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By Jean-Paul Couret PARIS (Reuters) - It will need a mighty Welsh backlash to prevent France from clinching their fourth successive win in Cardiff on Saturday and with it, probably, their the third Six Nations title in five years. On present form the French are clear favourites. They have scored more than 30 points against Ireland, Italy and England and are one short of their record of 17 tries in a championship set in 2003. They also are on the momentum of last weekend's record-equalling 31- ...

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Anti-war activists demanding coalition troops pull out of Iraq planned marches and rallies across the world Saturday to mark the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion. The Australian branch of the Stop the War Coalition said at least 1,000 demonstrators would march through central Sydney under banners reading "Troops Home Now" and "Peace and Justice for the Iraqi People." "Iraq is a quagmire and has been a humanitarian disaster for the I ...

By Eric Auchard SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday denied a U.S. government request that Google Inc. be ordered to hand over keywords customers use to search its Web database, but will require the company to produce some Web addresses indexed in its system. In a 21-page ruling that has implications for the privacy of Internet users, Judge James Ware of the U.S. District for the Northern District of California said privacy considerations led him to deny part of the U.S. Justice ...

By Mitch Phillips LONDON (Reuters) - France should wrap up their third Six Nations title in five years but Ireland are still very much in the hunt and even England and Scotland could snatch an unlikely title in the "Super Saturday" finale. Such is France's match points advantage that any sort of victory over Wales in Cardiff should see them home. Should Ireland manage to beat England for the third successive time, at Twickenham in the day's final match, they would join the French on eight poi ...

LONDON (Reuters) - The Jockey Club are launching a review of safety procedures at the Cheltenham Festival after nine racehorses died during the four-day programme. The five fatalities on Thursday matched the worst tally in Festival history on a single day. "The high number of fatal injuries at Cheltenham this year will be subject to particularly close inspection," Peter Webbon, Jockey Club direc ...

HARTSVILLE, South Carolina (AP) -- A convicted rapist charged with abducting two teenage girls and assaulting them in a hidden underground room behind his home was captured Friday about a mile away, authorities said. Kenneth G. Hinson, 47, fled on foot after the girls escaped and called police. After a four-day manhunt, an exhausted and thirsty Hinson walked to a relative's home, and someone called 911. Although he was carrying a handgun, Hinson was arrested without incident and assured his r ...

ALBANY, New York (AP) -- A federal appeals court blocked the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday from easing clean-air rules on aging power plants, refineries and factories, one of the regulatory changes that had been among the White House's environmental priorities. The rules, strongly supported by industry representatives, would have allowed older plants to modernize without having to install advanced pollution controls. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington declared that the EPA rul ...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal judge partially retreated Friday from her ruling barring all aviation security witnesses from the sentencing trial of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema's ruling Friday restores a significant portion of the government's case. She denied prosecutors' request to reinstate witnesses who had been improperly contacted by a government attorney. But Brinkema did agree to a compromise proposed by prosecutors, allowing the governm ...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Protesters joined bagpipers, marching bands and thousands of flag-waving spectators at the St. Patrick's Day parade Friday after the parade's chairman compared gay Irish-American activists to neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and prostitutes. As huge, happy crowds lined the streets, the chairman, John Dunleavy, sidestepped questions about his remarks to The Irish Times. "Today is St. Patrick's Day. We celebrate our faith and heritage, everything else is secondary," he sai ...

By Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern used a Saint Patrick's Day visit to hammer home to President George W. Bush concerns about secret CIA flights through his country and treatment of inmates at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo. Ahern raised the issue of rendition, the controversial U.S. practice of moving terrorism suspects from one country to another, in White House talks on Friday, saying he had pressed for "more transparency". Human rights groups accuse ...