The latest international news from CP on MSN.ca

CLEARWATER, Fla. - It's not unusual for a cat to get a hairball, but a 400-pound (180-kilogram) tiger needed help from veterinary surgeons when he couldn't hack up a soccer ball-sized hairball by himself.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Emails show a lawyer for the parent company of a concert promoter referred to Michael Jackson as a "freak" as the singer signed a contract for his ill-fated comeback shows.

ORLANDO, Fla. - A Chechen immigrant was shot to death by authorities early Wednesday after he turned violent while being questioned about his ties to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, officials said.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Former baseball slugger Jose Canseco Jr. has been accused of sexual assault in Las Vegas, in an investigation that the former baseball slugger made public with postings on a social media website claiming that a woman falsely accused him of rape.

GOMA, Congo - M23 rebels fired two rockets into the eastern Congo city of Goma, killing one person and wounding four, officials said, in an apparent spillover from three days of fighting raging north of the city.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a favourite among liberals for her forceful advocacy for consumers and criticisms of the financial industry, has a book deal.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Las Vegas police are investigating a woman's allegations that former baseball player Jose Canseco Jr. sexually assaulted her.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is showing singer-songwriter Carole King that she has friends at the White House.

CAIRO - The safe release Wednesday of seven conscripts kidnapped by suspected militants in Sinai brought a victory for Egypt's Islamist president after months of criticism that his government is mismanaging the country.

ROME - 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.

PHOENIX - Jurors in the Jodi Arias murder trial told the judge Wednesday they are unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether the convicted murderer should be sentenced to life in prison or death for killing her one-time boyfriend, prompting the judge to send them back to the deliberation room to work through their differences.

WARSAW, Poland - 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. It was Poland's first face transplant.

CANNES, France - To convince Kristin Scott Thomas to play the bloodthirsty matriarch of "Only God Forgives," director Nicolas Winding Refn appealed to Scott Thomas — how else? — with the flattery of his own mother.

MOORE, Okla. - The tornado that tore through an Oklahoma City suburb destroyed or damaged as many as 13,000 homes and may have caused $2 billion in overall damage, officials said Wednesday.

BRUSSELS - 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 U.S., officials said Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Blake Shelton and NBC are putting together a benefit for Oklahoma tornado victims.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - A New York City woman has been sentenced to probation for stalking actress Marion Cotillard (koh-tee-YAR') on the Internet.

PARIS - In France, there's a brewing debate over whether to speak anglais in universite.