World Briefs

A three-foot-long boa constrictor that slithered away from its owner on a Boston subway train a month ago has been found in an adjoining car.

A commuter spotted Penelope the snake and alerted staff who took the train out of service to search it.

Penelope’s owner, 30-year-old Melissa Moorhouse, had travelled about with the snake around her neck and lost it between two stations. She says she will pay more attention the next time she takes Penelope out in public. (PA)

Stupid smoking

Tenants started a blaze that caused $30,000 worth of damage to their house after using a hole in the floor as an ashtray.

Paul Corah, a Fire and Rescue spokesman in Portland, Oregan, said: “That’s not careless smoking, that’s stupid smoking.”

He said the caller who reported the fire also hung up on the emergency operator and then refused to talk when they tried to call back for more details. No one was injured. (PA)

Jet boxes

A new bid to find the black box flight recorders from the Air France jet that crashed in the Atlantic two years ago will get under way next month.

France’s Transport Ministry says the new search will use specialised submarines and under­water robots to search an area of about 3,900 square miles for wreckage of flight 447.

The Airbus A330 disappeared on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in June 2009.

All 228 people aboard were killed including five Britons and three Irish doctors.

The Transport Ministry said in a statement that search vehicles should be in place in the second half of March. The search is scheduled to last until July.

Three previous attempts failed to find the jet’s voice and data recorders. (AP)

Cocaine clothes

Italian police said yesterday they had uncovered a drug trafficking ring that used clothes dipped in liquid cocaine to smuggle the drug into Italy from the Dominican Republic.

Jumpers and jackets coated in cocaine were smuggled in regular suitcases through Rome’s Fiumicino airport, the customs police said, as it announced the results of a drug bust in which 37 people were arrested.

Pictures issued by the police showed officers handling innocuous-looking and neatly-folded jumpers that were said to have been dipped in the drug.

The customs police said it had busted “an international criminal organisation” operating in Britain, France, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain. Those arrested included 14 Italian nationals and four citizens of The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United States. (AFP)

Standing tall

South Korea’s human rights watchdog has told two matchmaking agencies to stop height discrimination when signing up men as members.

The National Human Rights Commission ruled in favour of a 39-year-old man who filed complaints against two agencies. They refused to accept him as a member due to his “short” height of 158 centimetres (5 feet two inches).

“The commission finds it an unreasonable act of discrimination for matchmaking agencies to reject male applicants because of their short height and urges their corrective action,” it said in a statement.

The watchdog said it amounted to a “breach of human dignity” for the agencies to deny applicants on grounds of their physical characteristics. (AFP)

Head lice at No.10

David Cameron has warned visitors to Downing Street to look out for nits after two of his children came home from school with head lice.

The Prime Minister told journalists arriving at No. 10 for a briefing that if they found their heads were itching, it was down to his daughter Nancy, seven, and son Arthur, four.

“If you find them when you get home, I apologise. Let me know and and I’ll send you a comb and some ointment,” he was reported as saying. Mr Cameron’s spokesman dismissed suggestions that the problem was spreading through No. 10. “I think it is contained,” he said. (PA)

Bagel battering

A New Jersey woman hit a nine-year-old on the head with a frying pan after he dropped a bagel and her dog ate it, police say.

The boy told officers 45-year-old Donna Ambrosio-Ruglio yelled at him that the cream cheese on the bagel would kill the dog.

Ms Ambrosio-Ruglio was reportedly caring for the boy, who suffered an abrasion to his head and bruises to his back, at her home. She is being held in the Morris County Jail on $75,000 bail, charged with child endangerment. (PA)

Breaking wind

Malawian lawmakers will next week debate a law change to criminalise public farting, which a Cabinet minister said had been encouraged by democracy.

Since the country embraced multi-party politics 16 years ago people had felt free to fart anywhere according to justice and constitutional affairs minister George Chaponda.

“It was not there during the time of dictatorship because people were afraid of the consequences. Now because of multipartism or freedom, people would like to fart anywhere,” he said.

The southern African state is a conservative society with punishable previous bans on long hair for men and trouser-wearing for women. (AFP)