Olympic flies

Beijing, Aug. 26 (AP): To help Beijing present a spotless image at next year’s Olympics, a pair of farmers are trying to rid China’s capital of flies.

Guo Zhanqi and Ji Guijun have been staking out parks and public washrooms to target the flies’ breeding grounds, the state-run China Daily has said. The two have videotaped flies to better understand their prey and have offered to buy flies dead or alive at 2 yuan (25 cents) apiece. Their goal is eradicating 80 per cent of Beijing’s insects before next August’s games.

Shoe soup

Jerusalem (Reuters): Israeli police have arrested a woman who stole a pair of shoes when she returned to the store hours later to exchange them because they did not fit her son. “Instead of exchanging the shoes for another pair, she exchanged them for a criminal record,” an official in the northern town of Safed said.

Snake row

Belfast, Northern Ireland (AP): A Northern Ireland man bit his girlfriend’s pet snake in half during a fight and remarked that it “tasted lovely,” lawyers have said. Shane Cooke, a 33-year-old bricklayer, was arraigned in Belfast High Court on charges of assaulting his girlfriend, Coleen McGleenon, and fatally torturing her royal python on August 4. “Your snake tasted lovely,” he was quoted as saying by McGleenon’s lawyers. He is also accused of head-butting her.