SOCHI - AN AMERICAN journalist with the New Yorker magazine was arrested at a polling station in the Russian city of Sochi on Sunday, Ria-Novosti news agency reported.

Keith Gessen was arrested during a mayoral vote here, which is being seen as a test of Moscow's democratic credentials.

NAIROBI (Kenya) - THE small white skiff approached the Italian cruise ship Melody after dinnertime as it sailed north of the Seychelles, the pirates firing wildly toward the 1,500 passengers and crew on board. What the pirates didn't expect was that, in the darkness, the crew would fire back.

In a new twist to the increasing scourge of Somali pirate hijackings, the private Israeli security forces aboard the MSC Cruises ocean liner fired on the pirates Saturday with pistols and water hoses, preventing them from clambering aboard, the company's director Domenico Pellegrino said.

HAMPTON (Virginia) - A FORMER student shot the night manager and a pizza delivery man inside a Hampton University dorm early on Sunday before turning the gun on himself, police and school officials said on Sunday. All three were hospitalized.

No students were injured in the shooting reported around 1am, Hampton police said.