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By Teju Cole, and referring to his Twitter account: http://twitter.com/#!/tejucole
..."a form of writing for which there is no exact English term: 'fait divers'. This is a French expression, in common use for centuries, for a certain kind of newspaper piece: a compressed report of an unusual happening. What fait divers means literally is 'incidents,' or 'various things.' The nearest English equivalent is 'news briefs' or, more recently, 'news of the weird.' [...]
This is what a fait divers looks like:
Raoul G., of Ivry, an untactful husband, came home unexpectedly and stuck his blade in his wife, who was frolicking in the arms of a friend.
Here is another:
A dishwasher from Nancy, Vital Frérotte, who had just come back from Lourdes cured forever of tuberculosis, died Sunday by mistake."