■UNITED STATES
Church to burn Bibles
A North Carolina pastor says his church plans to burn Bibles and books by Christian authors on Halloween to light a fire under true believers. Pastor Marc Grizzard told Asheville TV station WLOS that the King James version of the Bible is the only one his small western North Carolina church follows. He says all other versions, such as the Living Bible, are “satanic” and “perversions” of God’s word. On Halloween night, Grizzard and the 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church will also burn music and books by Christian authors, such as Billy Graham and Rick Warren.
■MEXICO
Adults swearing a lot
Caramba! A new survey says adults curse an average of 20 times a day, serving up about 1.3 billion swear words daily. The survey of 1,000 adults by the Consulta Mitofsky polling firm says one in 10 Mexicans say they don’t curse at all. Upper class citizens report swearing more than the poor, while people in the heavily Indian southern part of the country curse less than northerners. The poll published on Wednesday has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Poll respondents used their own judgment as to what constituted swear words, but almost all were harsher than “caramba,” roughly the equivalent of “gosh!” Mexico has 65 million adults above the age of 18 out of a population of 107 million.
■CANADA
Terror measure overturned
A court on Wednesday overturned a special counter-terrorism procedure against a Montreal man of Moroccan origin who the government said was an al-Qaeda sympathizer. Arrested in May 2003, Adil Charkaoui spent close to two years in prison under the terms of a “security certificate,” a controversial procedure adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that allows detention without trial and the deportation of foreigners considered security risks. Ottawa decided to impose the measure on Charkaoui on the basis of information from the intelligence services.
■PARAGUAY
Abuse ledgers accessed
Human rights activists gained access on Wednesday to a dictatorship-era military archive that appears to contain long-held secrets about the country’s persecution of opponents during Alfredo Stroessner’s 1954-1989 rule. The basement archive in the Ministry of Defense appears to hold some records about Operation Condor, a coordinated campaign by South American military governments against leftists during the 1970s and 1980s, rights activist Martin Almada said. The discovery was announced hours after Almada gained access to the rows of boxes and yellowed ledgers on Wednesday morning.
■UNITED STATES
‘Godfather’ singer dies
Singer Al Martino, who played the Frank Sinatra-type role of Johnny Fontane in The Godfather and recorded hits including Spanish Eyes and the Italian ballad Volare in a 50-year musical career, died on Tuesday. He was 82. Martino died at his childhood home in the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield, in Delaware County, said publicist Sandy Friedman, of the Rogers and Cowan public relations firm. Friedman did not cite a cause of death. Starting in 1952, Martino was known for hit songs including Here in My Heart and Can’t Help Falling in Love.
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