A consumer alert for the millions who have seen the Sex and the City movie: There is no such book as “Love Letters of Great Men,” which Carrie Bradshaw reads while in bed with Mr Big. The closest text in the real world apparently is Love Letters of Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day, first released in the 1920s and reissued last year by Kessinger Publishing, which specializes in bringing back old works. Richard Davies, press manager for online seller AbeBooks.com, said he had received hundreds of queries about the book’s existence. Enough readers have been directed to the Kessinger anthology, on AbeBooks and elsewhere on the Internet, that it ranked No. 134 on Amazon.com on Tuesday afternoon.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Charles pays off royal debt
Prince Charles on Tuesday paid off a family debt incurred more than 350 years ago — but was spared the accumulated interest that could have run into tens of thousands of pounds. Charles handed over £453.15 (US$885.04), which King Charles II failed to pay to the Clothiers Co in Worcester, central England, in 1651. The king had commissioned uniforms for his troops to fight the forces of Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester that year. Prince Charles handed over the cash on a visit to the former headquarters of the royalist troops in the Faithful City, so called because it remained loyal to his ancestor during the English Civil War. The high commissioner of the Clothiers Co accepted the money and gave Charles a receipt.
■UNITED STATES
Highway trooper charged
A South Carolina Highway Patrol trooper who was caught on video ramming a suspect with his patrol car was indicted on Tuesday on a federal civil rights charge, the justice department said. Steve Garren was indicted by a federal grand jury in Greenville on a charge of willfully depriving a man of his constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer, authorities said. Garren is white; the suspect he rammed is black. State and federal authorities began investigating the highway patrol in March after videos emerged that showed troopers using a racial epithet and ramming their cruisers into fleeing suspects. The head of the patrol, as well as the head of the agency that oversees it, both resigned in February amid charges of racism among troopers.
■BRAZIL
Police find drugs in books
Police have discovered nearly 4kg of cocaine hidden among children’s books and cards being sent through Rio de Janeiro’s international airport for Europe, officials said on Tuesday. Sniffer dogs and X-ray scans revealed the drugs during a check in the postal section of the airport. Police have been carrying out sweeps of correspondence being sent abroad since the beginning of last month.
■FRANCE
Couple lose hospital suit
A French Muslim couple who sued a hospital after their son was born handicapped were turned down and ordered to pay court costs on Tuesday on the grounds they refused the presence of a male doctor during labor. Mohammed Ijjou was born severely handicapped on Nov. 8, 1998, as a result of neurological complications during birth. According to the appeal court ruling, his father Radouane Ijjou physically barred a male intern from entering his wife’s room for half an hour, citing religious reasons, after a midwife asked for help with the labor.
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