Singaporean housewife Siti Khadijah Abdul Rahman accumulated a few thousand dollars' worth of gold accessories over the past two decades, but now a rising cost of living is forcing her to pawn them. With a stretched household budget that must also cater to school expenses for her two teenage children, the 49 year-old is pawning her gold to relieve pressure on her security guard husband, who earns Sg$1,500 ($1,211) a month. "Pawning is better than going to friends or family when you have budget problems," said Abdul Rahman. "When I have money, I will claim it back."

SYDNEY - An Australian politician says he has learned a valuable lesson in social networking after he "liked" a Facebook photo without realizing that it showed a teenage prankster exposing himself. Western Australia Minister for Education Peter Collier said he clicked the "like" button under what he thought was an innocent photo of the then-16-year-old in late 2011. Collier apologized Thursday and said he had no idea that the teen, who was otherwise fully clothed and posing alongside an older man, was playing a prank commonly known as "sneaky nuts."

EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Alison Redford is dismissing opposition accusations her team took a baseball bat to democracy in a spring legislature sitting that featured last-minute, pell-mell lawmaking. "I think it was a really good session in terms of what we were able to accomplish in terms of legislation," Redford told reporters Thursday as she stood in front of many caucus members on the steps of the legislature. "I'm proud of the work that our caucus has done. I'm proud of the work that ministers have done."

SEROPEDICA, Brazil - There's a storage room just off a university lab that gives students more experience than many can handle: Skinned pigs and cats, disembodied cow livers, intestines, brains and the other unidentifiable detritus of years' worth of dissections fill a dozen wading pool-sized vats to the brim. With the veterinary department's incinerator long on the fritz, the stomach-turning, formaldehyde-drenched mass of animal carcasses and organs grows by the day.