French police braced for violence on Sunday as a mass demonstration against a new gay marriage law kicked off in Paris amid warnings hardliners were expected to mingle with protesters and cause trouble.

More than 4,000 Russian singers have performed outdoors in St. Petersburg with the aim of setting a world record for the largest choir.

A suspect in the savage killing of a British soldier on a London street was arrested in Kenya in 2010 near the East African country's border with Somalia, an anti-terrorism police official said Sunday.

Britain's government is setting up a new terrorism task force to tackle radical preachers and extremism, officials said Sunday, days after suspects apparently linked to extremist Islamist activists brutally killed a British soldier in a London street.

Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court ruled on Saturday against parts of an election law approved by the Islamist-led legislature that had lifted a long-standing ban on the use of religious slogans during campaigning.

Pope Francis paid tribute to a courageous priest murdered by the Sicilian Mafia as a martyr and urged mobsters on Sunday to abandon their evil ways, particularly the exploitation of people in trafficking rackets such as prostitution.

French President Francois Hollande's popularity rating inched up in May from a record low the previous month, a poll showed on Sunday, a rare positive sign after a first year in office marked by rising unemployment.

Italians voted in local elections on Sunday that will test political parties three months from a general election that left no clear winner and a month after the start of a fragile coalition cabinet.

Swiss police said Sunday they had arrested 61 people in clashes at a politically charged techno parade in Berne, which the authorities said left 21 members of the security forces injured.

Cars were torched and police faced stone-throwing youths in Stockholm's immigrant-dominated suburbs early Sunday, but the nightly riots that have raged for a week appeared to be easing, police said.