PARIS – French and Brazilian search teams have found no debris confirmed to have come from the Airbus A330 that vanished over the Atlantic, officials said Friday.
MADRID – Every day for the past two weeks, the Plaza de Toros in Madrid has been bustling. The end of May marks the Festival of San Isidro, in which for 14 days, two-hour bullfights take place each night for the entertainment of tourists and locals alike. On Sunday, I decided to partake and watched the final night of the festival with a few friends.
OSAKA, Japan – While there are thousands of religions practiced in the world, and each has its own practices and beliefs, there are aspects to almost any religion that seem comparable to an outsider.
ARANJUEZ, Spain – This past weekend I experienced, for the first time, the Fiestas of Aranjuez. The party weekend, which consists of carnival games, dancing, drinking, eating and socializing, is one of the most exciting and busiest weekends for this small, tranquil town.
BEIJING – Twenty years ago Thursday, China was at the center of world attention for all the wrong reasons.
KABUL – Afghan and NATO troops killed 18 Taliban militants Sunday after insurgents attacked a joint patrol, while four police were killed in a separate militant ambush, officials said.
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s former trade minister was arrested Saturday in a burgeoning corruption scandal after his plane was ordered back to Baghdad while en route to the United Arab Emirates, officials said.
DETROIT – More than 50 percent of General Motors Corp. bondholders said Sunday they would support a sweetened deal to swap the company’s $27 billion debt for stock in a restructured, leaner GM.
FLORENCE, Italy – Only three weeks into our adventure in Florence, we already feel as if we have nothing to do with those “other” tourists.
GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands – The locals pronounce it Cay-mahn, not Cay-man. And there’s probably a lot more you don’t know about this British territory in the West Caribbean Sea.
BEIJING – In China, lack of access makes all the difference. One very large political party – the Chinese Communist Party – is at the head of the world’s third largest military force and controls the entire country. Dissent is punishable by law, and censorship is rampant. They are very scared of the swine flu and make deliciously cheap takeout food. This is all I knew when I stepped off the plane in Beijing.
SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage Tuesday, but it also decided that the estimated 18,000 gay couples who tied the knot before the law took effect will stay wed.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama chose federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, praising her as "an inspiring woman" with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Constitution wisely.
TOKYO – The U.S., the EU and Russia condemned North Korea's reported nuclear test Monday as a violation of U.N. resolutions and promised to take the isolated regime before the Security Council. Even China joined the chorus of disapproval, saying it "resolutely opposed" the test.
NEW YORK – Four men arrested after planting what they thought were explosives near a synagogue and community center and plotting to shoot down a military plane were bent on carrying out a jihad against America, authorities said Thursday.
GRAZ, Austria – On the plane from Geneva to Vienna, the blond-haired, blued-eyed woman sitting next to me (with her two Nordic children, nonetheless) talked endlessly, in an accent I could hardly understand, about the “Schwarz-Nager” in Austria.
LONDON – Britain’s powerful Speaker of the House of Commons resigned Tuesday after a backlash over excessive expense claims by lawmakers, but some British residents aren’t sure if that will solve the problem.
LONDON – Protestors gathered in front of the Houses of Parliament in London on Friday to support the Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka.For more than 25 years, the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority ethnic groups have been fighting in Sri Lanka. The civil war ended Sunday when the Tamils admitted defeat after the government rejected their cease-fire proposal. Rebel official Selvarasa Pathmanathan said in a statement Sunday that the group had no option left to protect the civilians in the area but to stop fighting. He appealed to the government to reciprocate and enter peace talks.
Arriving in Florence after 16 hours of travel could not have been more fulfilling. The last thing I saw before making the turn onto our hotel’s street, Via delle Oche, was the monolithic, looming shadow of the Duomo. It rose from the piazza like the dream I knew it would be. Now I see that same wondrous structure every night from the terrace of our pensione high above the narrow streets that we are just starting to memorize.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS – Researchers in Texas are trying an unusual approach to combat fire ants – deploying parasitic flies that turn the pesky and economically costly insects into zombies whose heads fall off.
