Reader reporter tips us to a story just up at the NYTimes reporting that the tough-talking conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has won election as the president of France. His opponent, Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal, the first woman to get as far as the runoff in a presidential contest in France, has conceded defeat. The vote went 53% to Sarkozy and the turnout was a remarkable (by American standards) 85% of registered voters. Sarkozy is seen as a divisive figure for his demand that immigrants learn Western values (and the French language).

Croakyvoice writes "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, the seventh and final book in the best-selling series, has been scheduled for release at 12:01 a.m. on July 21, 2007, Scholastic announced today." A deluxe edition for collectors and enthusiasts is also planned with a simultaneous release.

Bob Beale writes to clue us to big news from New Zealand. The country has long been thought to have been devoid of land mammals until recent times. No mammal fossils had ever been found there; but now one has. From the article: "Small but remarkable fossils found in New Zealand will prompt a major rewrite of prehistory textbooks, showing for the first time that the so-called 'land of birds' was once home to mammals as well. The tiny fossilized bones — part of a jaw and hip — belonged to a unique, mouse-sized land animal unlike any other mammal known... The fact that even one land mammal had lived there, at least 16 million years ago, has put paid to the theory that New Zealand's rich bird fauna had evolved there because they had no competition from land mammals."

l2718 writes to mention that In the wake of their recent deal with Microsoft, Novell has announced a new version of OpenOffice.org which will support Microsoft's planned Office formal, Open XML. From the article: "The translators will be made available as plug-ins to Novell's OpenOffice.org product. Novell will release the code to integrate the Open XML format into its product as open source and submit it for inclusion in the OpenOffice.org project. As a result, end users will be able to more easily share files between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org, as documents will better maintain consistent formats, formulas and style templates across the two office productivity suites."

Mainichi Daily News writes "Japan's leading English news site revolutionizes manga -- Manga lovers rejoice! A never-seen-before approach to manga made its debut on the Mainichi Daily News on Monday, July 3, 2006. Manglish takes some of Japan's hottest young manga talents -- showcased in the Mainichi's MangaTown site -- and places their creations on the MDN in their original Japanese format. However, cool thing is that while it appears on the site in the original Japanese, but if you run your mouse over it you get the translation in English.

An anonymous reader writes "A laptop reported to be a Dell burst into flame and was caught on camera during a recent Japanese conference. Guess this laptop could be a poster child to prove that laptops really can cause sterility if they are on your lap."

Anonymous Emo writes "The community/blogging site LiveJournal recently introduced ads on some pages for free users. More interestingly, they also added a new restriction to their TOS (XVI 17 b.) banning users from using or providing ad-blocking software. The new TOS also permits them to immediately terminate the account of anyone they catch doing this."