• France's fertility, health seen as bright spots in crisis

  France has fared relatively better on key social metrics such as health and fertility than its European peers since the global financial crisis of 2008, according to a study released by the national statistics office INSEE on Wednesday.

  

• Republicans Win Kentucky Governor's Race, Second Time in 44 Years

  Republican businessman Matt Bevin was elected Kentucky's next governor on Tuesday in a setback for Democrats who had controlled the governor's mansion in every election but one since 1971.

  

• Greece Carries Out First Relocation of Refugees to Luxembourg

  Greece relocated six asylum-seeking families to Luxembourg on Wednesday, the first such transfer from its soil under an European Union plan to ease the burden on EU periphery nations inundated by an influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

  

• Egyptian Flooding Drowns Gaza's Tunnel Business

  Mahmoud Bakeer speaks with despair about the night of the flash flood, when he screamed at his wife and five children to flee their home on Gaza's border with Egypt as the water rushed in.

  

• Islamic State Affiliate in Egypt Insists It Brought Down Russian Plane

  Islamic State's Egyptian affiliate dismissed in an audio message on Wednesday doubts that it had downed a Russian passenger plane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing all aboard, and said it would tell the world how did so in its own time.