In a first of its kind move, the Los Angeles city council on Tuesday approved a one-year ban on new fast-food outlets in a low-income neighborhood with a high incidence of obesity and diabetes. The moratorium aims to attract restaurants in the 32-square mile area of South Los Angeles to offer healthier food choices. The ban covers the 500,000 people living in the area, residents of which are mainly Latinos and African-Americans.

Police, with the approval of wildlife experts, have shot a black bear that accidentally stuck a plastic jug on its head when the animal strayed into the community of Frazee during the town's turkey festival. In a statement issued Wednesday, a bear expert at the Department of Natural Resources said they allowed police to kill the bear on Saturday because the animal came close to people. An estimated 1,500 people were in Frazee to celebrate Turkey Day.

Two guards were eaten by a pack of hungry Kamchatka bears in Russia's far eastern region last Thursday. Since then, the Associated Press reported that a pack of 30 bears are stalking two mines of a platinum mining company, causing 400 mine workers to refuse to go to work on the small island where Kamchatka brown bears live in the densest abundance of anywhere in the world.

Suspicious wives from Persian Gulf states are eyeing cosmetic stores in Kuwait that sell a magic potion to catch cheating husbands. Several women, including some from Bahrain, are on the waiting list to purchase Ka-Fashto, which translates to "key to truth," an herbal medicine that claims to detect cheating husbands by their odor.

A nationwide ban on smoking tobacco in enclosed places began here Tuesday, but Dutch cafes and restaurants will permit patrons to smoke marijuana inside their premises. Some 200 inspectors of the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority will ensure compliance to the ban by cafes across the country. The inspectors have been trained to detect tobacco and marijuana, which is allowed in licensed coffee shops.