A popular US Roman Catholic priest photographed frolicking with a woman on a Florida beach announced he had joined the Episcopal Church to pursue the priesthood in a faith that allows married clergy.
"I've seen with my own eyes how many brothers of mine serve God as married men and with the blessing of having their own families," said Father Alberto Cutie, whose removal from his Miami Beach parish prompted public debate about the Catholic Church's celibacy requirement for priests.
The charismatic 40-year-old is a well-known religious leader in Miami who dispensed relationship advice on Spanish-language television shows, church radio programmes and newspaper columns. (Reuters)
Python invasion
The population of Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades may have grown to as many as 150,000 as the non-native snakes make a home and breed in the fragile wetlands, officials said.
Wildlife biologists say the troublesome invaders - dumped in the Everglades by pet owners who no longer want them - have become a pest and pose a significant threat to endangered species like the wood stork and Key Largo woodrat.
"They eat things that we care about," said Skip Snow, an Everglades National Park biologist, as he showed a captured, 4.6-metre Burmese python to US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who was on his first fact-finding mission to the Everglades since the Obama administration took office. (Reuters)
Alleged killers of albinos on trial
Prosecutors in Burundi asked for life sentences for three people on trial for allegedly murdering albinos to sell their body parts for use in witchcraft.
More than 50 albinos - lacking pigment in their skins, eyes and hair - have been murdered in Burundi and neighbouring Tanzania in recent months.
The prosecutor also sought between 15 and 20 years for another five people for aiding and abetting the crimes.
The accused men have all pleaded not guilty. They were arrested in March in possession of what the prosecutor said were human bones. (Reuters)
Thief 'stoned to death' in Spain
A man who tried to rob an amusement arcade in southern Spain was beaten and stoned to death, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The 37-year-old Spaniard used a knife to try and rob the arcade in the city of Malaga late on Wednesday, before fleeing, El Pais said.
Three customers then rushed out shouting "thief, thief," and were joined by two others. All five then chased him down the street, pelted him with stones and beat him to death. (AFP)
Swiss cleaning bug
A Swiss holiday resort is offering mountain-cleaning courses after an April fools spoof caught the imagination of a nation known for its cleanliness, the tourism board said.
Authorities in Engelberg, an idyllic ski resort where tens of thousands of skiers come annually, said the April fools joke had such global impact that they were now using it as a marketing tool to attract holidaymakers.
"We are offering four weekend courses after which participants can call themselves qualified mountain cleaners," Modeste Jossen, Engelberg cable car services director, said. Participants are awarded a special 'mountain-cleaner badge'.
On April 1 this year, the national tourism board aired an online video to recruit mountain cleaners to keep the country's Alpine peaks in pristine condition all year round.
The video was translated into six languages and more than 30,000 people completed the spoof application to become a mountain cleaner in the first 24 hours of it being posted. (Reuters)
Child kidnappers arrested
Police in south China said yesterday they had arrested members of a gang that kidnapped and sold children, state media reported, as part of a campaign against human trafficking.
Police in Jiangmen city in Guangdong province said they had arrested 10 gang members and rescued 11 children sold on to people in the region and in neighbouring Fujian province, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The children, all boys between the age of three and eight, were sent back to their homes after the gang, headed by a 35-year-old woman, had been broken up, a police officer surnamed Wu told Xinhua.
Six of the children had been abducted between July last year and January, according to Mr Wu.
The head of the gang was arrested in a cement mortar factory in Zhuhai, a city on the border with Macau where she worked temporarily as an operator of a stirring mill. (AFP)