World Briefs

A Pomeranian dog was kicked out of a US resort town after getting in trouble for biting and other bad behaviour.

Municipal Judge Brooke Peterson told the dog's owner, Melinda Goldrich, that if the dog is seen again in Aspen, it will be rounded up by animal control officers and put to death. Ms Goldrich was in court on a charge of keeping a vicious dog.

An Aspen, Colorado fitness club employee told The Aspen Times that the Pomeranian, named Gizmo, bit her in August while it was tied to a fence. The dog served 10 days in an animal shelter.

Ms Goldrich had been under a court order to not leave Gizmo unattended after the dog bit another person in February. She also was cited in 2006 for the animal's bad behaviour. (PA)

Arrested over 'skyscraper plot'

US federal officials said a 19-year-old Jordanian national was arrested on charges he plotted to bomb a downtown Dallas skyscraper.

A statement from the US attorney's office in Dallas said Hosam Maher Husein Smadi was arrested yesterday after placing what he thought was a bomb at the 60-storey Fountain Place office tower.

The decoy device was allegedly given to him by an undercover FBI agent.

The statement said the FBI has been monitoring the man, who lived in the small north Texas town of Italy.

He is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

A US attorney's spokeswoman said his office knows of no connection between the Texas case and yesterday's arrest of a man facing similar charges in Illinois. (PA)

Brad Pitt honoured for humanitarian work for New Orleans

Actor Brad Pitt was honoured for his humanitarian work in helping rebuild hurricane-ravaged New Orleans at former US President Bill Clinton's philanthropic summit, the Clinton Global Initiative.

Mr Pitt was presented with a plaque from the US Green Building Council which said the actor and his foundation Make It Right had created the "largest and greenest single-family community in the world".

"Make It Right has exceeded my expectations," said Mr Pitt who set up the foundation in 2007.

"Our criteria from the beginning were at odds, to say the least. We demanded that these homes be sustainable, that they have aesthetic qualities ... that they be storm resilient and take safety in mind of the families who live there and that they would be affordable."

Make It Right has created 13 homes in the New Orleans area the Ninth Ward, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Each house is unique and has eco-friendly features like green roofs, which can cut heating and cooling costs dramatically. (Reuters)

Valuable painting stolen from museum

Thieves have stolen a painting by Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte in broad daylight from a Brussels museum dedicated to his life and works, the museum's curator said.

The 1948 nude, entitled Olympia and estimated to be worth up to €3 million, was stolen by two people, one of them armed, the official said.

A Brussels police spokesman said: "They fled on foot with the painting and left the scene in a car. The investigation is continuing but we have found no trace of the culprits."

The area was being checked for fingerprints, he said.

The museum, in the west of the Belgian capital, is in a house where the painter lived and worked for 24 years, and completed around half of his works. Apart from paintings, there are about 100 personal objects and documents and can only be visited on request. (AFP)

Teacher suspended over website nudity

A teacher at an all-boys grammar school has been suspended after naked pictures of him surfaced on a gay porn website, it was revealed yesterday.

Links to images of Sam Handley, 25, on the internet spread round the Harvey Grammar School in Folkestone, Kent, the Sun reported.

Using the pseudonym "Mike", the PE teacher posed naked in one picture sprawled on a bed with his legs apart, and in another he is captured resting against some furniture.

The 1,120-pupil school, established in 1674 by relatives of Dr William Harvey, the eminent physician who discovered the circulation of blood, has faced controversy before.

Temporary music teacher Kristina Howells was sacked three years ago after appearing topless in a women's magazine as part of an article entitled How Normal Are Your Breasts?

Gay couples fit to adopt - study

Gay or straight, the sexual orientation of adoptive parents does not have an impact on the emotional development of their children, according to a new study.

But researchers said that if parents were satisfied with the adoption process, had a stable income and functioned well as a family, the risk of emotional problems in children was reduced.

"We found that sexual orientation of the adoptive parents was not a significant predictor of emotional problems," Paige Averett, an assistant professor of social work at East Carolina University, said in a statement.

"We did find, however, that age and pre-adoptive sexual abuse were," she added.

Averett, Blace Nalavany, also of East Carolina University, and Scott Ryan, dean of the University of Texas School of Social Work, questioned nearly 1,400 couples in the United States, including 155 gay and lesbian parents.

They used information from Florida's public child welfare system and data from gay and lesbian couples throughout the US for the study. (Reuters)