Long lines, raised voices, one Trump lawsuit on US election day
Voters reported long lines, malfunctioning equipment, and isolated cases of harassment at polling places in Tuesday's (Nov 8) US presidential election as fears of bigger problems did not appear to be materialising.
Civil rights groups said they were receiving complaints about intimidating behaviour at voting sites in Pennsylvania and Florida as supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and backers of Democrat Hillary Clinton went to cast their ballots.
But a Democratic Party source said the Clinton campaign was not encountering systemic problems beyond the usual Election Day hiccups. Trump sued the registrar of voters in Clark County, Nevada, with a claim that a polling place in Las Vegas had improperly been allowed to remain open last week to accommodate people who were lined up to vote.
Nevada is one of several states that allow early voting.
Eat more chips, France's Sarkozy tells those who shun pork
France's would-be president, Nicolas Sarkozy, says children who do not eat pork - the case for many of the country's large Jewish and Muslim minorities - should order a double portion of chips when their school canteen puts ham on the menu.
Sarkozy, trailing rival Alain Juppe in opinion polls as they campaign for conservative party backing in the presidential election six months from now, has sought to present himself as the voice of a silent majority in a formally secular country where the majority are nonetheless of Catholic origin.
Two weeks from a primary election organised by his party, Les Republicains (The Republicans), the man who was president from 2007 to 2012 held a political meeting overnight in his conservative fiefdom of Neuilly, west of Paris.
London police guilty of "serious failings" over VIP child sex cases
London's police force was guilty of dozens of serious failings in investigations into alleged historical child sex abuse by high-profile figures based on claims that turned out not to be credible, a damning report said on Tuesday (Nov 8).
Detectives, including some very senior officers, made a series of mistakes in two inquiries into claims of sex offences and child murders with the suggestion that the crimes had been covered up by the establishment, the report by former High Court judge Richard Henriques found.
"It is with much regret that I must find such serious failings in the conduct of both Operation Midland and Operation Vincente," Henriques wrote in a letter to London police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe.
Italian mums win court battle on children's surnames
Italian rules which mean children of married couples are automatically given only their father's surname are unlawful, the country's constitutional court ruled Tuesday (Nov 8).
The judgement was welcomed by campaigners as a milestone in a long legal and political battle to overturn regulations and practice they say are based on outdated patriarchal ideas.
"The court has declared the unlawfulness of rules providing for the automatic attribution of the paternal surname to legitimate children, when the parents wish otherwise," the court said in a statement.
Canadian researcher maybe exposed to Ebola in lab
A researcher at Canada's National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg was "potentially exposed" to the Ebola virus, authorities announced Tuesday (Nov 8).
The person was working with pigs infected with Ebola in a level four containment lab Monday at about 2 pm local time and noticed a "split" in the seam of their protective suit during decontamination procedures after exiting the room. The garment was new.
Canadian Food Inspection Agency director John Copps said emergency procedures were followed and the risk to Canadians was low.
