A round-up of today's world news stories in brief
Police arrest George Michael
LONDON – Singer George Michael has been arrested after his car hit a building on a road in north London at the weekend, police said yesterday. Police were called to the scene at about 3.35am on Sunday.“The man aged in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of being unfit to drive,” a spokesman said.
Police do not name individuals when making preliminary statements, but the spokesman was speaking in response to questions about Michael, who is 47.
He was taken to a north London police station and bailed to return in mid-August. The star was banned from driving for two years in 2007 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service after admitting driving when unfit due to drugs. – (Reuters)
Money spills on to highway in Italy
ROME – It wasn’t exactly pennies from heaven but it was perhaps the next best thing: a truck carrying €2.5 million in coins overturned on a highway in southern Italy and motorists picked up the money like mushrooms. In the incident, the truck’s rear door popped open and what followed must have seemed like a massive slot machine win.
Before police arrived, motorists stopped their cars and made off with about €10,000 in €1 and €2 coins being transported from the Italian mint to local banks.
The story and pictures made the front page of many Italian papers yesterday alongside grim articles about the coming austerity budget that will force many to make sacrifices.
One called it “The miracle of the coins”. – (Reuters)
Oz band must pay 5% of royalties from 1980s hit 'Down Under'
SYDNEY – Men at Work, the Australian band that won a Grammy award in 1983, must pay 5 per cent of the royalties collected on their hit Down Underfor having used a flute riff from a 1934 song Kookaburra Sits in The Old Gum Tree.
Australian federal court judge Peter Jacobson in Sydney, who ruled in February that Down Underinfringed the copyright of Kookaburra, rejected Larrikin Music Publishing's claim for as much as half the royalties the band earned from the song.
“To most listeners, the similarity can only be heard after this is pointed out to them,” Judge Jacobson wrote in his 39-page ruling.
Down Undertopped the charts in the US and UK and was the theme song for the victorious Australia II yacht team in the America's Cup in 1983, the year the band won the Grammy. – (Bloomberg)
Charges filed over video of US attack in Iraq
BAGHDAD – The US military has filed charges against a soldier detained in connection with the leak of a classified video showing a 2007 US helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq.
Army specialist Bradley Manning (22) was charged on Monday with two criminal counts including allegations he disclosed classified national defence information, exceeded his authorised access to US computers and transferred classified data onto his personal computer, the military said in a statement.
The charges were brought under the military code of justice and could result in a trial by court martial. – (Reuters)