That $53.5 million (€61.6 million) New York penthouse apartment, derided by its last owner as "attic-like" with oppressive ceilings and a terrible view of Central Park, is back on the market.
The buyer of the apartment in New York's famed Plaza Hotel, home to the children's book character "Eloise", has ended his legal battle with the building's developers in a confidential settlement, his lawyer said this week.
Y. David Scharf, who represents Russian financier Andrei Vavilov, said the two sides had reached an agreement but he declined to elaborate. The real estate website StreetEasy.com now shows that the apartment - made up of two separate penthouses built on top of the Plaza - was still on the market with no buyers having closed, the New York Times reported.
Japan sewage yielding gold
Resource-poor Japan has just discovered a new source of mineral wealth - sewage. A sewage treatment facility in central Japan has recorded a higher gold yield from sludge than can be found at some of the world's best mines.
An official in Nagano prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, said the high percentage of gold found at the Suwa facility was probably due to the large number of precision equipment manufacturers in the vicinity that use the yellow metal. The facility recently recorded finding 1,890 grammes of gold per tonne of ash from incinerated sludge.
That is a far higher gold content than Japan's Hishikari Mine, one of the world's top gold mines, owned by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd, which contains 20-40 grammes of the precious metal per tonne of ore.
The prefecture is so far due to receive five million yen (€43,425) for the gold, minus expenses. It expects to earn about 15 million yen for the fiscal year to the end of March from the gold it has retrieved from the ashes of incinerated sludge.
Scrap workers find €100,000 in safe
Workers at a steel plant near Berlin found €100,000 in a safe that a bank had sent to be scrapped - but they did the decent thing and gave it back.
An employee at Germany's Postbank had failed to take out the cash before sending the safe to the scrapyard.
Spokesman Ralf Palm blamed "the carelessness of an employee when a branch office moved in December".
Spying for Russia from prison
A former senior CIA officer convicted in 1997 of giving secrets to Russia kept trying to spy from his prison cell, US prosecutors charged in an indictment released yesterday.
A federal grand jury in Oregon indicted Harold Nicholson, 58, and his son, Nathaniel, 24, on seven counts of conspiracy, espionage and money laundering.
It said the elder Mr Nicholson sought to relay messages to Russia from his cell in a federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon, through other inmates at the prison and his son.
With Nathan making trips to Cyprus, Mexico and Peru, the two collected tens of thousands of dollars from Russia for Harold Nicholson's past spying and passed additional information to Russia, the indictment says. Among the meeting places was a TGI Friday's restaurant in Cyprus.
The information Russia sought included details about his 1996 arrest.
Among the secrets he gave Russia that led to his initial arrest, the elder Nicholson acknowledged passing on details of CIA case officers, including one intended to be posted to Russia, and the name of the Moscow station chief along with staffing information.
African worm threat
A plague of hungry caterpillars known as army worms has eaten crops and plants in 100 Liberian villages and may spread across West Africa if left unchecked.
Liberia, ravaged by a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003, declared a national state of emergency this week due to the army worms, a type of moth caterpillar which grows to five centimetres long and can swarm to destroy large swathes of vegetation.
Millions of the caterpillars have stripped fields and polluted wells and streams with their excrement in Bong County, northeast of Liberia's capital Monrovia.
The Rome-based FAO said six communities across the border in neighbouring Guinea had already been hit by the army worms.
Rent-a-date partner
Among the millions of young Chinese couples heading back to family homes for the Lunar New Year holiday this week, some have a secret - they are travelling not for love but money.
Young Chinese from smaller towns still face withering parental pressure to marry in their early twenties, and some pay good money to hire the right type to bring home and please anxious parents.
"Girl friend wanted, will pay per day," wrote one man, on the popular Baidu website (tieba.baidu. com). "Requirements: pretty, good body, around 1.6 metres, under 23 years old. Please contact me if you are interested."