Defending champion Alberto Contador and last year's runner-up Andy Schleck renewed their rivalry as riders started the 2011 Tour de France on Saturday.

The mostly flat first stage takes riders over 191.5 kilometers (119 miles) from La Barre-de-Monts to Mont des Alouettes in the Vendee region of western France.

Three-time champion Contador beat Schleck by just 39 seconds last year. The 3,430-kilometer (2,131-mile) Tour ends on July 24 at the Champs-Elysees.

After spending years at the center of heated national debate over capital punishment, Illinois' death row officially died Friday when a state law abolishing the death penalty quietly took effect.

The state garnered international attention when then-Republican Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium in 2000 after several inmates' death sentences were overturned and he cleared death row three years later. One man who came within 48 hours of being executed was among those later declared innocent.

Rafael Nadal will get to play one more match as the top-ranked man in the tennis world, and it will be in the Wimbledon final against the man who is going to replace him.

The defending champion reached his fifth final at the All England Club on Friday, beating Andy Murray 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4. But the win wasn't enough to hold onto his No. 1 ranking, which instead will go to Novak Djokovic for the first time on Monday.

Maria Shriver stood by Arnold Schwarzenegger when he ran for California's governorship in 2003, even after several women accused him of lecherous behavior.

On Friday, 25 years after their fairytale wedding on Cape Cod, she filed for divorce.

The former television journalist and Kennedy family heiress cited irreconcilable differences but offered no additional details about the breakup.

Shriver did not list a date when the couple separated, although they announced they had done so on May 9.

The hotel maid who accused former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault may have inflicted fatal damage on her own case by lying to prosecutors about her life story and what she did in the moments after the suspected attack, legal experts said.

Many Republicans argue that affluent Americans already pay more than their share in taxes, but Pat Bagley thinks their reasoning is in for rough weather, while Chip Bok doesn't find fairness in President Obama's position.

Zynga, the maker of online games like Farmville and CityVille, filed for an initial public offering today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company is looking to raise as much as $1 billion from investors.

The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch reports:

Pope Benedict XVI ventured into economic policy today. During an address to the Rome-based United Nations Food And Agriculture Organization, the AFP reports, the Pope called for action "against 'speculation' on commodity markets."

Score one for the health insurance brokers in their fight to avoid going the way of buggy-whip manufacturers.

A task force of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners voted Thursday to endorse legislation that would effectively spare their commissions from being counted as administrative costs.

And consumer groups aren't happy about it.

Lexington’s mayor has asked members of the urban county council to change their recently approved budget.  The request came today (Friday) in a series of line-item vetoes.

Mayor Jim Gray vetoed three items in the new budget.  Gray said no to the 400 thousand dollars the council wants to borrow for two new disc golf courses, lacrosse fields, improvements at the Charles Young community center, and a remodel of the Berry Hill pool.   Another veto eliminates the jobs of seven people who work in government communications.  And Gray's final veto  reduced funding for outside agencies that provide services to the city by ten percent.