World Briefs

Brazilian authorities seeking to take a bite out of crime caught a lucky break when a purse-snatcher unwittingly left behind key evidence that led to the thief’s arrest: his own dentures.

The robber grabbed a woman’s handbag in Severina, about 430 kilometres from Sao Paulo, and managed to escape. But the news quickly spread within the community. The thief would have remained at large had it not been for an alert farmer who found the dentures and turned them in to police. Investig-ators promptly showed up at the home of 34-year-old Milton Cesar de Jesus, who was missing most of his front teeth.

“He was told to put on the dentures and they fit perfectly. You couldn’t say they weren’t his,” town commissioner Aparecido Martins said.

The accused was left without his false teeth once again, TV stations showed yesterday, as police had taken the dentures into custody as evidence. (AFP)

Four-year wait

A Philippine politician finally took his seat in the Senate yesterday, four years after being robbed of an election victory.

Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel was sworn into office representing the impoverished southern island of Mindanao after a tribunal ruled he was the real winner of the last available seat in the 2007 senatorial elections.

“... After a four-year struggle, (my victory) is now a reality,” Mr Pimentel, 47, said.

Mr Pimentel had run in the 2007 polls as part of the senato-rial slate opposing then-President Gloria Arroyo’s ruling party. An Arroyo ally, Miguel Zubiri, was originally named winner of the last senatorial seat and had served in Parliament since then. But Mr Pimentel had insisted he had been the victim of vote fraud.

The election tribunal finally ruled this week that Mr Pimentel had indeed won by more than 258,000 votes ahead of Mr Zubiri, who resigned from the Senate last week. (AFP)

Close award

Glenn Close, one of Hollywood’s most fêted actresses, will receive a lifetime achievement award at next month’s film festival in San Sebastian in northern Spain, organisers said yesterday.

Ms Close will also attend the festival to present her latest film, Albert Nobbs, set in 19th-century Ireland, in which she plays a woman who disguises herself as a man to get a job in a hotel.

Ms Close, 64, is best known for her film roles in Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons.

She will receive the festival’s Donostia Award for her film career on September 18. The Donostia Award has been given out each year at the festival since 1986 to “a great film personality in recognition for their work and career”.

Past recipients include Gregory Peck, Bette Davis, Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Richard Gere and Woody Allen. (AFP)

Deadly colleagues

Factory workers found themselves working alongside some deadly colleagues when three black widow spiders dropped out of an aircraft engine imported from the United States. The men, employees at jet engine maintenance company TC Power, were working on the engine at the factory at Barton-upon-Humber, north Lincolnshire, when a “black, leathery” spider appeared.

The workers trapped the spider in a glass and captured two others before a fourth was spotted out of reach in the frame of the engine – leaving the men to work around the poisonous guest. Stuart Elliott, managing director of the company, said the engines were imported from Kansas and arrived via Amsterdam. (PA)

Supergene

A single “supergene” allows butterflies to perform feats of mimicry that confused Charles Darwin, research has shown. Many butterflies adopt wing patterns similar to other species that taste bad to birds, and thereby avoid being eaten. How this evolutionary conjuring trick, known as Mullerian mimicry, occurs has long been a mystery.

Scientists found the answer by studying the tropical butterfly Heliconius numata, which can resemble several other butterfly species in the Amazon rainforest. The findings are reported in the online edition of the journal Nature. (PA)

Cosmetic benefits?

An Austrian museum has fired an employee for washing his hands and face with his urine. Alfred Zoppelt says he was fired after 23 years of working as an attendant at the Belvedere, a castle in Vienna with major art works. He says his practising of urine therapy, which some claim gives medical and cosmetic benefits, was previously “never a problem”. Mr Zoppelt, 57, said he was told in his notice statement: “You regularly rub urine into your skin, particularly the face and hands. With this, you soil your place of work ... and threaten the health of your co-workers.” (PA)