Zut Alors! Sarko Blasts Photogs on US Boat Trip

Photo altered to reduce president's love handles

(NEWSER) - The French president’s “love handles” got a makeover this week when Paris Match Photoshopped them down to size in pics from his US holiday. An otherwise manly bare-chested shot of Sarkozy canoeing with his son shows his stomach to be distinctly slimmer than in Reuter’s original photo. Another French mag amused its readership this week with a before-and-after comparison. More»

Summer vacations send 'terrible signal to the markets'

(AP) - Europeans have always treasured their long summer vacations, and that goes for their leaders as well. As the European economy teeters on the precipice, Nicolas Sarkozy is by the Mediterranean in his swimming trunks. His prime minister is vacationing in Tuscany. British Chancellor George Osborne is in California, where he rode the Jurassic Park log flume at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. The entire 15-member Cabinet of debt-ridden Ireland has left Dublin, though the finance minister is taking calls from his home in Limerick. More»

Paparazzo claims actor broke his camera, menaced him

(NEWSER) - Sean Penn is already facing criminal charges in the wake of a run-in with a photographer in October, and the actor is now the defendant in a civil case about the incident as well. Jordan Dawes alleges that the volatile actor kicked him and broke his camera, then said, "The next time I see you, you will be in a box," reports TMZ . The criminal case is pending. More»

Lindsay Lohan's driver becomes subject of assault probe

(NEWSER) - A car in which Lindsay Lohan was a passenger struck and injured a paparazzo early this morning outside a Los Angeles nightclub, then quickly left the scene, police say. The BMW "sped away at a high rate of speed and hit a paparazzi photographer causing an injury to his hand, his wrist," an LAPD rep tells KTLA . The driver, an unidentified woman, is now involved in a criminal investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, TMZ reports. More»

(AP) - Two photographers have sued Tom Brady and his supermodel wife for $1 million, saying they were shot at during a party in Costa Rica. The two men, one from AFP and the other from a Costa Rican newspaper, say Gisele Bundchen's bodyguards shot at their car and just missed their heads. They were taking photos of a Brady-Bundchen party two months after their wedding. No comment from the reps of the celebs. More»