<B>MOSCOW. Mom’s solution to cramped living </B>A Russian woman paid a former convict to kill her 17-year-old son because she was fed up with sharing her small one-room apartment with him, the newspaper “Izvestia” reported recently. The 42-year-old crane operator paid the man a 2,100 rouble ($80) deposit to kill her son. But the would-be hitman told the police who set up a sting operation and arrested her when she handed over the 900 rouble ‘completion’ payment. The woman and her son shared her tiny apartment and there were frequent rows, which became worse when the son’s girlfriend became pregnant. “The woman decided that by snuffing out her son she could solve her housing problems,” the paper said.

<B>TOKYO. Serial lingerie thief arrested </B> Police found more than 4 000 pieces of lingerie in the home of a Japanese construction worker who used climbing skills developed on his job to steal women’s underwear. Police believe that Shigeo Kodama, 54, amassed the 3,977 panties, 355 bras and 10 pairs of stockings over a six-year period. He was arrested in February after he stole underwear from two houses, and police later raided his home.

HONG KONG. Woman’s brush with death.</B>A Hong Kong woman somehow swallowed her toothbrush but still managed to dial 999 and call for an ambulance, a newspaper reported yesterday. The 42-year-old woman’s brush with disaster happened yesterday morning when she slipped, jamming the offending 15-cm implement down her throat. The instrument was eventually extracted with endoscopic surgery.