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willing to go to any lengths to win the prestigious race. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart labeled the doping regimen allegedly carried out by the U.S. Postal Service team that Armstrong once led, "The most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

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• PARIS (AP) -- France, breaking its own rules with a surprise military intervention in Mali, appears to be halting the lightning advance of radical Islamists seen as a threat to Europe.
• But the operation raises the specter of an African quagmire in a new theater of the West's war on terror just as France and other U.S. allies emerge from the old

one in Afghanistan. And it undermines President Francois Hollande's promise to end the cozy, paternalistic ties France has long sustained with its former African colonies.
• France fears a new sanctuary of terrorism could take root in Mali, and says fast action was the only choice after sudden extremist advances last week.
• French authorities contend that Mali and its neighbors in West Africa, Europe and especially France are threatened by three radical organizations, including an al-Qaida affiliate, that control northern Mali and are looking to extend their grip to the crucial south and the capital of Bamako to set up a terror state.
• French authorities acknowledged Sunday that the militants have turned out to be better-armed and equipped than France had initially thought.
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• BEIJING (AP) -- Beijing schools kept children indoors and hospitals saw a spike in respiratory cases Monday following a weekend of off-the charts pollution in China's smoggy capital, the worst since the government began being more open about air-quality data.
• City authorities, who began releasing figures about some of the worst kinds of pollutants early last year, ordered many factories to scale back emissions and were spraying water at building sites to try to tamp down dust and dirt worsening the nox

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