WORLD BRIEFS

BRAZIL: 41 dead in wide flooding

Officials scrambled Tuesday to get food and medical aid to two flood-hit states where torrents of water ripped through towns, killing at least 41 people and driving 120,000 from their homes. Floodwaters toppled bridges and cut roads to dozens of cities. The heavy rains started last week and within two days dumped a month's worth of water on areas of Alagoas and neighboring Pernambuco state. Some small towns were nearly destroyed. Officials touring the hardest-hit regions near the city of Uniao dos Palmares in Alagoas said it looked like a tsunami had hit.

TURKEY: Kurds bomb bus, killing 5

Kurdish rebels detonated a remote-controlled bomb in Istanbul on Tuesday, killing five people and wounding 12 on a bus carrying military personnel and their families, officials said. Authorities stepped up security across Turkey, fearing more attacks. The dead included the 17-year-old daughter of an officer, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. The bombing raised the number of Turkish soldiers killed in rebel attacks since Friday to 17.

PERU: Marriage offers claimed

Murder suspect Joran van der Sloot is talking plenty - just not to the judge investigating his case. The 22-year-old Dutchman is quoted in an interview published Tuesday in the Netherlands as boasting that he has received several marriage offers from women while in his jail cell in Lima, where he is awaiting trial for allegedly killing Stephany Flores, 21. "One of them even wants me to get her pregnant," De Telegraaf quoted Van der Sloot as saying.

BRITAIN: A deep austerity budget

Britain joined the rest of Europe on Tuesday by announcing a five-year deficit reduction plan worth billions of dollars, despite pleas from President Barack Obama last week for G-20 countries to pace fiscal tightening. Britain's decision to cut rather than spend follows a wave of austerity packages across Europe, including almost $100 billion worth of cuts in Germany and public-sector pension reforms in France.