OTTAWA - Before she became a part-time prostitute late last year, 24-year-old Krissy Summers was looking up at a mountainous $25,000 student loan from the University of Michigan. Seventeen weeks later, she was debt-free. And drug-free, disease-free and bruise-free — not to mention free to leave the world's oldest profession whenever she felt ready to go back to school, this time for a master's degree.

TORONTO - Sex workers and their supporters marched and rallied in several Canadian cities Saturday to call for the decriminalization of prostitution, days before a Supreme Court hearing on whether laws restricting the sale of sex should be tossed out. Dozens of demonstrators brandished red umbrellas — a symbol for sex workers' rights — and chanted "Sex work is real work, decriminalize now" at a Toronto march, saying the laws subject street sex workers to harm by forcing them to make snap decisions about whether a client could turn violent.

VANCOUVER - A coalition of groups preparing to intervene in a Supreme Court of Canada hearing into the future of this country's prostitution laws is advocating for a "third way" that would ensure sex workers aren't turned into criminals while ensuring johns and pimps can still be prosecuted for buying and selling women and girls.

The outspoken mayor of Japan's Osaka city said Tuesday he had cancelled a trip to the United States after sparking a furore by saying "comfort women" played a "necessary" wartime role. Toru Hashimoto, the joint leader of the national Japan Restoration Party, had been set to visit San Francisco and New York to meet local politicians and businessmen starting from June 10. But on Tuesday he told reporters the trip was off. "Travelling to the United States under the present circumstances will not bring any merit and will cause difficulties for local people," he said.