A former Brazilian football star said to have orchestrated the murder of his ex-girlfriend went on trial in a case that includes claims that the young model was lured to a ranch where she was held hostage, killed and her body dismembered.

Marine biologists and veterinarians said the bodies of more than 500 penguins have been washed up on beaches in southern Brazil over the past week.

A Brazilian state judge has approved what the court said is the nation’s first gay marriage.

A MOTORIST sped through a pack of more than 100 cycling activists in southern Brazil, sending bikes and screaming riders flying through the air and landing on the asphalt in a scene captured on amateur video and posted online.

Firefighters using heavy machinery, shovels and bare hands dug for survivors today but only found bodies under a mountain of red earth and crushed lodgings - the worst of a spate of mudslides and floods which have killed at least 64 people in south-eastern Brazil.

Brazil's largest city of Sao Paulo was today hit by severe floods for the second time in less than a week.

A massive power failure blacked out Brazil’s two largest cities and other parts of Latin America’s biggest nation for more than two hours last night, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went off-line.

A shootout between Brazilian police and Rio de Janeiro gang members has left five suspects dead near the famed Copacabana beach.

Usher's wife Tameka Foster suffered a cardiac arrest during a liposuction procedure, according to explosive new Internet reports.

Naomi Campbell has been hospitalised in Brazil, after undergoing surgery for the removal of a cyst.