A former teen pageant princess featured in an eyebrow-raising episode of the TV show "Wife Swap" getting spray-tanned by her father and pitying the less attractive will plead not guilty this week to charges of prostitution and drug possession, her lawyer said.

Alicia Guastaferro was arrested at a western New York Thruway travel plaza in August.

The winner of a roach-eating contest in South Florida died shortly after downing dozens of the live bugs as well as worms, authorities said Monday.

About 30 contestants ate the insects during Friday night's contest at Ben Siegel Reptile Store in Deerfield Beach about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Miami. The grand prize was a python.

Scarred by years of failure on the international stage, the English are following a path taken by some of their biggest rivals in a bid to regain their heavyweight status in football.

Prince William and his wife, Kate, will officially open England's state-of-the-art national football center on Tuesday, a 100 million pound ($160 million) facility that it's hoped will revive the flagging fortunes of football's founder.

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a compound of the Syrian intelligence on the outskirts of Damascus on Monday, a Syrian official said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the blast in Harasta, a suburb of the nation's capital, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A Finnish couple has added to their victories by taking first place in the North American Wife Carrying Championship at Maine's Sunday River ski resort.

Taisto Miettinen and Kristina Haapanen traveled from Helsinki, Finland — where they won the World Wife Carrying Championship — for Saturday's contest. The Sun Journal reports that the couple finished with a time of 52.58 seconds on a course that includes hurdles, sand traps and a water hole.

Audra McDonald and Will Swenson have tied the knot, cementing a relationship between two of Broadway's best looking and talented stars.

According to a publicist for the bride, the couple married Saturday at their home in Croton-on-Hudson in New York. The bride's wedding dress was designed by Esosa.

Beijing authorities have completed a network of monitors that will more accurately measure air quality in the smog-ridden city after being pushed into it by public pressure and pollution reports from the U.S. embassy.

The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center said Saturday that another 15 monitoring stations had begun releasing real-time data on small particulates known as PM2.5. The tiny pollution particles that may result from the burning of fuels in vehicles and power plants can penetrate deep into the lungs, so measuring them is considered a more accurate reflection of air quality than other methods.

American companies should avoid doing business with China's two leading technology firms because they pose a national security threat to the United States, the House Intelligence Committee is warning in a report to be issued Monday.

The panel says U.S. regulators should block mergers and acquisitions in this country by Huawei Technologies Ltd. and ZTE Corp, among the world's leading suppliers of telecommunications gear and mobile phones.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says a blueprint for a banking union and supervision of the banking system will be presented at the EU's October summit as part of measures to raise confidence in the euro currency.

Barroso spoke with reporters Saturday after meeting with Malta Prime Minster Lawrence Gonzi following a gathering of five southern European countries with five North African nations.

A senior European Central Bank official is insisting that the bank can't help Greece by agreeing to roll over the government bonds it holds or accept lower interest rates.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who wants more time to enact reforms and budget cuts, has suggested the ECB could help that way.