cologne

Wladimir Klitschko beat Lamon Brewster with a technical knockout after six rounds to successfully defend his IBF and IBO heavyweight titles on Saturday. The Ukrainian clearly dominated the first five rounds, making repeated contact with his strong left jab that largely went unanswered.

A man cut off his own head with a chainsaw after stabbing his 70-year-old father to death in their apartment in the German city of Cologne, police said on Tuesday. The body of the offender (24) was found headless when police raced to the apartment Monday after an emergency call, apparently from the dying father, had been broken off in mid-sentence.

England have vowed to end their 38-year winless streak against Sweden in Cologne on Tuesday — even if the reward is a World Cup second-round showdown with host nation Germany. Fixture scheduling has left England heading into their final Group B match with the identity of their last 16 opponents in their own hands.

Pope Benedict XVI wrapped up his first foreign tour on Sunday with an uncompromising warning that Catholics must strictly follow the church’s teachings. Addressing nearly one million young pilgrims, many of whom had camped overnight in a muddy field outside Cologne, the pope said that Christians should not choose the bits of doctrine they liked and ignore the rest.

A new German book of popular legal errors seeks to end years of Anglo-German holiday bickering over the rights and wrongs of bagging the best sun loungers with the strategic deployment of towels. British tourists have gained an unlikely ally in the form of German lawyer Ralf Höcker, who said that his research had revealed that leaving towels on loungers was not legally binding.

For the Maya of Central America, cocoa was the drink of the gods, and for years after it was introduced to Europe it was the preserve of the aristocracy. More recently it has been seen as a children’s drink, but now it is making a comeback among gourmets and top chefs, who are rediscovering drinking chocolate.