- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
- Gilded canopy restored at Vatican basilica
- Zverev scrapes through, Djokovic cruises to Shanghai Masters last 16
- Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Putin: Bob Woodward book
- Gauff answers critics: 'It's hard to win all the time'
- Neural networks, machine learning? Nobel-winning AI science explained
- China says raised 'serious concerns' with US over trade curbs
- Boeing delivers 27 MAX jets in September despite strike
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free in 2025 after cleared of other sex crimes
- Italy seek Nations League consistency as Germany continue rebuild
- From boom to budgeting as reality bites for Saudi football
- Stock markets diverge as Hong Kong sinks, oil prices fall
- US trade gap narrowest in five months as imports slip
- Stay and 'you are going to die': Florida braces for next hurricane
- England 96-1 after Salman's century lifts Pakistan to 556
- Hollywood star Idris Elba champions African cinema in Ghana
- Djokovic rolls Cobolli to make Shanghai Masters last 16
- Milan's Hernandez receives two-game suspension after referee rant
- Geoffrey Hinton, soft-spoken godfather of AI
- Ex-Barcelona and Spain great Iniesta retires aged 40
- Duo wins Physics Nobel for 'foundational' AI breakthroughs
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free in 2025 after cleared of separate sex crimes
- China slaps provisional tariffs on EU brandy imports
Funny old world: The week's offbeat news
From why we follow our noses to trying to match Putin's pecs. Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.
- Show him what we've got -
World leaders are meant to rise above all this, but the heads of the G7 couldn't resist a pop at Vladimir Putin's penchant for bare-chested he-man photo shoots at their summit in Germany.
Asked if they wanted to take their jackets off for a group photo, Britain's Boris Johnson declared: "We have to show we're tougher than Putin."
"We're going to get the bare-chested horseback riding display," quipped Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
"We've got to show them our pecs," Johnson interjected, raising the stakes, before someone sensibly hustled the leaders out of the room.
With typical disdain, Putin dismissed the barbs: "I don't know if they wanted to undress to the waist or even lower, but anyway, it would have been a disgusting sight."
- Beeting up Moscow -
Kyiv has declared "victory in the borshch war" after UNESCO put Ukraine's beetroot soup on its list of endangered cultural heritage. Needless to say, it didn't go down well in Moscow.
Several countries including Poland claim the soup as theirs, and Moscow immediately accused Kyiv of appropriation.
"Borshch has no nationality! Just like bread, potatoes and cabbage," an outraged Moscow pensioner told AFP.
"This is xenophobia," Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, clearly fearful that Chicken Kiev could soon become Chicken Kyiv.
But in time-honoured cloak-and-dagger fashion, Moscow may have pulled off a culinary coup of its own. Surely Russian salad didn't turn up on the menu of the NATO summit in Madrid by accident. Touche!
- Nose for friendship -
Diplomats attempting to resolve tricky international disputes over soup and the like, please note. Try sniffing each other's armpits.
New research suggests people with similar body odours are more likely to hit it off, seeming to prove "good chemistry" really helps develop friendships.
Israeli scientists used a rigorous set of lab and human sniff tests to show that we are more like dogs -- who "constantly sniff themselves and each other to... decide who is friend or foe" -- than we would like to think.
What's more, the closer people's smell, the more they reported liking and understanding one another.
- Not so fast, Elon -
Bad news for Elon Musk's plans to colonise Mars. Scientists are warning that even if they get there, astronauts' bone mass could be so diminished by years of weightlessness that they would have difficulty walking on the Red Planet.
- Oh Joe... -
US President Joe Biden briefly set off alarm bells in Moscow when he announced that neutral Switzerland was about to join NATO.
Realising his mistake, Biden -- no stranger to verbal gaffes -- quickly said: "Switzerland, my goodness.
"I'm getting really anxious here about expanding NATO," he joked, before adding "Sweden" for the record.
burs-fg/lcm
S.Gregor--AMWN