Platini hits out at Ronaldo Real deal

Michel Platini, the president of the governing body for European football (UEFA), has hit out at the large fee offered by Real Madrid for the Portugal playmaker Cristiano Ronaldo. English Premier League side Manchester United announced on June 11 that they had accepted a world record transfer fee of $130M for the 24-year-old from the Spanish side

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Introducing America’s First Black, Female Rabbi

The path to the pulpit has been as colorful as it has been unusual for Alysa Stanton, 45, America’s first-ever female African-American rabbi. Stanton, who was born to a Christian family, was formally ordained on June 6, having completed seven years of rabbinical training at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. Stanton will now assume her new role as the first nonwhite rabbi of Congregation Bayt Shalom, a 60-family synagogue in Greenville, N.C

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Snapshots of Russia by train

In a special report for CNN’s Eye on Russia week, Moscow Correspondent Matthew Chance travels across the vast country from the northern port of Murmansk in the Arctic to the southern city of Sochi on the Black Sea. Here Chance recalls some highlights from his epic journey. Arctic Ambitions MURMANSK — What an incredible, surprising place to begin a journey

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Bolt fit for Manchester street race

Usain Bolt, who was involved in a high speed car smash in his native Jamaica last month, will be fit to run in a special street race in Manchester this weekend. Bolt had surgery to remove thorns from his left foot after crashing his BMW sports car on April 29 and missed an international meeting in Kingston the following weekend. There had been doubt that the world’s fastest man would be able to take part in a special 150 meter race in the city center of the north-west of England city on Sunday

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Disgraced Chambers has Bolt in his sights

Controversial British sprinter Dwain Chambers has set his sights on a world championships showdown against Usain Bolt in Berlin later this summer. Chambers tested positive for the anabolic steroid Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) in 2003 as part of the BALCO scandal in the United States, but has re-launched his track and field career after serving a two-year ban. By winning the European 60 meters indoor title earlier this year in the second fastest time in history, Chambers showed he is in prime form before heading for a warm weather training camp in California

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Murder Mystery: Who’s Killing Hungary’s Gypsies?

Jeno Koka’s killers shot him in the chest moments after he had bid good night to his wife Eva and stepped from his house on his way to a shift at the nearby pharmaceutical factory where he worked. The 54-year-old grandfather bled to death only a few paces from his doorstep. Although Koka’s wife said she never heard the shot that felled her husband, hundreds of thousands of others across Hungary did

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Tuition Help for the Unemployed Gains Traction

Unemployed and need to learn new skills to get hired again, but can’t afford the tuition to go back to school? Help may be on the way. Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania is pushing for a new law that aims to pay community colleges nationwide $1,000 per student to retrain laid-off workers

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