TORONTO

Mayor hit with yet another accusation of impropriety

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford once made players on a high school football team roll in geese droppings, according to newly released documents.

The scandal-plagued mayor was fired by a Toronto Catholic school last year as a volunteer coach after he made disparaging remarks to a TV network about parents and their children.

The documents from Toronto’s Catholic School Board come as Ford seeks re-election Oct. 27.

The documents also say he showed up intoxicated for a Don Bosco team practice just before a city championship two years ago. John Royiwsky, a teacher-coach, reports in the documents that after the game in October of 2012 Ford “made the players roll in goose scat” while berating them.

Ford returned to work June 30 after a two-month rehab for drug and alcohol abuse. After months of denials, he acknowledged using crack in a “drunken stupor.”

SAO PAULO

‘Gang’ accused of rain forest damage is taken into custody

The “largest deforestation gang” active in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest has been dismantled, authorities said Thursday.

The federal prosecutor’s office in the jungle state of Para said eight suspected members were taken into custody on Wednesday and could be charged with invading public lands, environmental crimes, forgery, criminal association and money laundering. The prosecutor’s office said the group deforested public lands then sold the property to farmers and ranchers.

The group allegedly is responsible for the destruction of 38,000 acres of rain forest.

The Amazon rain forest is considered one of the world’s most important natural defenses against global warming.

– From news service reports