News OF THE World

SWITZERLAND

Food lines are stretching more than a mile in Geneva, Switzerland, as COVID-19 takes a devastating toll on its economy.

Though the city may be famous for chocolates and watches, the pandemic has revealed stark levels of social and income inequality in Europe’s banking capital.

While the country has largely avoided widespread deaths seen in some of its neighboring countries, the global economic fallout has hit working class in the Alpine city particularly hard.

JAPAN

A mother and son in Japan are suing over a local ordinance limiting Japanese children to 60 minutes of video-game time a day.

The suit has received support from the Kagawa Bar Association, which believes the law violates Japan’s constitution.

The lawyers say the new rule violates Japanese citizens’ right of self-determination and runs afoul of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

ST. LUCIA

A new type of iguana has been “discovered” on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia.

While the species has been known to locals for centuries, it was only this year that researchers at Fauna and Flora International determined the reptile was part of a distinct genetic subgroup. St. Lucia is known locally as Lyanola or “land of the iguana.”

CANADA

An Ottawa man stopped in his tracks when he discovered a moose taking a dip in his swimming pool.

“It’s still a mystery to me how she got in the backyard,” homeowner Paul Koch told local media. “She’d have to jump a minimum of a 5 to 5-and-a-half-foot fence to do it.”

The moose, Koch said, seemed lonely.

GIBRALTAR

Gibraltar has banned tourists from touching its monkeys.

The British overseas territory enacted the new rule as a precaution to prevent the peninsula’s Barbary macaques from contracting COVID-19.

The troops of macaques are Europe’s only native monkey population.

Historically, the species is prone to succumb to human diseases like hepatitis.