■ Finland
Hospital fire injures 18
Eighteen people were hurt, four seriously, when a fire broke out in a psychiatric ward in southwestern Finland on Thursday night, officials said yesterday. The fire started in a clothing rack in the hospital in Nokia, 190km northwest of Helsinki, but its cause was still unknown, officials said. Seventeen patients and a member of staff were treated in nearby hospitals. Four suffered lung damage from inhaling smoke.
■ United States
Rare Rembrandt sold
A Rembrandt painting of an apostle in prayer sold for US$25.8 million at Sotheby's in New York on Thursday, falling short of the record price of nearly US$29 million for a work by the Dutch painter. A spokesman for Sotheby's said the painting, Saint James the Greater, had been sold to a buyer who wanted to remain anonymous. The auction house had valued the 1661 painting at between US$18 million and US$25 million. The record for a Rembrandt is held by Portrait of a Lady, Aged 62, which was sold at auction by Christie's in London in December 2000.
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■ Brazil
Rescue crews find body
Rescue crews on Thursday found the final missing body of seven victims buried in the collapse of a subway station construction site two weeks ago. The body had yet to be identified, but it was believed to belong to 60-year-old office worker Cicero Augustinho da Silva, who went missing after being seen near the construction site at the time of the Jan. 12 accident, said a Sao Paulo fire department spokesman. Silva was believed to have died when a 40m-wide circular hole lined with concrete gave way without warning at the site, swallowing pedestrians, dump trucks and a minibus passing nearby.
■ Mexico
Transsexual rights bill
A congressman said on Thursday he will submit a bill in March that would amend the country's Constitution to guarantee the rights of transsexuals and change civil laws to ensure they can legally change their name and gender. David Sanchez Camacho's bill would insert a paragraph into Article Four of the Mexican Constitution stating that "every person has the right to the recognition and free exercise of their gender identity and their gender expression." Article Four currently guarantees equal rights for women and men and states the rights of children and families, but it does not mention homosexuals or transsexuals.
■ United States
Obama rebuts rumors
The Democratic senator, Barack Obama, has launched an aggressive counterattack against rumors that he is a Muslim and was educated at a madrasah in Indonesia. In an interview with a Chicago television station, Obama denounced what he called a "climate of smear," intended to scupper his run for the White House next year. "When I was six, I attended an Indonesian public school where a bunch of the kids were Muslim, because the country is 90 percent Muslim," he said. "The notion that somehow, at the age of six or seven, I was being trained for something other than math, science and reading is ludicrous."
■ United States
New rocket on schedule
The new rocket that will replace the space shuttle for carrying crews to the International Space Station is on schedule and within weight guidelines, NASA officials said on Thursday. NASA's associate administrator for exploration, Scott Horowitz, said that the design of the rocket, the Ares I, was progressing well and that the rocket should be ready for its first test flight on schedule in 2009. Horowitz acknowledged that the design had increased in weight, a subject of speculation in the aerospace industry, but said that was not unexpected in the early stages of rocket development. Horowitz said the rocket, derived from the solid-rocket boosters that help lift the shuttles, was well within performance limits to lift the 25-tonne Orion crew exploration vehicle into orbit.
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