Paris
No blocking traffic: Praying in the streets of Paris is now against the law. For months, hundreds of Muslims who couldn’t find a mosque to pray in blocked several streets in Paris each Friday, kneeling and bowing in unison on the pavement. Last year, far-right leader Marine Le Pen called for a ban on the practice, saying it amounted to a foreign “invasion” just like the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II. This week, she got her wish when the city struck a deal with Muslim leaders: No more worshipping in the streets, but Muslims may use an empty firehouse as a prayer site. “Praying in the street is not dignified for religious practice and violates the principles of secularism,” said Interior Minister Claude Guéant. “All Muslim leaders are in agreement.”
London
Huge hacking settlement: Rupert Murdoch’s News International is in negotiations to pay $4.7 million for hacking the cell phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler. Two thirds of the settlement money will go to the Dowler family and the rest to a charity of their choice, the company said this week. Dowler, 13, disappeared in 2002, and her body was found six months later. Her family and the police believed she was alive for months because her cell phone messages were being listened to and erased. But it turned out that a reporter from the tabloid News of the World had hijacked her voice-mail account. The revelation that the phones of crime victims, in addition to those of celebrities, were being hacked prompted the investigation that led to criminal charges against several News International executives and the closing of the tabloid earlier this year.
