CANNES, France (AP) — The problem with New York these days is there's just not enough litter. At least, that's French director Guillaume Canet's experience.

CANNES, France (AP) — James Franco's filmography is starting to look like a book shelf — and a very respectable one, at that. The 35-year-old American has already played poets Allen Ginsberg ("Howl") and Hart Crane ("The Broken Tower").

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is reassessing whether to declare the Lebanese party Hezbollah's military wing a terrorist organization, a move it has long shied from despite pressure from the United States, officials said Wednesday.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A 33-year-old Polish man received a face transplant just three weeks after being disfigured in a workplace accident, in what his doctors said Wednesday is the fastest time frame to date for such an operation.

PARIS (AP) — In France, there's a brewing debate over whether to speak anglais in universite. The National Assembly on Wednesday was taking up an education reform bill that would allow public universities to hold some courses — like science or economics classes — in English, a plan that has alarmed language purists and the political far-right alike.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that a decision by election overseers to disqualify his top aide from next month's presidential race is an act of "oppression" and that he will take the case to the country's supreme leader.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — The leader of the center-right Progressive Party was chosen as Iceland's new prime minister Wednesday and promptly announced a halt to talks with the European Union about joining the 27-nation bloc.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's main opposition alliance on Wednesday urged fighters from around the country to reinforce a rebel-held town under attack by President Bashar Assad's troops and their allies from the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan left a hospital Wednesday, more than two weeks after he suffered serious back injuries in a fall from a forklift at a campaign event, a spokesman said.

DUBLIN (AP) — British prosecutors have charged a 61-year-old Irishman with the Irish Republican Army bombing of the queen's cavalry in Hyde Park in 1982, a strike at a top London tourist attraction that killed four soldiers and seven horses.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's prime minister has ordered a shake-up of his military command after a weeklong spike of militant attacks that has killed nearly 300 people, by far the highest toll since the U.S.

ROME (AP) — An Italian judge has ordered the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship to stand trial for manslaughter in the vessel's shipwreck off the coast of Tuscany, which killed 32 people.

VIENNA (AP) — An official for the city of Vienna says the Austrian capital has handed over nearly 6,000 valuable objects looted by the Nazis to their rightful owners or their heirs since it started taking inventory of them 14 years ago.

CAIRO (AP) — Six Egyptian policemen and a border guard kidnapped by suspected militants in the volatile Sinai Peninsula last week were freed by their captors Wednesday after successful mediation, the country's military spokesman said.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's parliament on Wednesday approved joining an international child custody treaty amid foreign pressure for Tokyo to address concerns that Japanese mothers can take children away from foreign fathers without recourse.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany says it supports adding the military wing of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah to the European Union's list of terrorist groups.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany on Wednesday celebrated the 200th birthday of Richard Wagner, the 19th-century composer whose music has been hailed as sublime art at the height of Western culture even as he remains tainted by his visceral anti-Semitic views, which later found favor with the Nazis.

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — An 80-year-old Japanese extreme skier who climbed Mount Everest five years ago, but just missed becoming the oldest man to reach the summit, was back on the mountain Wednesday to make another attempt at the title.

CANNES, France (AP) — Associated Press journalists open their notebooks at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. ___ DAMIAN LEWIS: FROM HOMELAND TO SCOTLAND "Homeland" without Sgt.

MASINLOC, Philippines (AP) — Along the northwestern Philippine coast, poor children with claw hammers clamber aboard an abandoned fishing vessel to pry loose and steal rusty nails from its deck.

BEIJING (AP) — Two emotionless prison guards watch Ai Weiwei as he eats, sleeps, paces, showers — and even sits on the toilet — in the Chinese artist's new obscenity-filled, metaphor-rich music video mocking state power.

MUSCAT, Oman (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Wednesday with officials in Oman to discuss their plans to buy a $2.1 billion air defense system from American manufacturer Raytheon.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A far-reaching bill to remake the nation's immigration system is headed to the full Senate, where tough battles are brewing on gay marriage, border security and other contentious issues, with the outcome impossible to predict.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five men are under round-the-clock U.S. surveillance in Libya, wanted for questioning in the attack last year on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.