■VENEZUELA
Government crushes guns
Battling with one of the world’s highest murder rates, the government on Wednesday crushed more than 30,000 guns seized from the streets during police raids this year. Police used blow-torches to chop up some of the shotguns and pistols. They compacted weapons including home-made pistols into a 5 tonne block, Interior Minister Tarek Al Aisammi said. With 13,000 murders in 2007, the last time figures were published, violent crime consistently registers as a main concern in opinion polls. Gun laws are lax in the South American oil exporter. The government estimates there are 6 million firearms circulating among the population of about 28 million. The murder rate is about eight times that of the US.
■PERU
Metal found in stomach
Doctors in the north have removed almost a kilogram of nails, coins and scrap metal from a man’s stomach, a surgeon that operated on him said on Wednesday. “The patient came in with severe abdominal pains. After examinations we discovered that he had hundreds of nails in his stomach,” said Carlos Delgado, a surgeon at the hospital in the town of Cajamarca. Requelme Abanto Alvarado was admitted to the hospital on Friday. After a two-hour operation, doctors removed 900g of nails, coins and scrap metal from his stomach, as well as a small knife.
■UNITED STATES
House of horrors busted
A mother of seven is accused of running a house of horrors for pets at her suburban home, forcing her children to help torture them and burying at least 20 dogs in her backyard — animals neighbors now fear were beloved pets that mysteriously disappeared over the years. Sharon McDonough pleaded not guilty last week to six counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty on suspicion of abusing five dogs and a cat found crammed into cages, covered in feces and urine, their coats matted with filth. A judge has taken away custody of the 43-year-old woman’s six young daughters. McDonough’s neighbors began fearing their missing pets met a worse fate than the abused animals after her son led officials to a backyard filled with the shallow graves of 20 dogs.
■BOLIVIA
IDs relaxed for transvestites
Transvestites will be allowed to have their national ID pictures taken as women. Public defender Patricia Flores said that after three-years of negotiations, her office, Bolivian police and transvestite and transgender groups have agreed to grant people the right to be photographed looking however they want. Until now, police have forced transvestites to be pictured in keeping with their biological gender. The ID cards will still list their legal names. Flores said the initiative was inspired by claims of discrimination.
■UNITED STATES
Driver distracted by pelican
Police say a low-flying pelican distracted a driver in Texas, causing him to veer off a road and drive his US$1 million sports car into a salt marsh. La Marque police Lieutenant Greg Gilchrist said the man claimed he lost concentration while driving his French-built Bugatti Veyron on Wednesday because the bird swooped into sight. Gilchrist said the driver dropped his phone, reached down to pick it up and strayed into the brackish water in La Marque, about 56km southeast of Houston. Gilchrist did not know if the car could be salvaged, but said that “salt water isn’t good for anything.”
RSS