The World

Thursday

Councilmen in Kerry, southwest Ireland, passed a motion this week asking the government to create a permit that would allow isolated farmers the ability to drink a few pints and then return home in their car, or on their tractor, without fear of being busted. Its backers say the measure is needed to combat an epidemic of boredom and depression on farms ever since Ireland imposed tough new blood-alcohol limits on drivers in 2011.

Street surveillance cameras in one of the world's most dangerous cities were turned off last week because the Honduras' government hasn't paid millions of dollars it owes. The operator that runs them is now threatening to suspend police radio service as well.

The leading Spanish newspaper El Pais withdrew and reprinted its Thursday edition after discovering that its front-page exclusive photograph supposedly showing ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez being treated in Cuba was a fake. The newspaper apologized to its readers for the mistake and said it was investigating how the photo made its way into the paper.

Friday

Rio de Janeiro is mixing technology with tradition to provide tourists information about the city by embedding bar codes into the black and white mosaic sidewalks that are a symbol of the city. The first QR codes were installed at Arpoador, a massive boulder that rises at the end of Ipanema beach.

Thousands of crocodiles escaped a breeding farm along a river on the South Africa-Botswana border when the farms' gates were opened earlier this week to alleviate pressure caused by rising flood waters. Efforts are now being made to wrangle the reptiles.

Mentally disabled and autistic,Blaize Richard's life dream has been to be a police officer, so for his 18th birthday, his mother coordinated a visit from one of the Jennings, La., Police Department's officers, who presented Blaize with his own police uniform. Blaize was able to visit the department as well. The department’s plan is to commission the 18-year-old as an honorary Jennings police officer on Feb. 2.

Weekend

Three women angry over sexism and male domination in the world economy ripped off their shirts and tried to force their way into a gathering of corporate elites in a Swiss resort. Predictably, they failed. The security force policing the World Economic Forum in Davos carried the women away, kicking and screaming.

Mourners at a Pennsylvania fast-food fan's funeral wanted him to have it his way, so they arranged for his hearse — and the rest of the procession — to make one last drive-thru visit before reaching the cemetery. David Kime Jr., 88, died Jan. 20. The funeral procession stopped at a Burger King where each mourner got a sandwich for the road.

A fire killed at least 233 people in a nightclub in southern Brazil on Sunday when a band's pyrotechnics show set the building ablaze. In Brazil, one of the worst fires at an entertainment venue was at a circus in Niteroi in 1961 in which 323 people died after an arson attack.

Monday

Iran has successfully launched a live monkey into space. IRNA said the monkey was sent into space on a Kavoshgar rocket. The rocket reached a height of more than 120 km (75 miles) and "returned its shipment intact.”

Media baron Rupert Murdoch has apologized for a Sunday Times cartoon of an image,that Jewish leaders said, was reminiscent of anti-Semitic propaganda. "Nevertheless, we owe (a) major apology for (the) grotesque, offensive cartoon," Murdoch tweeted.

New York City's "Don't Honk" signs are coming down, but it's still against the law to blow a car horn unnecessarily. The decision is part of an effort to de-clutter the streets of signs that generally go ignored. Unnecessary honking carries a $350 fine.

Tuesday

Jeff Counceller, a police officer in Indiana, and his wife were charged with unlawful possession of a deer, a misdemeanor that, punished to its fullest extent, could put the Councellers in jail for up to 60 days and cost them up to $2,000 in fines.

An Italian man known as the "Devil's Advocate" went on trial in London, accused of posing as a lawyer to defraud 10 sets of victims of a total of almost one million pounds. Giovanni Di Stefano, 57, denies 25 offenses of deception, fraud, money laundering and forgery.

Janet Milliken, 59, of California, moved to Thornton, Penn. in June 2007. She is suing the seller of the house for failing to disclose that a murder-suicide had occurred inside. She bought a home for $610,000 and was only alerted about what had occurred inside when a neighbor chronicled the house's gruesome past.

Wednesday

Members of a Bosnia wheelchair basketball club are launching a campaign to legalize prostitution to help disabled people "achieve their right to love." Marinko Umice said that Bosnia had to catch up with 21st century Europe, where he said some people with disabilities "even get state subsidies to pay for sex."

Police say a western Pennsylvania man stopped at a bar and had a beer minutes after he broke out of a police station holding cell after his arrest on an assault charge. After stopping at a house to borrow shoes, police say the man went to Richy's Bar, where he acknowledged breaking out of jail and then asked for a beer.

Police say a small herd of cows knocked over 40 American flags and veterans' bronze grave markers, then snacked on a few flower arrangements at the Center Cemetery in Southampton, Mass.

Compiled from a variety of sources

by Gazette Staff