■ITALY
Seven nabbed in crackdown
Police arrested seven people on Tuesday in a crackdown on an organized crime group that allegedly tried to buy Lazio soccer club with laundered money. Three people were still at large in a probe that targeted nine Italians and a Hungarian, who tried to acquire the club through money coming from the illicit activities of a part of the Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate, Rome police said in a statement. Among those still being sought was former Italy and New York Cosmos striker Giorgio Chinaglia, who is believed to have fled to the US two years ago.
■ITALY
Jeans are not a chastity belt
The nation’s top criminal court has upheld the sexual assault conviction of a man who argued that the victim’s jeans prevented the attack. The Court of Cassation had provoked outrage in 1999 by ruling that it was impossible to rape a woman wearing jeans because it would be impossible to take them off if she were resisting. On Monday, the same court rejected an appeal by a 37-year-old man convicted by a lower court for sexually assaulting a teenager. The man claimed that it would have been impossible for him to carry out the attack because the girl had been seated and wearing jeans at the time. The court said jeans were “no chastity belt.”
■GERMANY
One million evaporate
Government statisticians said Tuesday they think 1 million Germans simply don’t exist. Everyone living in the country is supposed to register their name and address at a local government office, and de-register themselves when they move away. The Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden uses the registrations to alter a 1987 West German census and numbers compiled in 1981 in East Germany. The office said on Tuesday it believed the current population tally of 82.2 million was 1.3 million too high because many people failed to de-register themselves when moving.
■GREECE
Lesbos residents lose case
A court ruled on Tuesday that people from the Aegean island of Lesbos did not have sole claim to the name Lesbian. A group of islanders filed a lawsuit against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece in April, accusing it of insulting locals, who are called Lesbians. The islanders wanted to bar the group from using the word “Lesbian” in its name. “The word lesbian has been associated with gay women for the past few decades but we have been Lesbians for thousands of years,” islander Dimitris Lambrou said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Cleese prefers lemurs
Monty Python star John Cleese said on Tuesday that having a lemur named after him was a greater honor than receiving a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. The 68-year-old paid tribute to lemurs as he visited a zoo in Bristol. “I’ve had a species named after me. A Swiss guy discovered it. He called and asked if I will give him permission to name it after me,” Cleese said. “I would rather have that than a knighthood or peerage.”
■UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Bale bailed
Actor Christian Bale, star of the new Batman movie The Dark Knight, on Tuesday denied allegations of assault made by his mother and sister. He spent several hours at a London police station before being released without charge, his Los Angeles-based spokeswoman said. His mother and sister filed charges after an incident at his London hotel on Sunday.
■UNITED STATES
L.A. bans plastic bags
The Los Angeles City Council voted to ban plastic shopping bags from stores beginning in 2010. Shoppers can either bring their own bags or pay US$0.25 for a paper or biodegradable bag. The council’s unanimous vote on Tuesday also puts pressure on the state legislature, which is considering a bill that would impose bag recycling requirements on stores. City officials said their ban would not be implemented if the state passes the bill and requires at least a US$0.25 charge per bag. The ban will minimize cleanup costs for the city and reduce trash that collects in storm drains and the Los Angeles River.
■UNITED STATES
Actress Getty passes on
Emmy-winning actress Estelle Getty, best known as a wise-cracking octogenarian on the popular 1980s sitcom Golden Girls, died on Tuesday. She was 84. Getty, spent four decades toiling in show business before winning critical recognition as Bea Arthur’s sassy, 80-year-old mother on the hit show. Born Estelle Scher in New York City in 1923, Getty got her start as a comic at resorts in New York state’s Catskill mountains. She was ultimately cast as the oldest of four female retirees living together on Golden Girls even though she was slightly younger than her screen daughter. Getty won two Emmys for the role.
■UNITED STATES
Viagra works on women
The drug Viagra has proven effective at combating sexual dysfunction in depressed women, a study published on Tuesday said. Sexual dysfunction is a common side effect of antidepressants. This is particularly problematic given that twice as many women as men are prescribed antidepressants, but the most effective drugs used to combat sexual dysfunction in men are not approved for use in women, the authors wrote. Researchers tested Viagra on 98 women whose depression was in remission but were still experiencing sexual dysfunction such as lack of arousal or pain during sex. Only 28 percent of the women taking Viagra said they did not notice an improvement, the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found.
■UNITED STATES
Texas to execute man
Condemned prisoner Derrick Sonnier was being returned to the Texas death house yesterday, seven weeks after a court order spared him from lethal injection and returned him to a cell on death row. Sonnier, 40, was set to die for the slayings of a suburban Houston woman and her two-year-old son almost 17 years ago. Lawyers said there were no appeals pending in the courts. Sonnier was to be executed yesterday.
■UNITED STATES
Former enslaved maids sue
Two Indonesian housekeepers have filed a civil lawsuit against a wealthy Long Island couple who kept them virtually enslaved in their home. The suit filed on Tuesday seeks millions of dollars in damages under the federal racketeering statute. Attorneys for the women say the couple, Varsha Sabhnani and her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, meet the criterion of a racketeering organization under federal law because they conspired to illegally exploit them. Attorneys for the couple did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Sabhnanis were convicted of charges including forced labor. Varsha Sabhnani has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, her husband to three years and four months.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Four days after last scanning in for work, a 60-year-old office worker in Arizona was found dead in a cubicle at her workplace, having never left the building during that time, authorities said. Denise Prudhomme, who worked at a Wells Fargo corporate office, was found dead in a third-floor cubicle on Aug. 20, Tempe police said. She had last scanned into the building on Aug. 16 at 7am, police said. There was no indication she scanned out of the building after that. Prudhomme worked in an underpopulated area of the building. Her cause of death had not been determined, but police said the preliminary
‘DISCONNECTED’: Politics is one factor driving news avoidance, a professor said, adding that people who do not trust the government are more likely to tune it out Hannah Wong cried when the Hong Kong government effectively forced the territory’s Apple Daily and Stand News out of business three years ago. Among the last news firms in the territory willing to criticize the government openly, many saw their end as a sign that the old Hong Kong was gone for good. Today, the 35-year-old makeup artist says she has gone from reading the news every day to reducing her intake drastically to protect herself from despair. Four years into a crackdown on dissent that has swept up democracy-leaning journalists, rights advocates and politicians in the territory, a lot of people
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