WORLD BRIEFS

VENEZUELA: Chávez to miss swearing-in

The National Assembly approved a plan Tuesday for President Hugo Chávez not to attend his inauguration Thursday and to be sworn in later before the Supreme Court. Opposition lawmakers criticized the delay, arguing that it violates the constitution. Vice President Nicolas Maduro said that on doctors' recommendation, Chávez's recovery "should be extended beyond Jan. 10." The leader's illness will keep him in Cuba past the key date.

POLAND: Holocaust desecration probed

Polish prosecutors are investigating a Swedish artist's claim that he used the ashes of Holocaust victims to make a painting, an act that could carry a prison term. Carl Michael von Hausswolff wrote on the website of the Bryder Gallery in Lund, Sweden, that he made a painting using ashes he took from crematorium furnaces in Majdanek, a Nazi death camp in eastern Poland, on a visit there in 1989. Spokeswoman Beata Syk-Jankowska said Tuesday prosecutors in Lublin were investigating the artist's claim.

AUSTRALIA: It's cooler, but fire peril persists

Emergency personnel battling more than 100 wildfires in New South Wales warned that properties remain at risk even as record temperatures eased yesterday. A fire ban across the state was still in force even as cooler air led to canceling emergency warnings.

MEXICO: Wild dogs maul 4 to death

Police scoured an urban park for feral dogs and tested dozens of them on Tuesday in a hunt for those responsible for four fatal maulings by strays that roam Mexico City. Near the scene of the attacks in the Iztapalapa district, 25 dogs were seized, but photos of them brought a wave of sympathy and doubts about their involvement in the killings.