A Brazilian judge has ordered bookstores to ensure that the erotic trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey is out of the reach of minors.

For the first time in more than a decade, the black market pharmaceutical peddlers are back on Nasser Khosrow Street near Tehran’s main bazaar. “Medicine, medicine,” the street dealers shout.

The ghetto called Aroma reeks of putrefying trash collected by its residents for recycling. Half-naked children with grimy faces play on muddy dirt roads lined by crumbling shanties of tarpaulin walls, cracked tin roofs and communal toilets.

A US Army brigade will begin sending small teams into as many as 35 African nations early in 2013, part of an intensifying Penta-gon effort to train countries to battle extremists and give the US a ready and trained force to dispatch to Africa if crises requiring the US military emerge.

Russia and India signed new weapons deals worth billions of dollars Monday as Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to further boost ties with an old ally. Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hailed cooperation between their countries as officials signed a $1.6 billion deal for India to purchase 42 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and a $1.3 billion contract for the delivery of 71 Mil Mi-17 military helicopters.

An explosion at a shop selling CDs killed 4 people in a town northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Police officials say a bomb hidden in a plastic bag exploded near the shop yesterday afternoon in the town of Qazaniyah. 11 people were wounded in the attack, and the shop was completely destroyed. Qazaniyah is 180 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.

An experimental South Africa team romped to an eight-wicket win over New Zealand in their opening Twenty20 game after the Black Caps slumped to their third-lowest T20 score in a dismal start to their tour.

US President Barack Obama on Friday was to nominate Senator John Kerry as his next secretary of state, a senior administration official said, making the first move in a sweeping overhaul of his national security team heading into a second term.

Superstorm Sandy was not kind to the arts community. It upended not only paintings, equipment, tools and paper, turning them into tangled and soggy heaps, but also the livelihoods of hundreds of artists who have helped make the New York area a dynamic art capital.

The gunman who massacred 26 children and adults at a US school forced his way in, the police said Saturday, as a stunned world asked how a 20-year-old described as brilliant but remote would have been