■ UNITED KINGDOM
Gerry Adams' driver a spy
MI5, the domestic security service, took one of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams' personal drivers into protective custody on Friday after he was unmasked as a British agent. MI5 advised Roy McShane to leave his west Belfast home after it emerged that an internal Irish Republican Army (IRA) investigation found he had been working for the British for more than a decade. McShane was part of a pool of drivers for senior Republican leaders from the time of the IRA's first ceasefire in 1994.
■ UNITED STATES
'Icebox' city defends title
International Falls is officially the "Icebox of the Nation." The Minnesota city on the Canadian border had been fighting the ski town of Fraser, Colorado, for the legal right to the trademark. International Falls claimed victory this week when the US Patent and Trademark Office sent the city attorney a certificate granting the city Reg. No. 3,375,139. "I ran over to the attorney's office and kissed the certificate," Mayor Shawn Mason said on Friday. She said the city has used the icebox title to market itself to industry as the premier site for cold-weather testing.
■ GREECE
Lost phone causes trouble
A young actress who forgot her cellphone in an Athens cab was blackmailed for 1,500 euros (US$2,200) when the driver threatened to post sex footage stored inside the phone on the Internet, the police said on Friday. The 30-year-old driver was arrested on Thursday after the unnamed actress gave him the demanded sum in marked currency. The driver, who had initially tried to peddle the sex footage to a reporter, told police he was facing "serious financial difficulties."
■ SWITZERLAND
Two Picassos pinched
Two oil paintings by Pablo Picasso worth nearly 5 million Swiss francs (US$4.5 million) have been stolen from a museum in the eastern town of Pfaeffikon, police sources said on Friday. Police said the circumstances surrounding the theft of Tete de Cheval and Verre et pichet on Wednesday evening were still unclear, but that the thieves managed to leave the building around 7pm. The security alarm was set off as they left the museum. The two paintings belong to the Sprengel museum in Hanover, Germany, which has offered a reward for their safe return.
■ UNITED STATES
Winehouse gets visa
A day after saying "no, no, no" to troubled British pop singer Amy Winehouse, US officials on Friday granted a work visa that would allow her to perform at tonight's Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. But Winehouse, who is in rehab for drug addiction, will instead stick with her plan to sing live via satellite from London. "Unfortunately, due to the logistics involved and timing complications, Amy will not be coming to the US this weekend to perform at the Grammys in Los Angeles," said Tracey Miller, the singer's spokeswoman.
■ UNITED STATES
Bogie's mistress dies
Verita Bouvaire Thompson, the mistress and confidante of Humphrey Bogart, has died at age 89. Thompson died of natural causes in New Orleans on Feb. 1, her boyfriend, Dean Shapiro said. In 1982, Thompson wrote a book called Bogie and Me: A Love Story in which she described a 14-year love affair with Bogart.
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