■UNITED STATES
Recession cuts divorce rate
Financial woes often drive couples apart, but the current recession seems to be having the opposite effect, with less couples able to afford the cost of a divorce. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) said more than half of the respondents to its latest survey among its 1,600 members had cited a drop in divorce filings during the current recession which has cut jobs, salaries and house prices. In total, 57 percent of the attorneys noted fewer divorce filings since the last quarter of last year. Only 14 percent noted an increase in filings during these difficult times. “The current economic climate is proving to be far more unforgiving than estranged couples seeking a divorce,” AAML president Gary Nickelson said.
■CANADA
Folk singer killed by coyotes
An up-and-coming folk singer has died after being attacked by coyotes in a national park in eastern Canada. Taylor Mitchell, a 19-year-old from Toronto, was hiking alone in the Breton Highlands national park, Nova Scotia, on Tuesday when the attack occurred. Brigdit Leger, a Royal Canadian mounted police spokeswoman, said other hikers heard Mitchell’s screams and called for help. “The coyotes were extremely aggressive,” Leger told the Toronto Star. Officers shot one of the animals, but Mitchell had suffered multiple bites. She was airlifted to a Halifax hospital in a critical condition and died on Wednesday.
■UNITED STATES
Iraqi attacks own daughter
Police in a Phoenix suburb say an Iraqi immigrant has been arrested in Georgia for allegedly running his daughter over with his car because she was becoming “too Westernized.” Police in Peoria are releasing few details, but say 48-year-old Faleh Almaleki is in custody. They aren’t saying where he is being held. Twenty-year-old Noor Faleh Almaleki is hospitalized in serious condition. Police say the Almalekis moved to the suburb of Glendale from Iraq during the mid-1990s.
■MEXICO
Gunmen kill 15 on ranch
Gunmen killed 15 people on an isolated ranch in northern Mexico, including a prominent farmworker leader, in the latest grisly attack in an area overrun by drug gangs, local police said on Friday. Margarito Montes, a well-known organizer of agricultural laborers, was among the bodies found riddled with bullets in trucks in the town of Hornos in southern Sonora, a state bordering the US, a police spokesman said. The cause of the crime was unknown, but the killings had many of the hallmarks of hits by drug cartels, who often use automatic weapons to murder people in groups to send a message to rivals.
■CANADA
Canada, Greenland ink pact
Canada and Greenland agreed on Friday on a series of measures aimed at protecting shared populations of polar bears that roam between the Nunavut territory and the huge Arctic island, officials said. Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice made the announcement during a conference call from Kangerluusuaq, Greenland, where he signed a memorandum of understanding with Greenlander Minister of Fisheries, Hunting and Agriculture Ane Hansen. The deal proposes the creation of a joint committee that would recommend a total allowable — and sustainable — annual polar bear harvest and a fair division of the harvest. Hunting polar bears has been banned since 1973, but indigenous peoples are exempt out of respect for their ancestral traditions.
RSS