IN BRIEF (Page 25)

Smoker dies in bedding blaze

An 80-year-old female smoker died after her bedding caught fire on Sunday, the Beijing Times reported yesterday. The aging widow, surnamed Tang, lived alone in Chaoyang district. Her community-paid nanny was out when the accident happened. Neighbors called the police at 8 pm after seeing clouds of smoke bellowing from her house, and it took firefighters 30 minutes to extinguish the fire. Tang, who was said to smoke 10 packets of cigarettes a day, was confirmed dead at the scene. A preliminary investigation shows a cigarette butt might have started the fire.

Merry Mart robbed