Southern Brazil has been hit by heavy rain, leading to mudslides and flooding, including in a residential area of Blumenau, above, about 300 miles southwest of Sao Paulo. At least 100 storm-related deaths were reported across the region. More rain was possible this weekend.

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CIUDAD JUAREZ — Nearly 1 million Mexican migrants living in the U.S. are expected to head home for the holidays, but relatively few are returning loaded down with gifts and cash this year.

Many are simply moving back after losing their jobs in the U.S. economic crisis, a disappointing turn for an annual journey that has become a cherished tradition in towns and villages across Mexico.

Mexican Immigration Commissioner Cecilia Romero expects the usual number of Mexicans to return between Thanksgiving and Christmas, despite a spike in drug violence along the border, but says "some who are coming back are deciding to stay in Mexico for awhile."

Greater border security, the U.S. crackdown on its undocumented population and the economic downturn have discouraged would-be migrants from heading north, legally and illegally. The Mexican government says emigration has dropped 42 percent over the last two years.

MEXICO CITY — Kidnappings in Mexico have dropped by 18 percent and murders by 7 percent since governors, mayors and federal officials signed a national security accord to battle rising crime in August, officials said Friday.

The average number of kidnappings fell to about 72 a month since the deal was signed, down from more than 90 per month in the first eight months of the year, according to data presented by public security system chief Monte Alejandro Rubido.

Some 943 people have been kidnapped across Mexico this year, he said.

Reliable data on kidnappings is hard to come by in Mexico because most abductions go unreported for fear of police involvement. The non-profit Citizens' Institute for Crime Studies estimates the real kidnapping rate is more than 7 times higher than the official rate, at about 500 per month nationwide.

DORASAN STATION, South Korea — It carried barely any cargo, but a once-daily train between bitterly divided North and South Korea had been freighted with hope that the neighbors — still technically at war after more than half a century — were on the right track toward peace.

The service, hard-won through a decade of reconciliation efforts, was launched last year to great fanfare but was halted indefinitely by Pyongyang on Friday amid souring relations since Seoul's conservative President Lee Myung-bak assumed office in February.

Shuttling back and forth from Dorasan Station on the heavily fortified border, the train occasionally carried construction materials north and returned home with shoes, underwear and other goods. But it ran nearly empty most of the time, including during its last journey Friday, with South Korean companies preferring to use a road running parallel to the railway.

GENEVA — Dr. Daniele Zullino keeps glass bottles full of white powder in a safe in a locked room of his office.

Patients show up each day to receive their treatment in small doses handed through a small window.

Then they gather around a table to shoot up, part of a pioneering Swiss program to curb drug abuse by providing addicts a clean, safe place to take heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory.

The program has been criticized by the United States and the U.N. narcotics board, which said it would fuel drug abuse. But governments as far away as Australia are beginning or considering their own programs modeled on the system, which is credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts.

Swiss voters are expected to make the system permanent Sunday in a referendum prompted by a challenge from conservatives.

FLORENCE — Donatello's "David" was returned to its original splendor as restorers completed the first cleanup in a century of the bronze statue that is a symbol of the Renaissance.

Restorers said Friday they used new cleaning techniques, including lasers, to remove encrusted dirt and grime from the 1.58-meter (5.18-foot) statue depicting the biblical hero who slew the giant Goliath.

"The 'David' is incomparably more beautiful now than ever before, even though it would seem impossible," Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi, director of the Bargello museum that hosts the statue, told reporters during the unveiling of the restored work.

"We could only intervene now with the newest laser techniques; even the most delicate mechanical procedure would have hurt it," she said.

HAMILTON — Bermuda's plan to feature a local bird on its new currency has become an ornithological faux pas.

They put the wrong bill on the bird on the $50 bill.

Bermuda plans to introduce a colorful new line of notes next year.

But one of Bermuda's most prominent naturalists says that the new $50 note features the red-billed tropicbird instead of the local white-tailed tropicbird.

Ornithologist David Wingate says he is appalled to see a bird that does not nest in Bermuda and has rarely been spotted on the island.

Monetary officials apologized Thursday for the error. But they say the red bill of the larger bird looks better against the pale yellow background than the orange of the local bird, and they won't change the note.