Sexy postcards won't have stamp of approval?

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - The "Girl from Ipanema" may soon have to cover up, at least if she wants to appear on a postcard in Rio de Janeiro.

Postcards of bikini-clad beauties frolicking on Rio's famed beaches could be banned from sales in the city's shops and newsstands in an attempt to discourage sex tourism.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Flemish wife calls Walloon spouse "lazy," arrested

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium's history of linguistic bickering between Flemings and Walloons entered a new phase this week when police arrested a Flemish woman for calling her Walloon husband lazy, Belgian media said Thursday.

The 48-year-old husband filed a complaint for racism against his spouse for scratching him and calling him "a lazy Walloon, a slave and an inferior creature," De Standaard daily said.

The 47-year-old woman will appear before a magistrate later Thursday to face charges of racism, the newspaper said.

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British banks ban piggy-banks

British banks are banning piggy banks because they may offend some Muslims.

Halifax and NatWest banks have led the move to scrap the time-honoured symbol of saving from being given to children or used in their advertising, the Daily Express/Daily Star group reports here.

Muslims do not eat pork, as Islamic culture deems the pig to be an impure animal.

Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, backed the bank move.

"This is a sensitive issue and I think the banks are simply being courteous to their customers," he said.

However, the move brought accusations of political correctness gone mad from critics.

"The next thing we will be banning Christmas trees and cribs and the logical result of that process is a bland uniformity," the Dean of Blackburn, Reverend Christopher Armstrong, said.

"We should learn to celebrate our difference, not be fearful of them."

Read the complete article at The Age

Elderly man drives with body in windshield

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) -- A 93-year-old driver apparently suffering from dementia fatally struck a pedestrian and drove for three miles with the man's body through his windshield, police said.

Ralph Parker was stopped after he drove through a tollbooth on the Sunshine Skyway, Traffic Homicide Investigator Michael Jockers said. The toll taker called police, he said.

Parker was not likely to face charges because he did not appear to know what happened or where he was, said Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant in the Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney's Office.

Read the complete article at CNN.com

Young Singers Spread Racist Hate

Duo Considered the Olsen Twins of the White Supremacist Movement



Thirteen-year-old twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede have one album out, another on the way, a music video, and lots of fans.

They may remind you another famous pair of singers, the Olsen Twins, and the girls say they like that. But unlike the Olsens, who built a media empire on their fun-loving, squeaky-clean image, Lamb and Lynx are cultivating a much darker personna. They are white nationalists and use their talents to preach a message of hate.

Known as "Prussian Blue" — a nod to their German heritage and bright blue eyes — the girls from Bakersfield, Calif., have been performing songs about white nationalism before all-white crowds since they were nine.

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

Lynx and Lamb have been nurtured on racist beliefs since birth by their mother April. "They need to have the background to understand why certain things are happening," said April, a stay-at-home mom who no longer lives with the twins' father. "I'm going to give them, give them my opinion just like any, any parent would."

April home-schools the girls, teaching them her own unique perspective on everything from current to historical events. In addition, April's father surrounds the family with symbols of his beliefs — specifically the Nazi swastika. It appears on his belt buckle, on the side of his pick-up truck and he's even registered it as his cattle brand with the Bureau of Livestock Identification.

"Because it's provocative," explains April of the cattle brand, "to him he thinks it's important as a symbol of freedom of speech that he can use it as his cattle brand."

Read the complete article at ABC News

Former teacher pleads guilty to pornography charges

WORCESTER, Mass. A former high school teacher pleads guilty to sending obscene photos, videos and electronic messages to a 16-year-old male student with whom she was having a sexual relationship.

Amber Jennings -- a former teacher at Shepherd Hill Regional High School in Dudley -- was sentenced yesterday to undergo two years of supervised probation for a charge of disseminating harmful materials to a minor under a plea deal.

Jennings, a 32-year-old married mother of two, also was ordered to surrender her teaching license and stay away from the student, now 18. More serious charges were dropped.

Jennings could also be required to register as a sex offender.

The victim's mother said in court that Jennings is an "abuser" who would have been punished more harshly if she were a man.

Read the complete article at Eyewitness News

Spam A Classy Gift In South Korea

(AP) Seoul, South Korea Spam, the tinned meat so often the subject of ridicule in the United States, is no joke here.

The spiced luncheon meat is considered a luxury item, so nice that 40 percent of the Spam sold is purchased as gifts. Around holidays, the blue-and-yellow cans show up in better stores, often wrapped in boxed sets.

"Spam really is a luxury item," said Han Geun Rae, 43, a fashion buyer, as she loaded gift boxes of Spam into her cart at a department store before the recent Chusok holiday.

An estimated 8 million cans of Spam change hands on Chusok, the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving.

Han was buying Spam for her employees, and expected to get some herself during the Chusok season, the country's biggest gift-giving occasion of the year.

Read the complete article at WCCO

Prisoner sues God

A Romanian prisoner is suing God for failing to save him from the Devil.

The inmate, named as Pavel M in media reports, accused God of "cheating, abuse and traffic of influence".

His complaint reads: "I, the undersigned Pavel M, currently jailed at Timisoara Penitentiary serving a 20 years sentence for murder, request legal action against God, resident in Heaven, and represented here by the Romanian Orthodox Church, for committing the following crimes: cheating, concealment, abuse against people's interest, taking bribe and traffic of influence."

The inmate argued that his baptism was a contract between him and God who was supposed to keep the Devil away and keep him out of trouble.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Ohio Police Arrest Woman For $1 In Unpaid Taxes

LOVELAND, Ohio -- An Ohio woman was arrested after she didn't pay just more than $1 that she owed in income taxes, WLWT-TV in Cincinnati reported.

Deborah Combs owed the city of Loveland $1.16 last year, but she also hadn't filed her city income tax forms in five years, the television station said.

She said officers pulled her over and acted as though she were a violent criminal.

"One sheriff approached my car with his hand on his gun," she said. "Another from the other side of the car leaned in and said, 'Are you Deborah Combs?' He said, 'We have a warrant for your arrest.' I was absolutely shocked."

Combs said she thinks the arrest and charges are over-the-top for the amount she owed.

"What they've spent in stamps is more than what I owe," she said.

Read the complete article at local6.com

Ex-wife 'stole my sperm'

A MAN has been ordered to pay £88,000 in child support for a baby conceived after his ex-wife allegedly stole his frozen sperm.

Deon Francios, 34, claims he is a victim of "reproductive rape" but agreed to pay £85 a week until his son Nazair is 21 in his divorce settlement.

But his ex Chaamel, 36, has revealed she is pregnant again and is now threatening to ask for more child support.

When the couple split in 2003 Mr Francois stopped paying storage fees on sperm he had deposited at the New York University fertility clinic.

He claims his former lover forged his signature on a release form and impregnated herself.

Read the complete article at Mirror.co.uk

Britney Spears' sex video fears

Britney Spears and Kevin Federline reportedly fear a steamy home sex video is about to be made public.

A member of the singer's entourage is believed to have copied one of the couple's personal video tapes - allegedly recorded while Britney was still expecting baby son Sean Preston - and is threatening to release it. .

A source told America's Us Weekly magazine: "He has threatened to release raunchy footage of the two taken before Spears looked pregnant".

During her pregnancy, Britney confessed her sex life was the best it had ever been. The sexy singer insisted her bedroom romps with husband Kevin had been red hot since she conceived.

She confessed at the time: "I think it's the best. Sex is crazy good.".

Britney also stunned viewers on her reality TV show, 'Chaotic', after she was shown begging Kevin for sex.

Read the complete article at FemaleFirst.co.uk/

Nicotine beer in the pipeline

A GERMAN company has come up with a novel way of beating bans on smoking in pubs – put the nicotine in the beer.

A new beer, known as NicoShot, is undergoing testing in Germany with hopes it can be moved toward approval in the next few months.
Each beer contains three milligrams of nicotine and a 6.3 per cent alcohol reading.

Its German maker, Nautilus, claims the beer is designed to help smokers quit the habit rather than make the drink addictive.

"While NicoShot can lessen cravings, it is not a 'cure' for smoking," Nautilus said.

"But it can help you make changes in your lifestyle without having to walk out of the bar for a quick smoke to deal with sudden withdrawal symptoms.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

15 Years in a Fridge

Vitaly Matyukhin is an Arkhangelsk resident who has not seen the sun for fifteen years. Neighbors shun his household, while his little son cannot understand why he always have to wrap up in warm clothes before seeing his dad.

Suffering a rare disorder — he cannot stand the heat and sunlight — Matyukhin has been confined to a self-built giant fridge for over 15 years now, the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported on Friday.

Matyukhin seems to be the only man in Russia’s northern city of Arkhangelsk who gets no kicks from the extraordinarily warm September weather. Instead, he is looking forwarded to snowy winter days. He leaves his shelter only by night, his neighbors say.

The man is suffering a rare heat exchange disorder and cannot stand temperatures over 5 degrees Celsius. For nearly fifteen years no, Matyukhin has been living in a fridge.

Born in Krasnodar in Russian South, Matyukhin graduated from a construction college. One fine day, the youth suffered a sunstroke that triggered all his woes.

Doctors could not help him. They consulted their colleagues in other cities across the country and abroad. At some point it transpired that a similar case had been earlier registered in the U.S. where doctors, too, could not figure out how to alleviate the patient’s suffering. But as the man was able to afford expensive treatment he had a special suit with cold air supplied inside from cylinders made for him.

Mityukhin was never invited to the U.S. Instead, he was given a paper that vaguely stated he was suffering what was worded as “a heat exchange disorder”, and set out to build a refrigerator where he could live.

Read the complete article at Mosnews.com

Puppy Swallows 13-Inch Knife, Survives

PLANTATION, Fla. - Jane Scarola's veterinarian thought the X-ray was a joke. He's seen strange items get into the stomachs of dogs before, things like kebab skewers and small utensils. But a 13-inch serrated knife that somehow was swallowed by a 6-month-old puppy?

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Fugitive goes on date with policeman

A fugitive who escaped from prison in Hungary was caught when he unwittingly went out on a date with a policeman, the national police said in a statement.

The unidentified man, sentenced for robbery and fraud, had posted an ad with his own photo in an online dating website.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Teens dressed as cops to search women

A gang of teenage boys who dressed as police officers to body search female visitors to the Munich Beer Festival have been arrested.

The fake cops pretended they were looking for hidden weapons as they ran their hands over the bodies of women they singled out.

But they were caught by the real cops after women complained about the intimate searches.

Read the complete article at Ananova