Anti-Terror cops investigate a bizarre murder in remote Norway – Egypt’s deposed leader tells his trial court he’s still President – Brazil makes an embarrassing admission – And Toronto’s alleged crack-smoking mayor says.. well, you gotta read this.

A man with a knife killed three people on a bus in western Norway on a remote mountain road near the town of Ardal, 220 kilometers northwest of Oslo.  The victims are the male driver, a male passenger and a young woman.  The suspect is said to be a man in his 50s, of foreign origin.  Police say there appears to be no link between the victims and the suspect, who was subdued and is under observation in hospital.  A special terrorism unit is investigating.

At least 13 people are dead in gunfights in the Mexican border town of Matamoros, just across from Brownsville, Texas.  And mobile phone cameras were rolling near at least one of the conflicts.  Eight of them died in a gunfight with Mexican armed forces, the others died in clashes between rival drug gangs.  The heads of the rival cartels were arrested in July and August and the violence might be related to succession battles.

French police have released a sketch of the suspect in the murders of four people in the Alps last year, a case that has stumped French and British investigators.  Three members of the British-Iraqi al-Hilli family and a bicyclist who might have seen the killer were all shot to death near Lake Annecy on 5 September 2012.  The artist's impression shows him wearing a goatee and a rare type of helmet that opens from the side.  Only 8,000 of the ISR-type GPA helmet were ever made, so cops the helmet is an important piece of the puzzle.

Four suspects have been charged in the siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, where 67 civilians were killed.  The four foreign men are believed to be ethnic Somalis, and are accused of sheltering the attackers beforehand.  None of the men is accused of actually taking part in the massacre.

Egypt’s Muhammed Morsi told a court he is still president and the court had no jurisdiction over him.  Morsi and 14 other Muslim Brotherhood figures are on trial for allegedly inciting the murders of protesters outside the presidential palace in late 2012.  Public disgust with Morsi’s misrule and attempts to change the constitution into an Islamist document led to the military ousting him on 3 July 2013.  He’s been held in an undisclosed location ever since, but will be transferred either to a prison or a hospital, depending on the results of a medical check.

Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party and the Liberal and Socialist opposition have broken off talks on a caretaker government because the parties couldn’t agree on an interim prime minister.  Distaste with the ruling party grew pretty fast after two opposition leaders were assassinated in succession.  The religious Ennahda party agreed to turn the reins over to a caretaker government until elections, but now the opposition accuses it of stalling.

Brazil is acknowledging that it spied on diplomatic targets from the US, Iran, Russia, and other countries.  The surveillance happened ten years ago, according to a report in a Sao Paulo newspaper, and included following the diplomats on foot and by car, and photographic their activities.  Although modest by comparison, it puts Brazil in the position of justifying its own spy activities while condemning the US National Security Agency, which tapped President Dilma Rousseff’s phone and emails.

A major bill to end workplace discrimination against LGBT people passed an important test in the United States Senate.  The ENDA bill is expected to pass the full US Senate later in the week.  But conservative leadership in the lower (and I mean lower) House of Representatives is refusing to bring it up for a vote.  Currently in 29 American states, workers not only can be fired for being Gay or Transgender – They can be fired if the boss merely thinks the worker is Gay or Transgender. 

A city in denial.  Toronto’s conservative mayor Rob Ford says he is not a drug addict, after police confirmed they have the now-legendary video of him smoking a glass pipe with known crack dealers.  And despite having been witnessed (and laughed at) several times on raging, drunken benders, Ford says he enjoys “a few cocktails” but is “not an alcoholic”.  Currently, North America’s fourth largest city has no mechanism to remove an alleged crack-smoking mayor and police won’t arrest him.  This is actually happening.