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French writer Julien Gracq, the pen Name of Louis Poirier, died Saturday at the age of 97. Born on July 27, 1910 in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, France, his body of work would include poetry, novels and one theatrical work. Tributes included French President Nicolas Sarkozy's declaration that Gracq was "one of the greatest French writers of the 20th century." In 1989, Gracq's work was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. He remained distant from major literary events and faithful to his first editor José Corti. He taught history and geogr

Jessica Sierra is pregnant, according to the Falkenburg Road Jail in Tampa, Florida, where she is imprisoned awaiting trial for charges of disorderly intoxication, violating parole and resisting arrest. Sierra became famous after once reaching the finals of American Idol. Reports have been made by the prison infirmary that Sierra has been moved to a pregnancy diet and is confirmed to be pregnant. The father is said to be an unidentified rap musician. Sierra had originally been due to go before a judge on the 20th, but her pregnancy has caused

To encourage the performance of deaf athletes, the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (ICSD) recently announced the top 10 finalists for the "2007 WIDEX Sportsman and Sportswomen Award". Rajeev Bagga and Natalia Deeva were named by the jury as "Deaf Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year". According to icCoventry from England and the ICSD, Bagga performed excellently in recent badminton matches, never losing important matches in his international career, which began in 1989. He was known as a good sportsman; always accepting refere

The electronic programme guide, TV-Browser, announced their intention to remove 16 private tv-channels on January 1st, 2008. These include the German channels ProSieben, RTL Television and Sat.1. According to a press release by the TV-Browser team, the collecting society VG Media plans to collect a usage fee for channel-program-data in EPGs beginning next year. Users will be charged between 0.02 and 0.04 € cents per page-view with a minimum fixed fee of at least 2000€. The Open-Source-project can not and does not wish to pay this fee; develop

Vivid Entertainment has launched a new website previewing a celebrity sex tape they have obtained staring former American Idol finalist Jessica Sierra. 22-year-old Sierra is a resident of Tampa and reached the final of the show's fourth season in 2005. The film she stars in will be released as a full-length DVD entitled Jessica Sierra Hardcore. The tape shows her having sex with a man thought to be Sierra's boyfriend. Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid, who are also responsible for a recent release featuring Kim Kardashian said in a statemen

J. Russell Coffey, the oldest surviving United States veteran of First World War (WWI), has died. He was 109. Coffey's death was announced by the Smith-Crates Funeral Home in North Baltimore, Ohio. According to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (USDVA), he is the last remaining veteran of the war in Ohio. He was also one of just three remaining US WWI veterans. Coffey, who was born on September 1, 1898, never saw armed conflict as he enlisted in October 1918, just one month prior to Germany and The Allies signing a ceasefire de

Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has left the Church of England and joined the Roman Catholic Church. Blair, currently the special envoy for Quartet on the Middle East, has long been attending mass with his wife and four children, who are all Catholic. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor received Blair into full communion with the Catholic Church during Mass at Archbishop's House, Westminster, on Friday. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said, "I am very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church ... For a long time he has

A jet trainer belonging to the Indian Air Force (IAF) caught fire during takeoff from Biju Patnaik Airport in Orissa after refuelling and crashed. The pilot escaped unharmed. The aircraft was one of four flying from Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal to Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. They had made a scheduled stop at Biju Patnaik for refuelling. After this was completed, three of the aircraft successfully took off and continued, but the fourth caught fire and crashed on the runway at about 11:30 a.m. IST (UTC+5:30). The aircraft was a Surya Kira

Sacha Baron Cohen, the British actor and comedian known for his characters Borat Sagdiyev and Ali G, told Britain's Daily Telegraph on Friday that he was officially retiring both aforementioned characters. The reason for this, he said, is because of the public becoming too knowledgeable of him and his alter egos. "It is hard, and the problem with success, although it's fantastic, is that every new person who sees the Borat movie is one less person I 'get' with Borat again, so it's a kind of self-defeating form, really," Cohen stated. Borat Sa

The World Health Organization (WHO) says limited human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 avian influenza virus may have occurred in Pakistan, but it says the threat of further spread appears to have stopped as no new infections have been reported for two weeks. Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization and top bird flu expert, Doctor David Heymann, says a team of WHO experts has completed an investigation into an outbreak of bird flu in Pakistan. He says tests were carried out among a group of people who became infected wit

A delegation claiming to represent the Lakota Indian Tribe, an Indian nation within United States borders, have signed a document stating that the tribe withdraws and or cancels all treaties with the U.S. and formally establishes independence from the country. The letter was hand delivered by activists for the tribe to Deputy to the Public Liaison at the State Department, Daniel Turner. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us. Thi

A judge has issued a ruling in the 1998 bombing in the Northern Ireland town of Omagh. Defendant Sean Hoey, who faced 56 charges relating to a car bomb that killed 29 people and injured more than 200, has been found not guilty. A stunned silence in the public gallery of Belfast Crown Court greeted the verdict in the worst bombing during three decades of so-called troubles in Northern Ireland. Electrician Sean Hoey, 38, was accused of being the principle bomb-maker in a group of conspirators. Only one other person was charged in the case and h