Free Republic

<p>PARIS &#8212; A media ruckus has erupted in France over claims that a government minister was paid as a contact by a CIA spy before being persuaded by the French secret service to pass false information to the Americans.</p> <p>"Carnets Intimes de la DST," a book on the French secret service to be published this week, says Henri Plagnol, now secretary of state for civil service reform, passed information to the United States in the 1990s when Washington was investigating France's position in world trade talks.</p>

An extreme sports fanatic said today he felt “great” after he became the first man to cross the English Channel in an unpowered flight. Felix Baumgartner jumped from a plane about 30,000ft above Dover shortly after 5am and glided 22 miles across the Channel in a 10-minute flight wearing a specially-adapted suit with a wing-like carbon fibre fin attached to his back. In freezing air temperatures, the 34-year-old Austrian began the flight at a speed of about 220 miles per hour before slowing to around 135 miles an hour. Baumgartner made a crunching parachute landing at Cap Blanc-Nez, near...