baghdad and the predominantly Shiite south, displaying a range of heavy weapons, mostly Iranian-made but including some U.S.-made assault rifles, from field artillery and missiles to rocket launchers and heavy machine-guns.

Held in Baghdad's sprawling Shiite Sadr City district, home to some 2 million Shiites, policemen and army troops stood aside as the parade's organizers searched cars and kept the crowds at bay. Some of the cranes used for cameras recording the event belonged to the Shiite-controlled city council, along with some of the pickup trucks hauling missiles on their back beds.

Underlining the sectarian slant of the conflict, the parading men included clerics dressed in military fatigues and carrying assault rifles. At the reviewing stand, senior clerics with silver beards and flowing robes stood at attention, giving military salutes.

The Peace Brigades is the latest name for the Mahdi Army, a brutal militia loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which took the lead in targeting Sunnis during the sectarian bloodletting nearly a decade ago.

That blood-stained history was not far from the mind of one militia commander who spoke on the parade's sidelines.

"We can take Baghdad in one hour if we decide to do it," he said boastfully. "This parade has one aim: To terrorize Sunnis," added the commander, who agreed to be named only by his alias, Abu Zeinab.

The parades were the latest evidence that the Sunni-Shiite conflict carries the potential for a civil war that could herald the division of Iraq. It is a scenario that spells the most trouble for Baghdad.

Baghdad's Sunnis already are terrified.

Sunnis report the appearance over the past week in some of their neighborhoods of plainclothes security agents with firearms bulging from under their shirts. In scenes harkening back to Saddam's police state, the agents loiter in cafes and restaurants and outside Sunni mosques, according to the residents who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals.

"Our politicians have so far succeeded in one thing: They have created an atmosphere of distrust between the city's Shiites and Sunnis," said Yasser Farouq, a 45-year-old retail businessman from Baghdad's Sunni district of Azamiyah. Farouq said he already has a plan to flee the city with his family if the Islamic State fighters take it or if the Shiite militiamen turn against the city's Sunni residents.

"Weapons are everywhere in the city. That tells me that instability is here and disaster is on the way," he said.

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Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

HONG KONG (AP) — Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers lined up to vote Sunday, joining hundreds of thousands of others who cast electronic ballots in the first three days of an unofficial referendum on democratic reform that Beijing has blasted as a farce.

Tensions have soared in Hong Kong over how much say residents of the former British colony can have in choosing their next leader, who's currently hand-picked by a 1,200-member committee of mostly pro-Beijing elites.

Beijing, which has pledged to allow Hong Kongers to choose their own leader starting in 2017, has balked at letting members of the public nominate their own candidates, saying they would have to be vetted by a Beijing-friendly committee.

Pro-democratic organizers of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement are offering voters three proposals on so-called public nomination. They've vowed to hold a mass protest if the former British colony's government, which has carried out a consultation on electoral reform, doesn't come up with a proposal that meets their standards. The plan involves rallying at least 10,000 people to shut down the city's central business district and has alarmed businesses in the Asian financial hub.

By 10 p.m. Sunday, nearly 700,000 ballots had been cast since voting started Friday, including about 440,000 through a smartphone app. About 200,000 more were cast online despite a massive cyberattack that left the site intermittently inaccessible and forced organizers to extend voting by a week until June 29. And about 48,000 people cast ballots at 15 polling stations, which organizers were operating on two successive Sundays.

The outlook for Hong Kong's democratic development "is quite pessimistic but we are also proactive and we will try our best to make miracles happen," said Chan Chi-chung, a teacher voting at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. "If many people come out to voice their opinion, but the Beijing central government ignores that voice, then it's over for Hong Kong."

Voters at one polling station were met by a small-group of protesters decrying the vote as a crime.

The central government's liaison office has called the vote "a political farce that overtly challenges the Basic Law," referring to the mini-constitution that promises a high degree of autonomy under the principle of "one country, two systems" for Hong Kong after it became a specially administered Chinese region in 1997.

Hong Kong's current leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, has also said the three options don't comply with the law. Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen said there was "simply no legal basis" for the vote, which should be seen merely as "an expression of opinion by the general public."