NANCY

Police in France said on Tuesday they had thwarted an attempt by a group of marijuana smokers to roll the world’s longest joint by seizing a work-in-progress measuring 80cm in length. "At some point, these young people had wanted to craft a joint of 1,12m to beat the world record in the discipline and get it officially registered," said a police officer in eastern France.

In what must rank as a world record, animal-welfare officers in France have discovered a total of 340 dogs living in a single house near the north-eastern city of Nancy. The dogs were confined to the first floor of the house in the village of Marbache and had been interbreeding for years, officials said.

Italian Lorenzo Bernucci of the Fassa Bortolo team won the dramatic sixth stage of the Tour de France held over 199km between Troyes and Nancy, which almost ended in carnage in Nancy on Thursday. American Lance Armstrong retained the race leader’s yellow jersey, which he is bidding to win for a seventh consecutive time.