Prince Frederic von Anhalt, the eccentric eighth husband of Hollywood diva Zsa Zsa Gabor, vows to make prostitution and marijuana legal in California. He has formally registered as a candidate for governor.

It has not been easy for Germans in Switzerland of late – right wingers think there are too many of them, and furthermore, Berlin may well buy stolen Swiss bank data. Paola Carega reports.

The Vienna Opera Ball opened Thursday in a year dedicated to composer Frederic Chopin. But Austrian billionaire Richard Lugner's celebrity date, Hollywood starlet Lindsay Lohan, did a no show.

The global economic crisis has reignited interest in Karl Marx's signature work, "Das Kapital," written more than 140 years ago. Sales in Germany soared last year.

Veteran Viennese playboy Richard Lugner has defended his decision to invite Lindsay Lohan to the upcoming Opera Ball after the Austrian press branded the actress a "fallen princess".



Parents and children in the southwest German city of Trier are taking part in a “Christmas Academy” to perfect their skills at singing carols, reading aloud and making a good impression at the yuletide feast.

Largely unnoticed by English speakers, Europeans are sullenly suffering the colonization of their native languages by Anglo-American terms. (

Thousands of Austrians are seeking a ban on the U.S-style Santa Claus in favor of the "Christkind." Working through social platforms like Facebook they protest the commercialization of the Christman tradition.

Germany's new foreign minister Guido Westerwelle is not only openly gay, he prefers wine to vodka -- a no-no in the eyes of any macho Muscovite. He and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrow (right) held a joint news conference in Moscow.

McDonald's is changing its look in Europe. The classic yellow-on-red design is being changed to yellow-on-green, in a move that aims to signal the fast food chain's eco-friendly attitude.

A mounting crisis at German universities, where the government and professors blame one another for overcrowding and student stress, boiled over Tuesday into street demonstrations. They are protesting new education reforms.

The wife of the former leader of East Germany celebrated the 60th birthday of the communist regime in exile in Chile. Her husband, Erich Honecker, died in exile in 1994.

The Berlin Wall is being re-created just in time for the 20th anniversary of its fall. But this time it will divide not East and West Berlin, but downtown Los Angeles.

The former leaders of the USSR, West Germany and the US met in Berlin Saturday to remember the events that lead to opening the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.

In a victory for those fighting for same-sex partnerships to receive the same recognition as marriages, Germany's highest court has given registered partners of civil servants the right to a widow or widower's pension.

An erotic farm girls calendar featuring German women aims to make agriculture alluring. The idea originted in neighboring Austria. It has since spread to other parts of Germania.

Grand-Duke Henri of Luxembourg scored 7th place in a recent ranking that rates heads of state according to their looks. US-President Barack Obama ranked 15th and Germany's Angela Merkel 109th! Photo: Henri and his wife, Cuban-born Maria Teresa Mestre.

The leader of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD) Kenan Kolat said Tuesday that non-Muslim schoolchildren should be allowed out of school for an important Islamic religious holiday.

Col. Halvorsen's lecture is on Wednesday, October 14, at 7PM, at Northern Kentucky University, which is located in northern Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati, Ohio.

A former GI has returned two historic books he took as "souvenirs" during World War II and handed them over to the German ambassador in Washington.

Days before Oktoberfest begins, a German court has ruled that a motorcyclist who collided with a drunken pedestrian in 2006 was partly to blame because she should have expected the road to be full of party-goers, The Local reported.

The Frankfurt Book Fair disinvited two Chinese dissidents after Beijing protested, but the pair returned as inofficial guests.

When Bei Ling and Dai Qing on Saturday addressed the symposium, the official Chinese delegation left the room in protest.

An Austrian-managed futures fund provider is behind plans to turn the house where California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was born into a museum.



By Thomas Hochwarter

The southern German state of Bavaria has withdrawn a lawsuit with the country’s high court to resist the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Monday.

The French rejected them as "enfants des boches." They were children of a French mother and a Wehrmacht soldier born during the Nazi occupation of France. Now one of them was granted German citizenship.

A Berlin day care center was forced to move last year after a neighbor felt disturbed by the noise and took his complaint to court. Now the city is seeking a ban on such lawsuits.

The Mayor of an Austrian village with an unusual name has said residents want to be "left in peace" after they once again made international headlines.

German conservatives are rallying around calls to deny gays the right to adopt children. “Children are best cared for by a man and woman. We don’t want total equality,” Wolfgang Bosbach, the deputy parliamentary floor leader for Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) said on Friday.

A garden gnome giving the Nazi salute has landed a German artist in trouble with the authorities in Nürnberg.