The sons of a Russian cosmonaut and a US astronaut met in space on Tuesday when spaceman Sergei Volkov welcomed American Richard Garriott on board the International Space Station.
Mr Garriott, a computer game developer who paid $35 million for his trip to space, arrived with two crewmates on board a Soyuz capsule, which docked with the space station two days after blasting off from a launch-pad in Kazakhstan. After the hatches were opened between the capsule and the station, Mr Volkov - whose cosmonaut father was orbiting the earth when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 - welcomed Mr Garriott with a hug.
US space agency Nasa said they are the first children of previous space adventurers to meet in orbit.
Customs find Picasso sketches
Swiss customs found a book of sketches by Pablo Picasso which could be worth 1.2-1.7 million Swiss francs (€1.1 million) in a passenger's luggage at Zurich airport, the government said yesterday.
The passenger, whose identity was not disclosed, used the green "nothing to declare" customs channel and the 14 original drawings were discovered during a baggage search.
The passenger, who according to Swiss law should have declared the sketch book to customs authorities, can expect to be fined, the government statement said.
Swiss authorities will also investigate if the incident is part of a wider plot to smuggle cultural goods. An auction house dated the drawings to May and June 1971.
Makes kebabs next to corpse
A man discovered making kebabs near a corpse has been banned from managing food businesses and fined £3,800, Wolverhampton City Council said on Tuesday.
Jaswinder Singh, 45, was found by police making kebabs at Pappu Sweet Centre and Catering in Wolverhampton in August in a kitchen where a dead man was lying on a sofa.
Apart from the corpse, the policeman discovered another man smoking and spitting repeatedly on the floor, while in a room near the kitchen, a defrosting chicken, oozing blood and juices, was covered with flies.
Environmental health officers had visited the shop over a number of months previously where they had warned Mr Singh to improve his food hygiene standards after finding rat droppings as well as a dead rat beneath a pot.
Police guard ATMs against fraud
Thousands of Japanese police were standing guard over bank cash machines yesterday, in a bid to protect pensioners from the growing threat of fraud.
Conmen posing as anything from family members in trouble to tax officials promising a refund have tricked mostly elderly people into transferring more than 25 billion yen (€181.9million) to their accounts via ATMs last year..
About 56,000 police across the nation took part in a campaign to keep guard over cash machines yesterday, because most people's pensions are paid into their accounts on the 15th of each month.
The fraudsters have taken advantage of the fact that most Japanese people regularly pay bills and make transfers using the ATMs at their banks.
Rabbit invasion shuts Mandela museum
South African's Robben Island museum will be closed while authorities cull a colony of rabbits that has invaded the site where Nelson Mandela was jailed.
Authorities have said the museum, popular with tourists wanting to see the former president's cell, would be temporarily closed while the rabbits were killed to protect plant life and historical buildings at the World Heritage site.
"The current population is so large that it threatens to permanently damage the island's sensitive vegetation, and poses a serious threat to other fauna species," Seelan Naidoo, the museum's acting chief executive said in a statement.
He said the exact number of rabbits was unknown.
The island museum, located offshore from Cape Town, will be closed between November 1-16.