TOKYO (AP) – Loud music apparently came between two neighbors in Japan – almost continuously for more than two years.

Miyoko Kawahara was arrested and charged Monday on suspicion of inflicting injury by blasting loud dance music almost 24 hours a day on a portable stereo she pointed at her neighbor’s house.

Kawahara, 58, was pumping up the volume since 2002.

Police launched their investigation after doctors diagnosed the 64-year-old neighbor as having insomnia and headaches attributed to the noise, a Nara prefecture police spokesman said.

The spokesman said the two women had spats over minor issues he declined to identify.

Under Japanese law, those convicted of inflicting injury on another person face up to 10 years in prison and a fine.

—

AP Photo NCRAL101

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Harley-Davidson enthusiast Richard Woodworth has an unusual piece of art in his back yard, and it’s causing him quite a headache with the city of Raleigh.

It’s the gnarled metal of a wrecked motorcycle hanging in a tree.

In February, a city inspector walked on Woodworth’s wooded property and decided the dangling metal fell under Raleigh’s code definition of a nuisance motor vehicle. But even though Woodworth lives a mile outside the city limits and has posted no-trespassing signs, he falls under some city code enforcement.

For Woodworth, that meant receiving a city inspections letter telling him to pay a $100 administrative inspection fee and demanding that he remove the bicycle.

Woodworth was among several residents last week who asked council members to rescind such fees.

For now, Woodworth is considering whether to put up a fence around his art or remove the bike’s motor so it’s no longer considered a motor vehicle.

“Just because it looks funny doesn’t mean we ought to be telling people how to run their lives and what they ought to do on their own property,” Regan said. “Just because it’s hanging doesn’t mean it’s going to fall.”

—

VIENNA, Austria (AP) – Sigmund Freud was an excellent high school student, earning top grades in all subjects except – you guessed it – natural sciences, records show.

On Monday, the Vienna high school that Freud graduated from in 1873 handed the Austrian State Archives a book containing files on Freud’s and other students’ grades.

Freud took his high school exams in July 1873 along with eight other students. He was one of two given the evaluation “excellent” in the category “ready for university.”

His only lower grade, “commendable,” was in natural sciences.

Freud, who later became the founder of psychotherapy, received high marks in German and for good behavior. He also did well in religion, Latin, Greek, physics, math, history and geography, and propaedeutics – a subject preparing students for more advanced studies.

The book will be stored along with hundreds of thousands of other files kept at the archive’s building on the outskirts of Vienna. The school has since been renamed the Sigmund Freud Gymnasium.

“This is what could be described as an ‘archive-trophy,”‘ Gerhard Artl, an archives official, said while leafing through the book’s yellowing pages.

—

On the Net:

The Austrian State Archives: http://www.oesta.gv.at/ewelcom.htm

—

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Most Alabama legislators will take a day off with pay Wednesday – some to play golf, some to catch up on their regular jobs and some just to cool off for a day in the midst of a contentious session.

During a session, the House and Senate normally meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays and hold committee meetings on Wednesdays. Speaker Seth Hammett said that, at the request of the Democratic and Republican caucuses, no House committee meetings will be held Wednesday.

He said it’s not unusual to give members a day off during a session so the Democratic and Republican caucuses can hold activities. Ten meeting days remain in the 30-day session.

Lawmakers make about $60 a day while in session. A day’s pay for the 138 members of the House and Senate costs about $8,300, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office.

The break comes at a time when the Legislature appears to be deadlocked in a dispute over budgets to fund education and general state services. The dispute has slowed down action in the House and Senate.

“We need a day to cool off,” House Republican leader Rep. Mike Hubbard said.