Kozani

Schools remained closed in the areas of Florina, Grevena and Kozani on Monday as a cold snap that set in over the weekend continued with low temperatures and snowfall.

The bad weather was forecast to spread to the Aegean, the Peloponnese and Thrace with storms expected in parts.

Police in the northern town of Kozani seized 6 kilograms of saffron crocus stamens valued at 2,740 euros and arrested two men, aged 23 and 24, on Tuesday.

The two suspects reportedly stole the stamens from an underground basement owned by a 54-year-old resident of Kozani.

The town is renowned for its crocus flowers that are cultivated by saffron producers. 

A technical high school in the town of Siatista in Kozani, northern Greece, reported on Wednesday that 2,700 liters of heating oil had vanished from a supply tank.

According to school authorities, the building's doors and windows showed no signs of a break-in and it was not clear how the heating oil was siphoned out.

Police have launched an investigation.

A 25-year-old woman flying in from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil via Rome was arrested on Tuesday at Athens International Airport for attempting to smuggle more than 6 kilos of cocaine hidden in a parachute in her luggage.

Police said they were investigating whether the woman, a foreign national, was part of a wider network smuggling drugs into Greece from Latin America.

A referee officiating a soccer match in the northern Greek town of Kozani between teams of the bar associations of Athens and Thessaloniki was physically assaulted after awarding a penalty shortly before the end of the game.

According to reports, the referee was assaulted by two lawyers who are members of the Athens bar, along with supporters who invaded the pitch.

Police in the northern Greek city of Kozani seized more than 200 kilograms of unrefined hash and arrested four men, according to authorities on Monday.

Working on a tip, police stopped a car and its 25-year-old driver on Sunday and found 208.58 kilograms of hash. They arrested the driver and his 32-year-old passenger, a foreign national.

Forest rangers from Kozani in northern Greece retrieved the body of a young brown bear, an endangered species, from the side of the national highway on the outskirts of the city on Saturday.

According to conservation experts, the bear was a male, about a year old and weighing 65 kilos.

The process for adjusting objective values (property rates used for tax purposes) is fast turning into a fiasco, as it appears unlikely the project can be completed in time, while the Finance Ministry doesn't seem to have an alternative plan either.

On the one hand, Greece is a country where the state's insensitivity means that wheelchair users can't get to work on public transportation because it's still impossible for them to access.

On the other, it is a country of initiative, where a town like Kozani has mustered its forces to help a boy get the money he needs for treatment in the US.

The adjustment of the "objective values" (property rates used for tax purposes) is evolving into a fiasco: Not only is the time remaining for the credible completion of the project running out fast, but several areas in Greece won't get any proposals from the property surveyors who have undertaken to determine the new zone prices around the country.