● Zambia. Bus accident kills 26 people. Twenty-six people were killed and 52 injured when a bus burst a tyre and crashed in eastern Zambia, state radio reported yesterday. A police officer said the driver lost control when a front tyre burst on a turn on the way to Lusaka on Saturday. The accident was in Nyimba, 330 km east of the capital. Provincial police commanding officer Chrispin Mudene was quoted by ZNBC as saying 25 passengers died immediately and one person died upon arrival at the Nyimba district hospital.

● HELSINKI. Finnish man, 88, kills wife and daughters. An 88-year-old man shot his two adult daughters and his wife dead in Ylitornio, northern Finland, before killing himself on the day before, police said. ?The man first killed, at home, his two daughters, drove to the hospital, where he shot his wife, who died a little later,? Ylitornio police chief Seppo Kinnunen told Reuters. ?He returned home, where he killed himself.? The two daughters, both about 50-years-old, were mentally impaired, Kinnunen said.

● ROME. Italian kidnaps girlfriend to get ironing done. An Italian man was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend from a pub, taking her home and forcing her to iron his clothes and wash the dishes, police said yesterday. The 43-year-old man dragged the woman out of a pub in the port city of Genoa, shoved her into a car and took her to his home where he made her iron and wash dishes after threatening her, they said. Police arrived at his house after being tipped off by a friend of the woman who watched the scene at the pub. The man, who was apparently furious at his ex-girlfriend for leaving him, was arrested on charges of kidnapping, police said.