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LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and Grammy-winning pop star Sheryl Crow have split up, scrapping plans for a Texas wedding after two years of dating, People magazine reported Friday. "After much thought and consideration, we have made a very tough decision to split up," a joint statement by the couple issued to the magazine said. "We both have a deep love and respect for each other, and we ask that everyone respect our privacy during this di ...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow have split, the couple announced in a joint statement Friday night. The seven-time Tour de France champion and the rock star announced their engagement in September. It would have been her first marriage and his second. He has three children from a previous marriage. "After much thought and consideration we have made a very tough decision to  ...

(CNN) -- Investigators are trying to determine if a string of fires at churches in central Alabama were started by an arsonist, a state official said Friday. Three of the churches in Bibb County were destroyed, but no one was injured in the blazes, which broke out between about midnight and 3 a.m. Friday. "We're clearly investigating these as arson," said Ragan Ingram, assistant state commissioner of the Alabama Department of Insurance, which includes the state fire marshal's office. In adj ...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- A stampede broke out early Saturday outside a sports stadium in a Manila suburb, killing at least 66 people, officials said. Tens of thousands of people were waiting to get inside the stadium to watch a popular game show organized by a TV channel when the mayhem erupted, said Vicente Eusebio, the mayor of Pasig, the Manila suburb where the stampede occurred. He said a ...

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russians could suffer a shortage of their national tipple next week because a bureaucratic mix-up has brought every vodka distillery in the country to a halt, producers say. Distillers have been waiting since January 1 for tax authorities to send them new excise stamps -- the anti-counterfeit stickers that by law must be attached to every bottle of vodka. "We are selling vodka left over from last year but those stocks are getting smaller all the time," said Vera B ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon Friday announced plans to significantly increase special operations forces, expand psychological warfare and develop a program to counter biological terrorism as part of a new broad-based military strategy for the 21st century. The plan comes three days before President Bush sends Congress a 2007 budget that seeks a nearly 5 percent increase in Defense Department spending, to $439.3 billion, with significantly more for weapons programs, according to senior Penta ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Parliamentarians urged the government on Saturday to impose a levy on all passengers flying out of the country to cover them in case their airline collapsed. Aviation Minister Karen Buck last year rejected a recommendation by the Civil Aviation Authority to add one pound ($1.80) to the fare of all outbound flights to replace the existing ATOL bonds tour companies hold to cover  ...

By Jason Szep BOSTON (Reuters) - He is described as a "person of interest" in the double murder mystery of a slain woman and their infant daughter in Massachusetts. But police said on Friday Briton Neil Entwistle is just one of several people who may hold important clues to the killings of 27-year-old Rachel Souza Entwistle and 9-month-old Lillian Rose, in a mystery followed closely in two conti ...

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A car racing another vehicle through the streets at up to 90 mph veered out of control and crashed through the front doors of a health clinic Friday, injuring 13 people, six of them critically, authorities said. Emergency workers rushed to treat the victims in a chaotic scene of gore, screams and shattered glass, with the black Nissan ZX still inside the clinic. "You just saw bones and blood all over," said Ana Rodriguez, a medical assistant at a clinic across t ...

SAFAGA, Egypt (CNN) -- Relatives flocked to the port of Safaga on Friday to find out if their loved ones were among the 343 people rescued after an aging Egyptian ferry sank in the Red Sea, killing dozens. The Al Salam Boccaccio 98 was loaded to near capacity with about 1,400 people -- about 1,300 passengers and 100 crew members -- and dozens of vehicles when it sank at midnight (5 p.m. Thursday ET), Egyptian officials said. Egypt's state-run Nile TV reported that at least 100 people had died ...