French shops and office buildings will have to turn off their lights at night to save energy and reduce light pollution, the French Environment Ministry said yesterday.
From July 1, all non-residential buildings will have to switch off interior lights one hour after the last worker leaves the premises. All exterior and shop window lighting will have to be turned off by 1am.
Local authorities will be able to allow exceptions for Christmas lighting and other local events.
The new law will save about two terawatt/hours of electricity a year – the equivalent of the annual consumption of 750,000 households, the ministry said.
Shouting love for wife in public
Love was in the air in a Tokyo park as normally staid Japanese husbands gathered to scream out their feelings for their wives, promising gratitude and extra tight hugs.
With modesty and reticence traditionally valued over outspokenness, expressing deeper feelings like love has long been hard in Japan. That’s why dozens of Japanese men gather once a year ahead of January 31, which in Japanese is a play on the words for “Beloved Wife”, to let their feelings fly.
Held for locking girl in a cage
Police in New Mexico found an eight-year-old girl locked in a cage in a darkened mobile home, authorities said, adding that they have charged the girl’s adoptive mother, who had gone to the movies, with child abuse.
Cindy Patriarchias, 33, and her boyfriend were arrested after police found the girl at the weekend, Las Cruces Police Department spokesman Dan Trujillo said.
He said police, acting on a tip from the woman’s estranged husband, found the girl in the corner of a bedroom locked inside the cage, about four feet high, slightly more than two feet wide and about five feet long.
The homemade wooden structure had two latches and a baby crib mattress on the floor, Trujillio said.
Naples’ buses run out of fuel
Naples residents were left stranded at bus stops across Italy’s third biggest city yesterday as the public transport operator, hit by government spending cuts, ran out of fuel.
“Due to a lack of fuel our services are not guaranteed,” transport operator ANM announced on its website and at bus stops around the city, enraging commuters.
“Can someone tell me if the C27 is going to show up? I have to get into the centre,” Luana Pisano wrote on ANM’s Facebook page. Several residents demanded a refund for their season tickets.
ANM said it hoped its services would be back to normal today.
Naples, a popular tourist destination due to its art, history and proximity to Pompeii and the Amalfi coast is also renowned for its chronic problems of poverty, organised crime and ineffective administration, illustrated by a spectacular failure in recent years to deal with garbage disposal.