World Briefs

The Wrigley Building (right), a noted Chicago skyscraper, has been sold by the company that gives the building its name.

The Wm Wrigley Jr Co. announced the building has been sold to the Chicago-based investment firm of BDT Capital Partners. Group co-founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky and Zeller Realty Group are minority partners in the deal.

Earlier this year, Wrigley announced plans to relocate about 250 employees from the white terracotta-clad building by the end of 2012 to the company’s campus on the Chicago River.

The buyers are seeking landmark status for the 90-year-old building. (AP)

Artistic elephant

An elephant at Whipsnade Zoo has taken up an unusual hobby.

Karishma spends her days painting and can regularly be seen at the Bedfordshire zoo holding the brush in her trunk.

Karishma, 13, a female Asian elephant, arrived at the zoo four years ago and became a mother for the first time last April. Visitors to the zoo this weekend will be able to see a selection of Karishma’s artwork, which is on display as part of Elephant Appreciation Day, to raise money for the Zoological Society of London’s elephant conservation projects. (PA)

Frozen body

Police in Austria have found the body of an 89-year old woman in her freezer and said her nephew has admitted placing her there.

Police spokesman Markus Haindl said yesterday that the unidentified suspect claimed his aunt died a natural death in Neuhofen/Ybbs, a town about 100 km west of the capital, Vienna.

He cited the nephew as saying he put her in the freezer instead of reporting her death so he could continue to collect her monthly care allowance cheque.

Police are waiting for the results of a post-mortem examination to see if there was foul play involved in the death. (AP)

Friends for tea

Workers who shout down the phone, never offer to make tea and coffee, or bring smelly food into the office for lunch, are among the top bugbears of employees, according to a new study.

The irritating habits of staff dominate a list of activities that annoy colleagues, although computer problems also rank highly among office staff across the country.

A survey of 1,500 adults by Samsung Electronics found that slow computer systems, printer jams and unnecessary emails were a daily misery for workers. But the research also showed that loud colleagues, annoying mobile phone ringtones, people eating smelly food in the office or never offering to make a round of drinks also ranked. (PA)

Taxed after death

A Frenchwoman found proof of the maxim that nothing in life is certain except death and taxes, when she received a bill in the name of a grandfather who died in 1949.

“I didn’t think I’d hear any more about my grandfather, whom I never knew,” Martine Courtois said, after reading the €13 euro land inheritance tax bill addressed to her grandfather, Pierre Barotte.

“Everything was done legally at the time, we didn’t get any demands from the tax office,” said Courtois, who lives in the small eastern town of Bruyeres.

The local tax office said the situation was entirely normal and “happens all the time” when an unpaid tax debt, through interest or late payment fees, goes beyond €12. (AFP)

Not leaving nest!

After several failed attempts to convince their 41-year-old son to leave the nest, a Venetian couple have hired a lawyer in a last resort bid for domestic peace and quiet, Italian media reported yesterday.

The parents were said to be exhausted by fending for their adult offspring, cooking his meals and doing his washing and ironing. “We cannot do it anymore. My wife is suffering from stress and had to be hospitalised,” said the father, who approached the legal department of a consumer association, Adico, for help.

Reports said the son also had aggressive tendencies. Adico lawyer Andrea Camp said a letter was sent to the son, advising him to leave the house within six days or face legal action. If he refuses, lawyers will ask a court to issue a protection order to the parents against their son. (AFP)

Red-faced army

The French army top-brass were left red-faced when after a mobile command post worth €600,000, complete with military computers, was stolen, judicial sources said yesterday.

The modular command post system, which resembles a cargo container, was discovered during the search of a warehouse in Bobigny, northeast of Paris, that had been rented by a man suspected of fraud, a judicial source said. The seven-metre unit contained computers with “non sensitive” data on them, a source close to the enquiry said.

The army noticed the command post was missing from its Montlhery barracks south of Paris during an inventory on July 18. (AFP)