Reuters - Rome’s largest taxi cooperative is trying to improve the bad name of the city’s cabbies, notorious among tourists to one of the world’s best loved cities.
Reuters - Jonathan Littell, who won France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2006 for “The Kindly Ones,” has picked up another prize for the same work — the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
Reuters - Bulgarian villagers have named their home-made rakia brandy “Borisovka,” playing on the name of Prime Minister Boiko Borisov to thank him for stopping parliament from raising taxes on alcohol.
Reuters - Brazil’s coffee industry is engaged in a tireless battle against rogue roasters who cut corners and costs by bulking up their products with corn, soy or even wood, the ABIC industry association says.
Reuters - Irish workers caused traffic jams on Tuesday as hundreds made use of a one-day public sector strike to do some Christmas shopping in the cheaper stores across the border in Northern Ireland.
Reuters - A car expert says he has tracked down Hitler’s favorite Mercedes to a garage near the town that helped the Austrian-born Fuehrer become a German citizen.
Reuters - Unfazed by a recession and rampant inflation, image-conscious Venezuelans show no signs of cutting back on the facelifts, liposuction, and breast augmentation that have become de rigueur beauty treatments.
Reuters - A man in Taiwan was robbed of more than $2 million in cash that he had just withdrawn from the bank, a police official said on Tuesday.
Reuters - A judge on Friday blocked a Tennessee law that allowed people to bring handguns into restaurants and bars.
Reuters - The people of Bergen rolled out the cookie dough Monday as local police tried to sniff out vandals who destroyed the Norwegian city’s traditional Christmas decoration — a town of gingerbread houses.