Marcheline Bertrand, actress and mother of Angelina Jolle, died on Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Jolie said in a statement to the Associated Press.
  The 56-year-old Bertrand, who battled cancer for over seven-and-a-half years, was surrounded by her children, Angelina and son James Haven, as well as Jolie’s partner, Brad Pitt.
  "Marcheline was beautiful, caring and totally devoted to her children. I never saw her upset or sad, even after she was diagnosed with cancer," Lea Hunter, who once dated Haven, tells people. "She always treated me like a member of her family."
  Bertrand, who had small roles in movies including 1983’s The Man Who Loved Women, raised Jolie and brother Haven by herself after divorcing their father, Oscar-winning actor Jon Vuight, when Jolie was a toddler.
  A private funeral is planned, and the family requests that in lieu of flowers or gifts, donations be made to the Women’s Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai.

PARIS--French voters chose Nicolas Sarkozy as their new president on Sunday, giving the conservative a mandate for change. His Socialist opponent conceded minutes after polls closed.
  With nearly 70 percent of ballots counted, Sarkozy had just over 53 percent of the vote, according to the Interior Ministry.
  The results dashed Socialist Segolene Royal’s hopes of being elected France’s first woman president. The projections were based on vote counts from representative samples of hundreds of polling stations across the country.
  "Universal suffrage has spoken. I wish the next president of the Republic the best in accomplishing his mission in the service of all the French people," Royal told supporters in Paris.
  Washington can "count on our friendship," Sarkozy told hundreds of cheering supporters, though he added that "friendship means accepting that friends can have different opinions."
  Sarkozy’s election could help restart the process of finding a way forward on reviving the European Union constitution, which has been held up as Europe awaited the results of the French election.
  In remarks just after his election, Sarkozy said: "France is back in Europe."