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The Queen's birthday cruise around Scotland's Western Isles has ended in Stornoway. Members of the Royal Family set off from Islay on the Hebridean Princess, a converted car ferry, last Friday. During her eight-day cruise, the Queen received langoustines from two Skye fishermen and was given a tour of Gigha by a local shopkeeper. She was disembarking at Stornoway on Saturday and will fly out from Lewis to continue her summer break elsewhere. The Queen had regularly sailed up the west coast o ...

FRESNO, California (AP) -- Children and their parents filled the playground and soccer fields at Radio Park, relieved they could finally venture outside after a nearly two-week heat wave blamed for as many as 141 deaths. "It feels nice to be outside for more than a minute. For the past week it's just been from the house to the car, from the car to the house," said Eric Mayberry, who took his 3-year-old daughter to the playground. California appeared to break out of the heat wave Fri ...

LONDON (Reuters) - An fishing town has banned the sport of conger cuddling after an animal activist complained. The tradition, once described as the most fun a person could have with a dead fish, involves one team trying to hit another with a conger eel tied to a rope. It was popular in Lyme Regis and used as a fund-raising event for the local lifeboat. But the sport has now been banned after an animal rights activist complained that it was "disrespectful" to dead fish and threatened to campa ...

By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to Jerusalem on Saturday to discuss ways to end the 18-day-old war in Lebanon as Israel rejected a U.N. plea for a truce to aid civilians trapped by fighting. "There is no need for a 72-hour temporary cease-fire because Israel has opened a humanitarian corridor to and from Lebanon," said Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner. While Israel has let aid shipments through its blockade of Lebanon, international relie ...

UK Muslims cannot understand why PM Tony Blair has not called for a ceasefire in the Middle East conflict, a leading Muslim Labour MP has said. Writing in the Guardian, Sadiq Khan said it was "not easy" for Muslims to watch "destruction wreaked in Lebanon". The MP for Tooting said he was worried British foreign policy could be perceived as anti-Muslim. Mr Blair has said that moves towards stopping the violence need to be brought forward on an "urgent basis". The UN has called for a three-day ...

Police seized a shotgun, ammunition and petrol bombs following a stand-off between rival factions of the same loyalist paramilitary group in Belfast. The trouble on Friday night began hours after the Ulster Defence Association in north Belfast issued a statement to say it had appointed a new leadership. The move came five weeks after the group expelled Andre and Ihab Shoukri. Sources claim Shoukri supporters told people they would have to leave the area if they backed the new leadership. B ...

Gunmen have opened fire on two Sunni mosques in western Baghdad, according to police. Armed men in two cars sprayed gunfire at the Muhammad Rassulluallah mosque shattering windows and damaging walls. An hour later gunmen stormed the nearby Ashra al-Mubashara mosque, fleeing when police arrived, say officials. Earlier, the US military confirmed three of their marines died in clashes with insurge ...

HOCKENHEIM, Germany (Reuters) - Red Bull's Christian Klien surprised the race favourites with the fastest lap in final German Grand Prix practice on Saturday. The Austrian, facing an uncertain future at the Ferrari-powered team after scoring just one point so far this year to team mate David Coulthard's 10, lapped in one minute 15.628 seconds. Jenson Button was second fastest for Honda, ahead of ...

EL MONTE, California (AP) -- An elderly man drove a car onto a patio at a Starbucks on Friday night, injuring 10 people, two of them critically, authorities said. The driver, who was believed to be 80 or 81, was trying to park in a handicapped spot just after 9 p.m. when the car surged forward and hit the customers sitting on the patio, said police Lt. William Fetner. The car plowed through the  ...

(CNN) -- At least 900 residents evacuated Chadron, Nebraska, after wildfires reached the town's border and caught several houses on fire Saturday, Nebraska Emergency Management Agency spokesman Jim Bunstock said. Firefighters worked early Saturday to control six wildfires burning since late Wednesday after multiple lightning strikes hit dry grasslands in the northwestern area of the state, Bunstock said. The wildfires span across a 25-mile area, he said. Personnel from the state and federal N ...