Several cats have tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Austrian state authorities said today, in the first reported cases there of the disease spreading to an animal other than a bird.

Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty to criminal charges of denying the Holocaust and conceded he erred in contending there were no Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz as his trial opened today in Vienna.

Kidnappers today freed two Austrian hostages three days after seizing them in northern Yemen, the country’s official news agency said.

Continuing heavy snow fall in Austria’s Alpine regions raised the risk of avalanches today and prompted urgent safety warnings to hikers and skiers to avoid the areas deemed most prone to snow slides.

Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel says he’s “proud” of the tough position Austria staked out in crisis talks on the launch of negotiations with Turkey to join the European Union.

PRESSURE was being piled on Austria last night to allow negotiations to open today as planned on Turkey's EU membership bid.

An explosion ripped through a pizzeria in a town in the Austrian province of Styria early today, killing two children and injuring seven, authorities said.

Two infants whose bodies were stuffed in a freezer at an Austrian apartment complex where the remains of two other newborns were discovered entombed in cement-filled buckets were alive at birth, authorities said today.

The body of one of three hunters missing since an avalanche in the Austrian Alps early last month has been found, it was reported today.

The Austrian army evacuated 500 guests – half of them schoolchildren on a ski course – from an alpine village isolated by avalanches today.

Winds with speeds of up to 75 mph swept through Austria late last night and earlier today, killing at least three people and blocking traffic as trees and branches fell onto roads.

From Moscow to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hometown, the world marvelled at the Terminator film star’s victory in California, viewing it as a uniquely American political triumph with more suspense than a Hollywood script.