■ Italy
Melon bred for singles
Rome's street vendors scored a hit this summer with a designer fruit aimed to suit Italy's changing demographics -- watermelon for singles. "It was bound to happen, because Italian families are becoming smaller and smaller," said one of its promoters, Daniela Santori, who heads the Coldiretti farmers' union in Latina province, south of Rome. The area's potassium-rich soil is known for producing juicy, sweet green giants that often weigh around 10kg to 20kg. Latina's growers developed a scaled-down model that weighs in at a dainty one kilo (2.2 pounds) by using a technique that inhibits growth but retains the good taste, Santori said.
■ United States
Gay marriages opposed
The Roman Catholic Church will intensify its efforts to prevent legalization of same-sex marriages, the president of the US' Catholic bishops said on Friday. Bishop Wilton D. Gregory said the bishops could endorse a proposed amendment to the US Constitution to define marriage as only heterosexual, though he stopped short of making such an endorsement himself. Gregory said the church is seeking "the best, most effective and surest means" for protecting marriage. The Vatican denounced same-sex marriages in a July doctrinal decree, while Canada's government is working to legalize them -- a move that Gregory said "brought this close to us."
■ United kingdom
Inquest into Diana's death
Inquests are to be held into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, a British coroner announced on Friday. The dates and location of the hearings will not be known for some time. They will take place more than six years after the couple died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. It is believed that the inquest into Fayed's death will take place in Surrey, where he used to live and is buried. However, it is not yet known where the princess's inquest will take place. It will be the first official public hearing in Britain to examine the circumstances surrounding the death of the princess and her boyfriend.
■ United states
Monument: Plaintiffs content
A federal judge has said the state of Alabama is in compliance with his order requiring the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. The monument is now inside a locked storage room off an employee lunchroom, attorney-general Bill Pryor said in a conference call on Friday. "We told the court that we had verified the monument was moved and are satisfied the state is in compliance with the court order,'' said Richard Cohen, an attorney for plaintiffs who sued to have the monument removed.
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