Manchester United's signing of teenage defender Michele Fornasier could be investigated after the player's former club Fiorentina contacted football's world governing body FIFA about the move. The Italian club are contemplating a formal complaint to FIFA following the departure of the 16-year-old player to the English Premier League outfit in July, though United remain confident of their legal position. It is illegal for players under the age of 18 to sign contracts in Italy, consequently Fornasier was not contracted to ...

Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom on Tuesday said they wanted to merge their British mobile-phone units T-Mobile UK and Orange UK to create a market leader better able to compete with two remaining big rivals. The two companies said they had started exclusive negotiations about putting their assets into a 50-50 joint venture by the end of October. The combined company would have 28.4 million subscriptions or 37 percent of the UK's mobile-phone user base. Deutsche Telekom would put its ...

Manchester City could become the second English club to receive a transfer ban after being reported to football's world governing body FIFA by French side Stade Rennes over an alleged illegal approach for a youth player. FIFA confirmed on Tuesday that it would be investigating City's acquisition of 17-year-old defender Jeremy Helan in February. "We can confirm that there is a case pending with FIFA's Player Status Department involving Jeremy Helan, Stade Rennes FC and Manchester City," it said in ...

Top seed and defending champion Roger Federer cruised into the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open on Monday after a 7-5 6-2 6-2 win over 14th seed Tommy Robredo of Spain. Federer will now play Sweden's Robin Soderling, the third grand slam in succession that the two will have met -- including the French Open final -- to qualify for the semifinals of a grand slam for a record 22nd straight time. "Robin has got a big game and we had ...

A French filmmaker who recently finished a documentary about a violent street gang in El Salvador was found shot dead in the town of Tonacatepeque, about 10 miles northeast of the capital city of San Salvador, authorities said. Christian Poveda, 52, was shot at least four times in the face, according to local reports. Poveda's documentary, "La Vida Loca," which follows the lives of members of the Mara 18 street gang, had been screened at a handful of film festivals ...

Back in his days as the geek god of clerks at Manhattan Beach Video Archives, Quentin Tarantino must have looked at all those World War II movies, especially the ones about plots to kill Hitler, and realized what was wrong: everybody knows the ending. Bad guys lose. Hitler died in his bunker. Where's the suspense? Where's the ambiguity? Most films about the war treat the historical record as sacred, which often serves as an excuse for lofty moral judgments. ...

Making good on her expressed desire to have more children, Céline Dion is pregnant. A rep for the 41-year-old singer confirmed the news to various outlets saying, "Celine and René [Angélil] are very happy," and "They are crazy in love over the news and ... they are overjoyed." A family friend also tells PEOPLE, "We learned this morning." Herself the product of a family of 14, Dion only learned of her condition on Monday, reports Tuesday's Journal de Montreal, after ...

Once lost, virginity can never be replaced — but modern medicine now offers women a near-perfect physical simulation of their lost innocence. Hymenoplasty, the surgical reconstruction of the hymen broken during a women's first experience of intercourse, or, increasingly, during demanding exercise or as a result of a collision or fall by women who've never had sex, has prompted a growing number of young betrothed women in France to make a last-ditch attempt to avoid the humiliation, repudiation, and ...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was released from hospital Monday morning following a night spent under observation after he collapsed while jogging in woodlands near Paris. Sarkozy held hands with his wife, Carla Bruni, as he left hospital, shaking hands with medical staff before being driven away in an official car, according to Agence France-Presse. Sarkozy fainted while exercising with bodyguards in hot sunshine near his weekend home close to the Palace of Versaille -- though officials stressed that the 54-year-old ...

What could be more French than sex? More sex, as it turns out — especially if you happen to be a woman. Nearly 40 years after France's May 1968 revolution spawned the slogan "pleasure without obstruction," a new study finds that the French of both genders are engaging in more varied and frequent sex than ever before — and both earlier and later into life. Yet perhaps the most significant finding in the report is that French women have ...