■ United Kingdom
Face transplants planned
Surgeons are preparing to carry out an unprecedented full face transplant operation next year after being granted ethical approval to actively seek patients. The 30-strong team headed by Peter Butler, a leading plastic surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, was given the go-ahead by the hospital's bioethics committee on Thursday. The announcement follows the partial face transplant in France last month of a woman whose face was mutilated by a dog. The controversial operation has raised concerns, not least that some patients could suffer psychological trauma because their new appearance will resemble that of the donor.
■ Germany
Saluting pair arrested
Two women have been arrested for giving a Hitler salute and singing a neo-Nazi song to foreign tourists on their way to Sachsenhausen concentration camp museum, prosecutors said on Thursday. "The tour group was joined on a commuter train platform by two women who marched alongside them, sang the song White Aryan resistance and gave them the Hitler salute," the prosecutors office in Neuruppin said in a statement. The women, who were under the influence of alcohol at the time, were taken into police custody, the prosecutors said.
■ United Kingdom
Pole turns up in airport
An 84-year-old man, missing since he left home to ride his bike in the small town of Znin last week, has been found wandering around London's Heathrow airport, police said on Wednesday. "According to the family, he just took his bike and left," a police spokesman said. He said police had been searching for the man, identified as Ludwik Z, when they got a telegram from the Polish consulate in London informing them he was safe. "The family have been unable to explain how he got to London," the spokesman said.
■ Ireland
Chickens cause road chaos
A hazardous slick of broken eggs caused traffic chaos on Thursday after a truck carrying thousands of broody hens lost its load. "Chickens have begun to lay eggs on the roads and the conditions are quite treacherous at the moment, very slippy," AA Roadwatch said on its traffic advice line, warning up to 7,000 chickens were on the loose. Police said the vehicle carrying the birds may have hit a ditch, causing its boxes to "cascade off the lorry." "The lorry has been moved but the cargo is wandering around out there," Sergeant Jim Greene said, adding there were no human casualties. A team has been scrambled to help catch the birds, Greene said.
■ United Kingdom
Mistletoe running out
An outbreak of mistletoe rustling is threatening a Christmas kissing crisis, environmental experts said on Wednesday. The Wildlife Trusts said over-harvesting of the plant that only grows in the wild and is mainly found on old apple trees meant it was becoming increasingly rare. "Mistletoe is being taken in increasingly large quantities to be sold at markets to Christmas shoppers," said The Wildlife Trusts. "There are cases of mistletoe rustling, and once the whole plant has been removed from its host tree it won't grow back." The parasitic plant with white berries has been associated with fertility since the time of the ancient Druids and kissing under the mistletoe has long been a Christmas party tradition.
■ United States
Bush eyed in CIA scandal
US President George W. Bush was drawn directly into the CIA leak affair for the first time on Thursday after the journalist whose column prompted the investigation said the president knew who outed the undercover operative Valerie Plame. "I'm confident the president knows who the source is," the conservative columnist Robert Novak said in a speech earlier this week in Raleigh, North Carolina. The White House yesterday declined to respond to Novak's charges. "I don't know what he is basing it on," the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said.
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