Rome’s homeless are about to get some TLC. The Vatican is finishing renovations on public restrooms just off St Peter’s Square which will include three showers and a barber shop for the homeless.
Each “homeless pilgrim”, as Vatican Radio called them, will receive a kit including a towel, change of underwear, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream.
The showers will be open every day except on Wednesday when the piazza is full for the Pope’s general audience.
Haircuts will be available on Mondays. Rome’s barber shops are closed on Mondays, so barbers volunteering on their day off and students from a local beauty school will be donating their time.
Pope Francis’s alms-giver, Mgr Konrad Krajewski, said it is necessary because the homeless are often shunned for their hygiene. (PA)
Biggs’s watch goes under hammer
A wristwatch and signet ring worn by Ronnie Biggs during the Great Train Robbery are to be offered for sale at auction.
Northamptonshire-based auctioneer JP Humbert said the items belonging to Biggs, who died in 2013, would go under the hammer on February 18. Other items related to the infamous 1963 heist will also be up for grabs, including original £1 and 10 shilling notes stolen in the robbery. (PA)
In for just one penny more
The boss of Poundland believes its £55 million takeover of 99p Stores will make the smaller chain more efficient – as customers would no longer have to wait for cashiers to fish around for a penny change.
It has agreed to buy the family-run firm in a cash and shares deal 14 years after it was founded with a single store in Holloway, north London, by entrepreneur Nadir Lalani.
Poundland chief executive Jim McCarthy said customers would not mind paying the extra 1p as the 251 stores are converted, arguing that the quality of its offering “more than compensates”. (PA)
Men hold safest Parliament seats
The safest seats in Parliament are more likely to be held by men and people who come from outside the local area, according to research.
A study by think-tank Demos found that of 97 MPs with a majority above 15,000, 15 per cent were women and 39 could be identified as having close connections with the area before being selected as a candidate. By contrast, in 41 constituencies with majorities under 1,000, 34 per cent were female and 73 per cent were local.
Overall, around 23 per cent of MPs in the Commons are women. (PA)
Underwired bra saves woman
A woman hit by a stray bullet in Brazil had an unlikely saviour – an underwired bra.
Ivete Medeiros, a shopkeeper in the Amazonian city of Belem, heard a commotion and emerged from a market to investigate, according to the Globo television network. A thief holding up a passer-by on the other side of the street opened fire, and a bullet struck Medeiros near the heart.
He husband told Globo he thought his wife had died, but the bullet lodged in the underwire of her lace bra. She said: “It was a deliverance from God.”
Flocking together for best bird
Dogs are not the only animals that vie for best in show. Hundreds of breeds of pigeons compete in their own version of the Westminster show, strutting on long, thick legs or fluttering curly, lacy feathers in their bid to be best bird.
These pigeons are not the nuisance flocks that swarm around food scraps in public areas. They are genetically rich birds, including variations bred to look like turkeys or sound like trumpets, and drew thousands of enthusiasts – including ex-boxer Mike Tyson – to the National Pigeon Association’s 93rd annual Grand National Pigeon Show at the Ontario Convention Centre in southern California. (PA)