France

AFP – Two “dumb and dumber” alleged pet thieves wrestled a stolen python in a McDonald’s restaurant carpark as astonished customers looked on, Australian police said Thursday.
The men, aged 22 and 24, struggled with the …

AFP – Britain’s financial watchdog has hit Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs with a 20-million-pound (31-million-dollar, 24-million-euro) fine linked to US fraud charges, a report said Wednesday.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined the banking giant …

The murder took place late on Friday night when both Hall and his wife were drunk.
It was discovered when Hall telephoned his adult children to tell them of their mother’s death. They then alerted the …

AFP – Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck, a two-time Tour de France runner-up, and his Saxo Bank team-mate Stuart O’Grady have pulled out of the Tour of Spain, their team said Tuesday.
The two riders did not take …

REUTERS – Switzerland is cooperating with a French investigation into whether financial assets of Europe’s wealthiest woman, l’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, have been misused, a magistrate said on Tuesday.
What began as a family feud between …

AFP – Andy Murray was a major casualty at the US Open on Sunday but Rafael Nadal stormed through as did Kim Clijsters and Venus Williams in the women’s tournament.
The 23-year-old Scot was out of …

AFP – Art critics dismissed Bob Dylan as an amateur painter and said his work had no place in Denmark’s largest museum, after the American music icon’s new painting collection opened in Copenhagen.
“When we talk …

AFP – French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government faced a showdown with angry trade unions on Tuesday as thousands prepared to march against plans to raise the minimum retirement age to 62.
Labour leaders have called …

AFP – Tiger Woods was in danger of losing his five-year grip on golf’s world number one ranking to Phil Mickelson or Steve Stricker in Monday’s last round of the PGA Deutsche Bank Championship.
Woods fired …

AFP – Australia’s world basketball championships campaign came to a bone-shuddering end on Sunday when they were crushed 87-58 by Slovenia in the last 16.
Australia were slow out of the blocks, failing to score a …

AFP – A re-enactment of the 2005 Beirut assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri is to be staged in France later this month as part of a UN-backed probe into his murder, a source …

The treatment of incontinence in women is an issue that is not always easy for women to discuss. However, the problem is widespread. An estimated 51 million women worldwide (17 million of them in the …

AFP – US unemployment jumped to 9.6 percent in August, the Labor Department said Friday, showing the recovering economy is still struggling to create jobs.
  
In a keenly awaited unemployment report, the department said the …

 
AP – France coach Laurent Blanc is making sure all his players will be singing the national anthem before a 2012 European Championship qualifier against Belarus on Friday, to show they really care about playing …

AFP – Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button may be friends and team-mates, but both are close rivals for the world championship and each has his own goals as he enters the run-in to the end …

AFP - US ninth seed Andy Roddick made a shocking second-round exit from the US Open on Wednesday with Serbia’s 44th-ranked Janko Tipsarevic firing 66 winners in a 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) victory.
Roddick, whose lone …