Spartak Moscow stayed three points clear of champion and city rival CSKA at the top of the Premier League after their 1-1 draw, but Zenit St. Petersburg failed to capitalize on its rivals' dropped points, with a 1-1 draw leaving it level on points with CSKA.

Russia was indulging in a bout of soul-searching Monday after watching its chief rival, Canada, lift the ice hockey World Championship trophy for a record 24th time.

Pipe puffers gather in June for their version of the Olympics, but trouble is looming.

The year is 1976, the place -- anywhere in the Soviet Union. On the way home from the factory, you pick up a black-and-red pack of Prima cigarettes for 14 kopeks. At home, you tear a little hole in the corner to tap the oval, filter-less cigarettes out one by one (if you open the pack's envelope closure, the cigarettes get jostled and discharge their loosely-packed tobacco).

If you're looking for something casual, then Shampan is definitely not your spot. As the name -- Russian for ""champagne"" -- would suggest, this establishment is aiming to attract a high-flying crowd.

Yar's head chef, Maxim Tarusin, shares a recipe for beef stroganoff with fried porcini and potato cakes.

Lured by ladies' underwear, herring, free insurance and other gifts, millions of voters cast ballots Monday in a midterm election the opposition hopes will strengthen efforts to impeach President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe scored a victory in his drive to rewrite Japan's pacifist constitution and ease its limits on military actions overseas Monday, when the parliament enacted a law outlining steps for a referendum on revising the postwar charter.

A new blue-and-green-throated hummingbird species has been discovered in a cloud forest in Colombia, and already needs protection from human encroachment, the experts who found the bird say.

In a major speech on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI condemned capitalism and Marxism as ""systems that marginalize God"" and urged the Latin American clergy to feed people's spiritual hunger as the way to ease poverty and halt the Roman Catholic Church's steady decline in the region.

A cruise ship with about 280 people onboard ran into trouble off the Alaskan coast and began taking on water early Monday, forcing passengers and crew to evacuate, the U.S. Coast Guard said.