Saudi Arabia’s religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine’s Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items coloured scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolising love, newspapers said.

“They visited us last night,” the Saudi Gazette quoted an unidentified florist as saying.

It is not unusual for the Saudi vice squad to clamp down ahead of Valentine’s Day, which it sees as encouraging relations between men and women outside of wedlock, the newspaper said.

Saudi Arabia imposes an austere form of Sunni Islam which prevents unrelated men and women from mixing, bans women from driving and demands that women wear a headscarf and a cloak.

Relations outside marriage are strictly banned and punishable by law.

More than 160 feral cats and kittens have been rescued from the site of the London 2012 Olympics as demolition work continues at a pace.

A local animal charity has been allowed access to the site to ensure the safety of the cats that have taken refuge in the various industrial buildings that are being bulldozed.

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) said on Friday that 168 animals had been discovered and were now in the care of the Celia Hammond Animal Trust.

The ODA, which has also re-housed newts, frogs and fish from the east London site, said demolition work was expected to be completed in March with construction on the main venues beginning later this year.

An Australian man was convicted on Saturday of killing his wife and then hiding her body in a metal drum in his garage for 23 years.

A Supreme Court jury in the southern Victoria state found Frederick Boyle, 58, killed his 30-year-old wife Edwina Boyle in October 1983, and then hid her body in the large metal drum.

The trial heard the murder came to light when Boyle’s son-in-law opened the drum and found a bag of women’s clothing during a clean-up of the family home in 2006. Two weeks later he found human remains in a garbage bin in the garage.

Boyle had pleaded not guilty to the murder and said he hid the body after finding his wife dead in bed. He told their children his wife had left him and run off with a truck driver.

But prosecutors said Boyle shot his wife in the head.

Boyle remains in custody and will be sentenced later this month.

Police have arrested a motorist they say had a 24-pack of beer strapped in with a seat belt but had a 16-month-old girl unrestrained in the back seat with the toddler’s mother.

Tina D. Williams was pulled over in St. Augustine on Sunday for allegedly running a red light.

A 24-pack of Busch beer was strapped in with the passenger-side seat belt, according to an arrest report. The girl was in the back seat with 20-year-old Amber Tedrick, who is the toddler’s mother.

Williams, 46, said she didn’t know why the child wasn’t restrained.

Williams refused to take a breath test and a deputy found two metal pipes commonly used to smoke drugs in her purse, authorities said.

Williams was charged with driving under the influence, child abuse, possession of drug paraphernalia and driving without a license, a jail official said. She remained in the St. Johns County jail Tuesday after bail was set at $31,000.

The jail did not have the name of her attorney. It was not clear if Tedrick would face any charges, but the child was released to her care, according to The Florida Times-Union.

Motorists in northern Mexico who are caught dabbing on lipstick, shaving or carrying a pet at the wheel will now face hefty fines as authorities try to cut down on traffic accidents.

Putting on make-up or shaving with an electric razor will land drivers fines of up to 346 pesos ($32) in the northern Mexican city of Torreon from this month, Mexican media reported on Saturday.

Along with a slew of higher fines for common traffic offenses such as driving while intoxicated, speeding, and talking on a telephone without a headset, Torreon city hall said new misdemeanors included throwing trash out of a car window, and driving with another person or an animal on a motorist’s lap.

City halls across Mexico are stiffening traffic laws as motorists in Mexico regularly ignore stop lights, drive drunk or with children in the front seat, and carry passengers in the back of pick-up trucks. Fatal accidents are common.