For a finale his bride, in a trenchcoat, pulled out a violin and after a brief warm up, struck up in a convincing mime to a tape of the wedding march.

It was yet another collection celebrating women in full control of their powers of seduction – like burlesque artiste Dita Von Teese, who came down the catwalk in a powder pink corset boned in black, watched admiringly by her companion Louis-Marie de Castelbajac, sitting next to his designer father in the front row.

The suicide attack occurred in Adhamiyah, a Sunni district across the Tigris river from Kadhimiyah, an area named after Musa Kadhim, the seventh of 12 revered imams in Shiite Islam, whom the pilgrims are honouring.

An interior ministry official said 28 were killed and 63 wounded. Many of the victims were passing through Adhamiyah en route to the imam’s mausoleum.

British forces have suffered their heaviest losses in Sangin with almost 100 deaths in the market town and surrounding areas — nearly a third of their total casualties since military involvement in Afghanistan began in 2001.

Britain was keen to portray the move as a logical redeployment, but the Taliban insurgency claimed credit for the move and warned that the US troops set to take over in Sangin would face “the same fate.”

Russian lawyer Anna Stavitskaya said her client Igor Sutyagin, jailed in 2004 on charges of spying for the United States, had been told he would be released as part of the swap.

There was no confirmation or denial from any Russian official of the claim, which came as it was announced cases of some of the alleged Kremlin agents detained in the United States were being sent to New York.

Solar Impulse’s mission control team at Payerne airbase in western Switzerland was due to decide shortly before sunset whether to carry on with the pioneering attempt to fly through darkness or order the pilot to land.

“The suspense is still high but we’re confident,” said team chief Bertrand Piccard as pilot Andre Borschberg approached 8,000 metres (52,800 feet) about 10 hours into the flight.

MPs said the limits showed the EU was leading the way on one of the most contentious reforms proposed to prevent a repetition of the financial crisis which brought the global economy to its knees.

The banking industry, for its part, has warned that the restrictions could hurt Europe’s competitiveness to the benefit of rival financial centres from Wall Street to Hong Kong.

Obama announced a surge in American exports of almost 17 percent in the first four months of this year, as he named corporate CEOs to a presidential advisory board on trade — an issue his critics say he has neglected.

Given multiple crises assailing his administration, Obama has struggled to keep the political focus on the critical political issue of the economy, and the debate now risks being overtaken by disappointing economic data.

The four-goal hammerings of England and Argentina in their last two outings have underlined the potency of rejuvenated Germany and their pace, power and clinical finishing has made a strong impression on Spain.

“I think Germany are greatly improved since 2008,” said coach Vicente Del Bosque referring to the team beaten 1-0 by Spain in the European championship decider.

Lampre rider Petacchi has not competed on the race since 2004, a year after claiming a hat-trick of sprint victories.

But he showed that absence simply makes the heart grow fonder as he outsprinted a bunch of younger rivals, including misfiring Isle of Man sprinter Mark Cavendish, with yet another late manoeuvre late on the race’s home straight.

Karl Lagerfeld is a past master at dreaming up attention-grabbing scenarios for his Chanel shows, and Tuesday night’s was no exception.

It looked like an allusion to Jean Cocteau’s Surreal masterpiece “Beauty and the Beast” when the traditional bride at the end was accompanied by a groom wearing a lion’s head over his wedding suit. However Lagerfeld told AFP it had been inspired by a small bronze lion found in Coco Chanel’s apartment.

The 76-year-old general stood hunched over and showed no emotion as he heard the verdict through his Spanish interpreter in the Paris courtroom, dressed in a black suit and white shirt.

The court ordered the seizure of 2.3 million euros (2.8 million dollars) in frozen French bank accounts held in Noriega’s name, in a judgement that his lawyers slammed as “extremely severe.”

Hayward, BP’s chief executive, was also seen by Reuters with a senior official from another Abu Dhabi fund, and a report said Saudi investors were looking to buy 10 percent to 15 percent of the oil company.

A United Arab Emirates official said Hayward’s visit with the officials from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority was a routine one scheduled to mainly discuss the British firm’s concessions with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Officials for both governments declined to confirm that a deal was in the works. But a Russian lawyer involved in the affair said a swap was discussed and a U.S. official said Washington might allow the suspected spies to plead guilty and then return to Russia in exchange for the release of certain Russian prisoners.

“It’s a common practice. It’s been done numerous times,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

The furor over alleged cash handouts by France’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, and her late husband, to conservative politicians has shaken President Nicolas Sarkozy and helped drive his approval rating to a record low.

A public prosecutor said Wednesday he had ordered a police investigation into allegations of illegal political funding made by Bettencourt’s former bookkeeper, Claire Thibout, in a statement to police and a media interview.

Given the business and environmental stakes, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans is expected to rule quickly, after a rare one-hour oral argument on Thursday, on whether deepwater drilling should be temporarily halted again.

A federal judge, also in New Orleans, lifted the administration’s moratorium last month after Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc argued it was arbitrary and unfair because it was a blanket ban on all new drilling in depths below 500 feet.

Walk to a seemingly pristine patch of sand, plop down in a chair and start digging with your bare feet, like everyone does at the beach. Chances are you’ll walk away with gooey tar between your toes.

So far, cleanup workers hired by BP have skimmed only the surface, using shovels or sifting machines to remove oil. The company is planning a deeper cleaning program that could include washing or incinerating sand once the leak is stopped off the coast of Louisiana.

Dmitry Sutyagin says his brother Igor, who is serving a 14-year prison term, was told he is among convicted spies who are to be exchanged for Russians arrested by the FBI.

Officials from both the United States and Russia refused to comment on the claim, but Dmitry Sutyagin said his brother could be whisked off to Vienna and then to London for a planned exchange as early as Thursday.

The decision to use a so-called recess appointment to install Berwick as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services drew immediate fire from the GOP. Republicans have raised concerns about Berwick’s views on rationing of care and other matters and said it was wrong for Obama to go around the normal Senate confirmation process. That view was echoed by a key Democratic committee chairman, although the recess appointment is a tool used by presidents of both parties.

Berwick has wide support in the medical community but some Democrats feared the GOP would use his confirmation hearings as an opportunity to reopen last year’s divisive health care debate. Obama defended the decision to appoint Berwick and two other officials, one to a pension board and the other to a White House science post.

Philadelphia hit 100 degrees for second straight day, breaking a record of 98 degrees set in 1999. Baltimore hit 100 for the third straight day and Newark, N.J., hit triple digits for the fourth straight day. New York’s Central Park was at 99 degrees at 2 p.m.

Sue Robels, 22, was getting out of the heat at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute science museum for an exhibit on Cleopatra.

The lawsuit filed in Phoenix federal court on Tuesday sidestepped concerns about the potential for racial profiling and civil rights violations most often raised by immigration advocates. Experts said those are weaker arguments that don’t belong in a legal challenge brought by the White House to get the measure struck down.

Instead, the suit lays out why the government believes that immigration laws passed by Congress and enforced by a range of federal agencies must take precedence to any passed by a state Legislature.

It had been assumed that humans – thought to have emerged from Africa around 1.75 million years ago – kept mostly to relatively warm tropical forests, steppes and Mediterranean areas as they spread across Eurasia.

But the discovery of a collection of flint tools some 135 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of London shows that quite early on man braved colder climes.

The attacks – the deadliest of which occurred in northern Baghdad’s predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah – offered a clear indication of the push by insurgents to exploit Iraq’s political vacuum and destabilize the country as U.S. troops head home.

Police said the bloody suicide bombing that killed 32 and wounded more than 90 people, split the hot Wednesday evening air as Shiite pilgrims were about to cross a bridge leading to the a shrine in the Shiite Kazimiyah neighborhood where a revered imam is buried.

An 18-year-old runner from Melbourne, Australia, suffered three fractured vertebrae and was in serious condition at a hospital, and a 20-year old Spanish man received an eye injury but was in less serious condition, Navarra state government said on its web site.

The thrillseekers raced to keep ahead of six fighting bulls and six bell-tinkling steers tasked with trying to keep the beasts together along the 930-yard (850-meter) course from a holding pen to the bull ring in this northern city.

Although the Ministry of Culture has yet to officially adopt the styles presented by the Veil and Modesty Festival, the private organization said approval is pending. It would be the first such rules for men’s hair styles since 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“We introduced the hairstyles to the Culture Ministry,” said Jaleh Khodayar, head of the group, telling Iranian newspapers Tuesday that it had been approved informally and an official statement would soon be made.

An Afghan defense official condemned the “friendly fire” deaths in the eastern province of Ghazni. They came as three more American troops were reported killed in the south and Britain announced it would turn over control of a violence-plagued southern district to U.S. forces.

U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, the newly arrived commander of international forces in Afghanistan, issued personal condolences to the families of the dead Afghan soldiers, a spokesman said.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.

The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells – those characterized in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned.”

Muir Russell’s inquiry is the third major investigation into what some have dubbed “Climategate” – the theft and dissemination of more than 1,000 e-mails exchanged between climate scientists over more than a decade.

The messages, pilfered from a server at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, captured researchers speaking in scathing terms about their critics, discussing ways to stonewall skeptics of man-made climate change, and talking about how to freeze opponents out of peer-reviewed journals.

The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday the new rule represented its most consequential effort yet to tackle deadly pollution that contributes to smog and soot that hangs over more than half the country. The rule would cost nearly $3 billion a year and those costs are likely to be passed along to consumers, although the rule’s effect on specific companies and on consumers was not clear.

“We believe that today is marking a large and important step in EPA’s effort to protect public health,” said the agency’s top air pollution official, Gina McCarthy.

Thirty-four-year-old William Dotson made the allegations against the Rev. Stephen Bzdyra (BIZ’-der-ah), pastor of St. Augustine Church in Seymour, in a lawsuit in New Haven Superior Court.

Bzdyra referred comment to the Archdiocese of Hartford. The Rev. John Gatzak, director of communications for the archdiocese, said he had no information about the lawsuit so he could not comment.

But even shoppers who don’t know or care about the big changes South Korea’s Kia made for its 2011 mid-size Sorento sport utility vehicle are likely to be impressed.

The newest Sorento, a second-generation model built in West Point, Ga., is upscale in its exterior appearance, handles well and has the best ride of any Sorento ever.

Many of the dingy shelves are empty, the lights are off, and the odor of cat litter hangs in the air. There’s no fresh produce – sodas and salty snacks are the big sellers.

It’s a familiar scene in many of Baltimore’s poorest neighborhoods, but it’s something the city is trying to address in an innovative way.

The San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability filed a complaint against Dr. John Leso with the New York Office of the Professions, alleging professional misconduct. Leso led a behavioral science consultation team at Guantanamo in 2002 and 2003.

The complaint said Leso developed abusive interrogation techniques based on Army survival methods. Those methods, “Survive Evade Rescue and Escape” or SERE, teach soldiers how to withstand physical and psychological abuse they might face if captured by the enemy, according to the complaint against Leso.

Of the professionals surveyed, 59 percent said young white children in their communities have “lots of opportunity” to play in violence-free homes and neighborhoods, while only 36 percent said the same about Hispanic children, 37 percent about African-American children and 42 percent about Native American children.

The survey refers to young children as within the 0-8 age range.

To get home each day, Chen has to present his ID at a police checkpoint. When the officer lowers the metal gate into the ground to let him in, he drives through as quickly as he can. More than once, the barricade has risen too soon, lifting his wife’s minivan into the air.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the New York Police Department barricaded off its headquarters on Park Row. About 2,000 residents in two apartment complexes found themselves living inside a security zone.

The Centre Daily Times and The Daily Collegian student newspaper at Penn State were ordered to expunge records of information about the defendants, an unusual provision inserted by a defense lawyer into otherwise standard orders signed by Centre County Judge Thomas King Kistler.

Such orders typically direct public agencies to clear a person’s record in cases in which charges are dismissed or withdrawn or aren’t applicable for someone who’s a first-time offender who completes a rehabilitation program.

A BP spokeswoman denied the firm was planning to sell new stock to a strategic investor to raise money, amid reports that the British government is working on a crisis plan if the company is sunk by the disaster.

“We are not issuing any new equity,” she said. “We welcome new shareholders to come onto the shareholder register and we welcome existing shareholders who want to take a bigger amount of shares.”

“Our chief executive is on a general series of visits to our important partners,” a BP spokesman told AFP, declining to confirm reports he has gone on from a trip to Azerbaijan to visit Abu Dhabi.

The company is reportedly seeking the support of foreign sovereign wealth funds in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster and the resulting collapse in the company’s share price.

The French government reacted angrily to reports police had interviewed a witness over claims his presidential campaign received an illegal contribution of 150,000 euros in cash from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

Sarkozy faces mounting pressure to address the allegations directly and calls for a clear-out of tainted ministers, including embattled Labour Minister Eric Woerth, who is at the centre of the scandal.

Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons that the probe, to be led by retired judge Sir Peter Gibson, was expected to start before the end of the year and should report within 12 months.

He also announced plans to look again at how British courts handled intelligence and admitted that relations with the United States had been “strained” over the disclosure of secret information.

Under relentless rain, the Tibetan spiritual leader addressed a packed crowd of 5,000 followers at his temple in McLeod Ganj, a hill station in the Indian Himalayas where he has lived since fleeing Tibet in 1959.

In a reminder of the situation in his homeland, where China views him as a dangerous separatist, he expressed regret that his followers there would be unable to pay tribute for fear of reprisal.

Norwegian Thor Hushovd took the stage honours, and with that the race’s green jersey, after an epic day of racing from Wanze in Belgium to Arenberg, during which seven sectors of cobblestones caused huge problems.

Overnight leader Sylvain Chavanel of Quick Step lost the race leader’s jersey to the man who gave him it on Monday, Fabian Cancellara.

Two goals inside three second-half minutes, from Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben, steered the Dutch into the decider and shattered South American hopes.

Veteran Dutch captain Giovanni van Bronckhorst gave his side the lead on 18 minutes with a stunning 35-yard strike before Diego Forlan produced an equally memorable goal four minutes before half-time to keep Uruguay alive.

The state of emergency, imposed in April after mass opposition protests broke out in the capital, will be maintained in Bangkok and 18 other provinces — out of a total of 76 — but lifted in five others, officials said.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said there were still reports of activity by the anti-government “Red Shirts”, whose protests in Bangkok erupted into the country’s worst political violence in decades.

The speculation boosted the oil company’s shares even as oil from the slick spread to the coast of Texas, which had been the last U.S. Gulf state whose shores were untainted by the environmental disaster.

The spill is wreaking havoc on coastal ecosystems, fishing communities and a tourist industry seen as especially important during a time of high unemployment. Vacationers largely avoided beaches tarred by the leaking well during the three-day U.S. July 4 Independence Day holiday weekend.

The administration argued the Arizona law, which requires state and local police to investigate the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being an illegal immigrant, is unconstitutional and would sap law enforcement resources.

The Republican-controlled Arizona legislature passed the controversial law to try to stem the flood of thousands of illegal immigrants who cross its border from Mexico and to cut down on drug trafficking and other crimes in the area.

Analysts said the data released on Tuesday by the Institute for Supply Management, an industry group, did not signal that the United States is slipping back into recession — something which has been a persistent fear in the wake of a raft of disappointing data.

The data on business activity in the service sector, which dominates the U.S. economy, follows weak reports in recent weeks on U.S. consumer spending, factory activity, employment and the housing market.

The top economic adviser to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Krueger quoted poet Carl Sandburg in an 84-page research paper he co-authored proposing a new database to measure how people spend their time in order to understand what makes the economy tick.

“Time is the coin of your life,” Sandburg wrote. “It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

In fact, they report in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in older men taking erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra is twice as high as in their non-medicated peers.

In both groups, however, the numbers are swelling. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than six new cases of STDs per 10,000 men over 40 in 2008, up almost 50 percent since 1996.

“Younger adults have far more STDs than older adults, but the rates are growing at far higher rates in older adults,” said Dr. Anupam B. Jena of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who led the study.

Sri Lanka’s government is furious at Ban’s appointment of the three-member panel on June 22, saying it is a violation of its sovereignty and a hypocritical application of double standards by Western governments engaged in the war on terror.

The panel is to advise Ban if any crimes were committed in the final months of Sri Lanka’s quarter-century conflict with the Tamil Tiger separatists, in which government forces won total victory in May 2009.

For the first time since the accident, oil from the ruptured well is seeping into Lake Pontchartrain, threatening another environmental disaster for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in 1990s to become, once more, a bountiful fishing ground and a popular spot for boating and swimming.

“Our universe is getting very small,” Pete Gerica, president of the Lake Pontchartrain Fishermen’s Association, said Tuesday.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Phoenix sets the stage for a high-stakes legal clash over states rights at a time when politicians across the country have indicated they want to follow Arizona’s lead on the toughest-in-the-nation immigration law.

The legal action represents a thorough denunciation by the government of Arizona’s action, declaring that the law will “cause the detention and harassment of authorized visitors, immigrants and citizens who do not have or carry identification documents” while altogether ignoring “humanitarian concerns” and harming diplomatic relations.

Long wasteful with its soccer talent, the Netherlands sure has found the right touch in this tournament.

Dutch stars Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben scored three minutes apart in the second half as the Netherlands beat Uruguay 3-2 Tuesday night to advance to its first championship match since losing in 1978 to Argentina.

The Environmental Protection Agency said the new rules would cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 71 percent from 2005 levels by 2014 and nitrogen oxide emissions by 52 percent in the same time frame.

The regulation, known as the Clean Air Interstate Rule, requires 31 states from Massachusetts to Texas to reduce emissions that contribute to smog and soot and can travel long distances in the wind. The agency predicted the rule would prevent about 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths a year.

The nine-day street drinking party got under way at midday with the traditional shout from the city hall balcony of “Viva San Fermin!,” followed seconds later by the firing of the firecracker known as the chupinazo. On Wednesday, daredevils will race just ahead of huge bulls running along Pamplona’s cobblestoned streets, and gorings are virtually assured.

The rocket was the signal to the revelers to erupt into the party mode that dominates Spain through August. Crowds dressed in the festival’s traditional white shirts and pants with red sashes sang and whooped while drenching each other with sangria, cheap wine and champagne.

Michele Alliot-Marie’s speech at the National Assembly marked the start of parliamentary debate on the bill. It is widely expected to become law, despite the concerns of many French Muslims, who fear it will stigmatize them. Many law scholars also argue it would violate the constitution.

The government has used various strategies to sell the proposal, casting it at times as a way to promote equality between the sexes, to protect oppressed women or to ensure security in public places.

Fighting to survive a deepening financial crisis, the Postal Service said Tuesday it wants to increase the price of first-class stamps by 2 cents – to 46 cents – starting in January. Other postage costs would rise as well.

The agency’s persisting problem: ever-declining mail volume as people and businesses shift to the Internet and the declining economy reduces advertising mail.

Spying among friends is old news in the intelligence business, but the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is at the heart of Washington’s counterterrorism efforts. Any behind-the-scenes trickery could undermine those efforts as well as the long-standing hunt for Osama bin Laden.

One recent incident underscores the schizophrenic relationship between the two countries. Last year, a Pakistani man approached CIA officers in Islamabad, offering to give up secrets of his country’s nuclear program. To prove he was a trustworthy source, the man claimed he had spent nuclear fuel rods. But suspicious CIA officers quickly concluded that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, was trying to run a double agent against them.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard pitched the idea as a regional solution to part of a global problem, but it was squarely aimed at defusing a thorny domestic political issue ahead of elections expected within months.

Tiny, impoverished East Timor said it was considering the plan at Australia’s request, but expressed reservations that it was ready to host such a facility.

The Wisconsin Democrat faces a wealthy political newcomer with early backing from tea party activists in a state that has many independent voters and is known for doing its own thing.

Likely GOP nominee Ron Johnson is running an outsider’s campaign in a year that seems to favor outsiders.

That’s a small share of the uninsured, but in a shaky economy, experts say it’s notable.

Many others – more than 100 million people – are getting new benefits that improve their existing coverage.

But after a routine audit of the church’s finances turned up discrepancies, authorities began a criminal investigation that they say unraveled a secret double life of male escorts, strip bars and lavish spending on the finest restaurants, luxury hotels and expensive clothing, financed with money stolen from the parish.

“About a million,” Gray told authorities without hesitation when asked how much he took from the church account, according to his arrest affidavit.

They’re packed with workshops, tours and speeches on subjects ranging from letting go to campus safety. Reed College in Portland, Ore., even invites parents to read “The Odyssey” and attend a lecture and discussion similar to what their kids will experience in a freshman humanities course.

You might think parents facing massive tuition bills would balk at more demands on their budget and time. But many colleges report that well over half their freshmen have family in attendance at these events, and lots of parents think the orientations are the greatest thing since “What To Expect When You’re Expecting.”

Ostracized by peers in Baghdad, busted for assaulting a fellow soldier and disdainful of the military’s inattention to computer security, the 22-year-old intelligence analyst styled himself a “hactivist.”

On Tuesday, the U.S. Army charged him with multiple counts of mishandling and leaking classified data and putting national security at risk.