■ Canada
Russian diplomat charged
A warrant was issued on Friday for the arrest of a former senior Russian diplomat charged with drugging and raping two men at his apartment in Ottawa, Canadian officials said.
Valery Fomin, 53, is accused of slipping two unsuspecting men a cocktail of "stupefying or overpowering" drugs, then sexually assaulting them as they lay unconscious for up to 16 hours in his downtown apartment in late February, police said in a statement.
Fomin, a former "counselor" at the Russian embassy in Ottawa, fled to Russia shortly after the alleged incident and has not returned to Canada, police said. "Toxicology reports confirmed the presence of three different types of prescription drugs that were unknowingly ingested by the victims, which rendered them unconscious for periods of time," police said.
■ Brazil
Illegal loggers get busted
Police arrested 28 people on Friday and were looking for 46 more, accused of operating an illegal logging ring in Brazil's Amazon rain forest, officials in Rio de Janeiro said. Some 300 officers in five states were involved in the operation to shut down a gang accused of using phony permits to harvest rare tropical hardwoods. Twenty-four people were arrested in the far western Amazon state of Acre and four more were captured in neighboring Rondonia state, federal police said in a statement. Three agents from the federal environmental agency and one member of the Acre state environment protection agency were among those arrested, police said.
■ United States
Taking the long way
Three elderly people spent three days driving lost around Miami, Florida, until police came to their rescue on Friday. "The two women were taking turns driving, and they've been driving around non-stop trying to find the hotel," said Mary Walters of the Miami-Dade police department. "The gentleman does have Alzheimer, so he didn't even know he was lost," she said. The trio from Naples, New York state, all in their early 70s, were in Miami to visit a sick friend, Walters said. "They were found in the car, just sitting there, in the parking lot of the gas station," Walters said. The three visited their friend on Tuesday, but got lost on their way back to their hotel, about 13km away.
RSS