■ United States
Rock dropped on driver
A teen was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly throwing a concrete chunk from an interstate overpass, killing a driver, police said. Carolyn Mirek, 50, was heading home with her daughter when their SUV was struck on Saturday. She was pronounced dead early on Sunday. A 17-year-old from Little Rock, Arkansas, was one of three individuals questioned in the death, Arkansas State Police said. The teen faces charges of first-degree murder and commissioning a terroristic act, police said. The woman's 15-year-old daughter, Mary Catherine Mirek, said she saw a dark object fall toward their car, smash through the windshield and strike her mother's head.
■ United Kingdom
Couple celebrate 80 years
A British couple recognized as having had the world's longest marriage ever recorded were celebrating their 80th anniversary yesterday, and revealed the secret to wedded bliss as never letting arguments fester. Or, as 105-year-old Percy Arrowsmith put it more succinctly, the regular use of two words: "Yes, dear." Arrowsmith and his 100-year-old wife, Florence, were married on June 1, 1925. Florence Arrowsmith attributed the success of their union to hard work and never going to bed with an argument unresolved. "We don't argue much these days, only when I want to watch the soaps [soap operas] on television, which he hates," she said.
■ United Kingdom
Congregation goes online
British telecom operator BT Group has wired up a church in Wales to allow the congregation to hook onto local high-speed Internet connections when they want a break from the sermon. Britain's largest fixed-line telecom operator said on Tuesday that it had installed a Wi-Fi wireless network access point, known as a hotspot, in Reverend Keith Kimber's St John's Rectory church in the city of Cardiff. "The church has to move with the times and I wanted to make St John's a sanctuary for everyone, including businesspeople with laptops and mobiles," Kimber said in a statement.
■ Russia
Satellite lab in orbit
A Russian rocket carrying a satellite laboratory blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome on Tuesday on a 17-day mission. Russia's Federal Space Agency said the Soyuz-U rocket was launched at 4pm and entered orbit 10 minutes later. The European Space Agency said the Foton-M2 research satellite was carrying some 385kg of equipment to conduct more than 20 chemical, physical and biotechnological experiments. Newts, scorpions, geckos and snails were among the animals on the craft for the experiments, which will be monitored from Sweden.
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