Woman Has Forehead Tattooed For $10,000

(AP) SALT LAKE CITY For $10,000, Kari Smith has gone ahead and had her forehead tattooed with the Web address of a gambling site.

Smith, 30, who sold her unusual advertising space on eBay, said the money will give her 11-year-old son a private education, which she believes he needs after falling behind in school.

“For the all the sacrifices everyone makes, this is a very small one,” she said. “It’s a small sacrifice to build a better future for my son,” she said.

“To everyone else, it seems like a stupid thing to do. To me, $10,000 is like $1 million. I only live once, and I’m doing it for my son,” she said.

Read the complete article at WCCO

Brad and Angelina's 'air' sold on eBay

A jar said to contain the air of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie has been sold for £293 on eBay.

The ordinary quart-sized jar was brought to the premiere to the couple's latest movie, Mr and Mrs Smith, in Westwood, California, where it was opened to capture the stars' air as they walked by before being sealed.

"This is another perfect example of pop culture phenomenon," said Richard Rowe, CEO of GoldenPalace.com, the online casino company which bought the jar.

"There is literally nothing in this jar except air, and it has made headlines all over the country and even overseas. The sheer weirdness and absurdity of this item has made it a marketing success."

Read the complete article at Ananova

Teacher accused of enlisting students in fire plot

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Two failing students face arson charges after accepting teacher Tramesha Lashon Fox's offer of a passing score in exchange for torching her car in a botched insurance scheme, authorities said on Wednesday.

"All three have confessed," senior fire investigator Dustin Deutsch of the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office said.

Fox, 32, was in the process of surrendering to authorities, Deutsch and Fox's attorney told Reuters. Roger Luna, 18, was arrested on Tuesday while Darwin Arias, 17, was not yet in custody, Deutsch said.

The two males each face one count of arson, punishable by two to 20 years in prison. Fox faces charges of arson and insurance fraud, also punishable by two to 20 years in prison.

Fox's 2003 Chevrolet Malibu was reported stolen on May 27 and was found burned with signs of forced theft 12 days later in a wooded area near Arias' home, investigators said.

Investigators became suspicious when they learned Fox had bought a new 2005 Toyota Corolla a week before the Malibu -- on which she owed $20,000 -- was reported stolen.

"During preliminary interviews with the teacher, she advised us it was the work of students and gave us a list of six or seven, which I thought was kind of suspicious," Deutsch said, noting Luna and Arias were not on the list.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

What a waster!

An artist is to pour 15 million litres of water down the drain - to highlight water waste.

Mark McGowan, 37, is leaving a cold tap on at full power for a year, reports the Mirror.

His creation, entitled The Running Tap, somes as Britain faces its worst drought since 1976.

But McGowan, who once pushed a monkey nut for seven miles to Downing Street with his nose, is unrepentant.

He said: "This will save water by highlighting the waste in homes when people brush their teeth, wash vegetables or shave with the tap running."

Read the complete article at Ananova

Putin pockets Patriots owner's Super Bowl ring

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin walked off with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft's diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring, but was it a generous gift or a very expensive international misunderstanding?

Following a meeting of American business executives and Putin at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg on Saturday, Kraft showed the ring to Putin -- who tried it on, put it in his pocket and left, according to Russian news reports.

It wasn't clear if Kraft, whose business interests include paper and packaging companies and venture capital investments, intended that Putin keep the ring.

Stacey James, a spokesman for the football team, said Wednesday that Kraft was traveling and he hadn't talked to him in four or five days, despite e-mails and calls. "He's still overseas, I can't even tell you where. ... He's not due back until next week."

"It's an incredible story. I just haven't been able to talk to Robert Kraft to confirm the story," James told The Associated Press.

Read the complete article at CNN.com

Police pull man from toilet waste tank

A US man was arrested after a teenage girl saw him staring up at her from a cesspit below a toilet seat.

Police pulled the 45-year-old from the waste tank under a public toilet at a beauty spot in Albany, New Hampshire.

Captain Jon Hebert, of the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, said firefighters hosed the man down before police handcuffed him.

"We had to decontaminate him. We treated him as if he were hazardous material," he told the Union Leader.

"I started this business in 1980, and I have never in my career encountered anybody in this type of situation."

The man, from Gardiner, Maine, was arrested in the White Mountain National Forest after the 14-year-old girl's parents called the police.

Police said the door to the waste tank was locked so he must have gone in through the toilet. He was wearing waders.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Cops told to fine themselves

Two Romanian policemen were ordered to fine themselves for walking on the grass.

Agents Elvis Pricina and Iulian Gherghel, from Craiova in Dolj county, wrote their own tickets and must pay £60 each.

They were caught walking on the grass on camera by town vice mayor Gheorghe Nedelescu who wanted to check if new laws to protect green spaces were being respected.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Police hunt serial kisser

Police in Holland are hunting a man who goes up to women and gives them a French kiss.

Seven women have so far lodged complaints about the mystery man, reports De Morgen.

But police believe he may well have kissed other women who did not report it.

The serial kisser attacks at underground stations between Amsterdam city centre and the south-east of the city.

Police spokesman Ron Moes said the man usually approached his victims from behind and taps them on the shoulder.

"When they turn, he grips them and kisses them on the mouth, pushing his tongue into their mouth," he said.

His victims, who were aged between 17 and 30, were so confused by the man that they have been unable to give police a good description.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Boffins create zombie dogs

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.
Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.

However rather than sending people to sleep for years, then bringing them back to life to benefit from medical advances, the boffins would be happy to keep people in this state for just a few hours,

But even this should be enough to save lives such as battlefield casualties and victims of stabbings or gunshot wounds, who have suffered huge blood loss.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Breast Implants Becoming Popular Gifts for Girl Grads

June 24, 2005 — Lulu Diaz is excited to show her friends the high school graduation present she got from her parents — her new breasts.

At Lulu's high school and at the beauty school she now attends on New York's Long Island, she says the talk among her friends is about how they look, and getting breast implants. Some of Lulu's friends have gotten them.

"It just made me want to get them done right there. And then when I graduated, my parents were like, all right, congratulations, you got a boob job.

When she was 18, her parents had bought her a Jaguar for graduation. She didn't want a car. They told her: "OK, you can trade it in for new breasts." She did.

When "20/20" met Lulu's friend Jennifer O'Brien, she was self-conscious about having smaller breasts. It showed in her body language. She covered up her breasts, padded her bra.

Jennifer envied Lulu's new look. "Look how much confidence she has. Like, look at my shirt and look at her shirt, like, you know," she said.

Jennifer thought she could get Lulu's confidence by getting breast implants herself. So, she did. Six months later, Jennifer says her new breasts have changed her personality.

"I am a loving and caring person, and I'm outgoing, but the way I used to dress and my body language didn't say that. And now it does," she said. "I feel like a different person. I have so much confidence, I like, do and say as I want, like, I don't hold anything back anymore."

Who paid for Jennifer's new look? Her parents.

"This is a gift of love from us, and we see a difference in her," Jennifer's mom, Doreen O'Brien, said.

The gift of breast implants costs about $7,000. "But I don't think you can put really a price on your child's happiness," she said.


Read the complete article at ABC News

'I'd do it again': pistol-packing great-granny who killed 85-year-old beau

ATLANTA (AP) - Furious their romance was ending, a 78-year-old great-grandmother shot her 85-year-old ex-beau dead as he read the newspaper in a senior citizens home, police said.

"I did it and I'd do it again!" Lena Driskell yelled to officers who arrived at the home June 10, testimony showed. Police said Driskell was wearing a bathrobe and slippers, waving an antique handgun with her finger still on the trigger.

She is accused of plotting the shooting of Herman Winslow because she was angry their yearlong romance was ending and he had found another companion.

Driskell was released on a $25,000 bail and placed under house arrest after a hearing Friday. Fulton County Magistrate Richard Hicks stipulated she must wear an ankle monitor and live with her granddaughter Lena Holt.

"I don't want her on the streets," Hicks said.

"Who knows how many other guns she has?"


Read the complete article at CNews

Doctors 'find dead foetus in boy'

Doctors in Bangladesh say they have removed a long-dead foetus from the abdomen of a teenage boy who was complaining of stomach pains.
They said the foetus would have become the boy's twin had it grown normally in their mother's womb.

They said it was a case of an extremely rare condition where two foetuses are conceived as conjoined twins but one absorbs the other.

In 2003 Kazakhstan doctors removed a foetus from a seven-year-old boy.

Limbs developed

Sixteen-year-old Abu Raihan was admitted to the Bangabandhu Medical University hospital in the capital, Dhaka on Saturday.

"After the operation we found a dead foetus weighing two kilograms (4.5lbs) in his abdomen," Doctor MA Mazid said, the AFP news agency reports.

"Apart from the head, all other limbs of the baby were developed."

The condition is known as "foetus in foeto", or inclusion twin.

Read the complete article at BBC News

Ebay: £25,000 Lotus Esprit Turbo sold for 50p

A controversial radio DJ's wife sold his £25,000 sports car on eBay for just 50p after he flirted with Jodie Marsh on air.

Kerrang 105.2's Tim Shaw told the model he was prepared to leave his wife and their two children for her, reports Metro.

Wife Hayley was listening and immediately posted an advert for the Lotus Esprit Turbo with a 'Buy It Now' option of 50p.

The item description read: "I need to get rid of this car in the next two to three hours before my husband gets home to find it gone and all his belongings in the street."

The car sold within five minutes.

On a previous occasion, the DJ upset Mrs Shaw, 27, when she was pregnant by ringing her sister live on air and saying he thought about her while having sex with his wife.

Mrs Shaw said: "When he said he would leave me and the kids for Jodie Marsh, that was it for me. I am sick of him disrespecting this family for the sake of his act.

"The car is his pride and joy but the idiot put my name on the log book so I just sold it. I didn't care about the money, I just wanted to get him back."

She added: "There is no hope for a reconciliation." A Kerrang 105.2 spokesperson said the DJ was 'absolutely gutted'.

Ebay - Lotus Esprit Turbo

Man kills leopard by hand

A 73-year-old man used his bare hands to tear out the tongue of a leopard that attacked him in Kenya and killed it, a newspaper said overnight of an incident confirmed by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

The 73-year-old Daniel M'Mburugu was working in his potato garden near Mount Kenya in the centre of the country when the animal, apparently aggressive, hurtled from nearby grass and charged towards him.
"It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds stop chirping. I froze for some seconds, then it dawned on me that death was staring at me on the face," he told the Standard Newspaper.

M'Mburugu, a peasant farmer, dropped the machete he was carrying and forced his hand into the leopard's mouth, pulling out its tongue in an act of self-defence, according to the report in the daily.

"A voice, which must have been from God, whispered to me to drop the panga (machete) and thrust my hand into its wide open mouth, I obeyed," he said, explaining that the leopard sank its teeth into his wrist, but would not let go.

As the struggle continued, M'Mburugu realised that the animal's "breathing was belaboured", prompting him to keep pulling the tongue.

Villagers only responded when the animal lay dying and he gained instant status as a village hero, the paper said.

"Wardens said the leopard attacked the man because it was injured elsewhere ... wild animals are usually very aggresive and attack unprovoked when injured," KWS spokesman Edward Indakwa said.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Gas Station Owner Cashes in 1.4 Million Pennies

(AP) FLOMATON, Ala. Edmond Knowles started out saving pennies in a 5-gallon can. Thirty-eight years later, he was storing them in four 55-gallon drums and three 20-gallon drums — nearly 1.4 million in all.

Knowles, who runs a gas station, cashed them in Wednesday, pocketing $13,804.59 after they were counted at a bank.

"It's just something that happened," he said. "I started so long ago that I don't even remember why."

He got some help along the way from customers at Ed's Service Station.

"Customers would come by and say: `Ed, throw these in your drum,'" he said.

Coinstar Inc., a company that maintains coin-counting machines in banks and supermarkets, said Knowles' 1,380,459 pennies breaks the record of 1,048,013 held by Eugene J. Sukie of Barberton, Ohio.

Coinstar spokesman George White said the company's research and U.S. Census data indicate that coins worth more than $10 billion are sitting idle in American homes.

Read the complete article at WCCO

Man gets $2600 for plaster Jesus

A US man has sold a water-stained piece of plaster from his bathroom wall that bears an uncanny resemblance to the image of Jesus Christ for almost $US2000 ($2593) on eBay, its purchaser said.

GoldenPalace.com, an Internet casino known for making such purchases, said it bought the piece of plaster bearing the reputed image of Jesus for $US1999 from a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania man.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Beer advert angers women

Women's groups are angry with a beer company which said the difference between a wife and a lover was 30 kilos.

The line was in a television advertisement by Regional beer in Venezuela, reports El Universal newspaper.

Women's rights groups in Venezuela say the advert is a misogynist and are demanding a public apology from the company.

Hwowever, Regional beer is standing its ground and says it won't apologise unless it is forced to do so by the courts.

A spokesman for the company added: "I bet all these women's groups are run by women who are at least 30 kilos overweight."

Read the complete article at Ananova

Pizza Shop Suspect Leaves Job Application

LAS VEGAS A man accused of holding up a pizza parlor left behind a job application with his real name and address, authorities said. "I would chalk it up to either inexperience or plain stupidity," Clark County prosecutor Frank Coumou told the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Wednesday report.

Alejandro Martinez, 23, of Las Vegas, was being held Wednesday at the Clark County jail pending a Monday appearance in Clark County District Court. He faces felony burglary and robbery with a weapon charges in the May 25 heist.

Authorities said Martinez ordered a pizza and started filling out the application before displaying a gun and demanding money. The clerk handed over $200.

Outside, a witness wrote down the license plate number of a getaway car, leading police to Martinez' home.

Read the complete article at WCCO

Turning to goats to stop wildfires

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Move over Smokey the Bear. In California, thousands of goats are helping prevent wildfires.

From hilly San Francisco to more rural settings, California landowners, business and officials have hired the voracious animals to devour the grass and brush that fuels wildfires.

Last year, more than 5,500 fires blackened over 168,000 acres in the most populous U.S. state.

"Goats are just another tool in the toolbox for California and we try to use as many tools as possible," California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Michael Jarvis said in an interview last week.

Goats are munching on vegetation that is thriving throughout the state after an exceptionally wet winter.

Some herds are doing double duty: preventing fires and protecting homeland security.

Bob Blanchard, a rancher in Cayucos, California, near the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, said his herds of Spanish meat goats devour brush around the plant and on the rugged hillsides under high-voltage power lines.

"Fire safety is one part and plant security is the other part. The security people there want to be able to see over the whole area," Blanchard said.

His herds, ranging in size from 300 to 700 goats, are working under a 10-year contract with Diablo Canyon owner PG&E Corp.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

'Bigamist' forgot she was married

A 36-year-old woman who's been charged with bigamy in Norway says she forgot she was already married.

She told police she forgot her marital status when getting married for the fourth time since moving from Africa, reports Bergens Tidende.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Boy gets period

Puzzled doctors in India are running tests on a 15-year-old boy after he appeared to start menstruating.

Tarak, from Kalna in West Bengal's Burdwan district, has apparently been bleeding through his penis in the second week of the month for about a year.

In addition to this, the teenager also experiences sickness, stomach aches and mood swings - all suspiciously PMS-type symptoms, reports the Hindustan Times.

Local doctor Sudip Mondol is now running tests on the boy's blood to work out what exactly is happening to him.

"The boy has male organs but he has feminine attributes," Dr Mondol said.

"If tests of his blood samples prove the presence of ovum, this would be a rare medical case."

Read the complete article at SupaNet

Computer games kill 12-year-old

A 12-year-old schoolboy reportedly addicted to computer games has died as a result of his 12-hour-per-day obsession.

The incident took place in the western Russian town of Yekaterinburg, as the boy, identified only as Sergei, was allowed by his parents to attend a computer club as a reward for getting good grades in school.

"When this boy came last time, he felt quite good and played for long, almost for 12 hours," an employee at the club told the Novye Izvestia newspaper. "Then suddenly he fell on the floor and convulsed. We called an ambulance immediately, doctors arrived fast and took him to a hospital."

The child was diagnosed as having suffered an epileptic seizure, not even able to recognize his parents. Sergei had trouble breathing and was put on a ventilator, but eight days after his collapse, he died in the hospital from a stroke.

"He was dying but could not tear himself from the game," said Alexei Sulimov, a senior doctor who said he and his colleagues were shocked by the death. "Brain hemorrhage took place due to sustained emotional stimulation of the brain. The boy had overworked. ...

Read the complete article at WorldNetDaily

Woman Fired After 21 Years For Not Wearing Makeup

SAN FRANCISCO -- An attorney for a woman who says she was fired from a bartending job for refusing to wear makeup said the dismissal is an affront to female employees.

The case is being heard by a federal appeals court in San Francisco. The sex-discrimination case was rejected by a three-judge panel last December.

An attorney for Harrah's Entertainment argued that the makeup policy is necessary to "create a professional image."

The company fired Darlene Jespersen in August of 2000 after 21 years of service. According to her records, she had high performance marks.

Read the complete article at NBC 4

Japanese robot guards to patrol shops and offices

TOKYO (Reuters) - Burglars beware, robot guards are here.

In an idea straight out of science fiction, robots could soon begin patrolling Japanese offices, shopping malls and banks to keep them safe from intruders.

Equipped with a camera and sensors, the "Guardrobo D1", developed by Japanese security firm Sohgo Security Services Co. , is designed to patrol along pre-programmed paths and keep an eye out for signs of trouble.

The 109-cm tall robot will alert human guards via radio and by sending camera footage if it detects intruders, fires, or even water leaks.

Such robots are vital from a business standpoint when considering Japan's ageing population, Sohgo Security said.

"In the near future, it is certain that securing young and capable manpower will become even more difficult ... and the security industry will feel the full brunt of the impact," the company said in a statement.

Around one in five Japanese are now 65 or over and the proportion is expected to rise to one in three in 2040, according to government data.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Crime reporter nabbed in crime spree

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian crime reporter has been arrested over a spate of dozens of car thefts and burglaries, accused of using his contacts to move stolen goods, newspapers reported Thursday.

Police picked up 42-year-old Sanjay Kumar Singh and three friends in New Delhi after being tipped off they were meeting to plot more car thefts in the capital, The Pioneer reported.

Singh covers the crime beat for daily newspapers in Bihar, a state with some of India's highest crime rates. Police say he used his contacts to dispose of the cars in Bihar and was involved in at least 56 car thefts and 20 burglaries.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Meters Appear Near Parked Cars; Tickets Written

CHICAGO -- In Chicago last week, a handful of motorists returned to their vehicles and found parking meters -- and tickets -- that weren't there when they parked.

According to a spokeswoman for the city's revenue department, it was all just an innocent mistake. Efrat Dallal said the vehicles were parked on a stretch of roadway where the meters were temporarily removed during street construction.

Then, she said, the meters were put back and the vehicles parked in front of them were ticketed.

But some motorists wondered if that was the case after at least one of the tickets was apparently postdated several hours after it was placed on a car.

"The city is strict enough in its parking restrictions already," said Vince Tessitore. "Chicago gets plenty of revenue ticketing people by legal means without having to be deceptive."

Police department spokesman Dave Bayless said the department employee, whom he said is a traffic aide and not a sworn officer, said she mistakenly put the wrong date on the ticket.

Read the complete article at NBC 4

Socks on, rocks off

PEOPLE find it easier to have an orgasm when they are wearing socks in bed, surprised Dutch scientists have discovered.

Draughts in the scanning room left couples complaining of "literally cold feet", and providing a pair of socks allowed 80 per cent, rather than 50 per cent, to reach a climax while being scanned.
The same study showed that men and women experience sexual pleasure in strikingly different ways, the first brain scans taken during orgasm show.

While male brains focus heavily on the physical stimulation involved in sexual contact, this is just one part of a much more complex picture for women, scientists in The Netherlands have found.

The study found the key to female arousal seems rather to be deep relaxation and a lack of anxiety: direct sensory input from the genitals plays a less critical role.

The scans show that during sexual activity the parts of the female brain responsible for processing fear, anxiety and emotion start to relax and reduce in activity.

This reaches a peak at orgasm, when the female brain's emotion centres are effectively closed down to an almost trance-like state.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Greenpeace gives Golden Chainsaw to Brazil Tycoon

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian agriculture tycoon Blairo Maggi, the world's largest soy producer, has been voted winner of environmental group Greenpeace's first Golden Chainsaw award for contributing to Amazon destruction.

Maggi, who is also governor of Mato Grosso state, secured 10,348 votes out of 27,849 cast in an Internet poll, Greenpeace said on its Web site on Monday. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was runner-up with 7,314 votes.

"Maggi deserved the award. After two years as the state governor, he has turned Mato Grosso into the state champion of deforestation, responsible for 48 per cent of the total forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon," Greenpeace Amazon coordinator Paulo Adario said.

Comedians from the Brazilian show "Panic on TV" had tried to present the award to Maggi at a school in Mato Grosso but they were removed by security, Greenpeace said.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

‘War Of The Worlds’ Could Set Off Alien Panic

DARWIN, Australia (Wireless Flash) – Steven Spielberg’s upcoming War of the Worlds remake may indirectly cause a war on this world.
Robert Bartholomew, an expert on mass delusion, believes modern day copycat radio broadcasts of Orson Wells’ 1938 War of the Worlds – which convinced listeners aliens had landed in the U.S. – could have the same effect as the original.

Bartholomew says similar broadcasts have been aired in the U.S., Chile, Ecuador and Portugal over the years, triggering mass panic and, in some cases, causing deaths.

Bartholomew believes a similar situation could occur again if a radio station decides to make a new broadcast.

He doesn’t expect modern listeners will believe aliens have invaded, but something more subtle.

The broadcasts have always started with a crash of some sort, and in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bartholomew believes modern listeners might conclude the crash is a terrorist attack.

Read the complete article at Wireless Flash News

Lions free kidnapped girl

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Police say three lions rescued a 12-year-old girl kidnapped by men who wanted to force her into marriage, chasing off her abductors and guarding her until police and relatives tracked her down in a remote corner of Ethiopia.

The men had held the girl for seven days, repeatedly beating her, before the lions chased them away and guarded her for half a day before her family and police found her, Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo said Tuesday by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, some 560 kilometers (348 miles) west of the capital, Addis Ababa.

"They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Wondimu said, adding he did not know whether the lions were male or female.

News of the June 9 rescue was slow to filter out from Kefa Zone in southwestern Ethiopia.

"If the lions had not come to her rescue then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage," he said.

"Everyone ... thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people," Wondimu said.

Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry, said that it was likely that the young girl was saved because she was crying from the trauma of her attack.

"A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they (the lions) didn't eat her," Williams said. "Otherwise they probably would have done."

The girl, the youngest of four brothers and sisters, was "shocked and terrified" and had to be treated for the cuts from her beatings, Wondimu said.

He said that police had caught four of the men, but were still looking for three others.

In Ethiopia, kidnapping has long been part of the marriage custom, a tradition of sorrow and violence whose origins are murky.

The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where the majority of the country's 71 million people live.

Read the complete article at CNN.com

Alleged 'Vampire' Faces Sex Charges In Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS -- A teenager has been charged with multiple counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and sexual battery against two female victims, Indianapolis television station WRTV reported.

The unusual part of the alleged crimes is that Steven Rogers, 18, allegedly told the victims he was a vampire, police said. Investigators added that Rogers told female victims that he also worships Satan.

There are no allegations that he tried to suck the victims' blood, but police said he bit and bruised their necks.

Rogers denied the allegations, WRTV reported.

"It was something I got into when I was in sixth grade and I got out of it in eighth grade," Rogers said. "I stopped doing it in the eighth grade. I realized it was stupid."

Stupid or not, court documents said that one of the attacks occurred last month at the Oakridge Manor mobile home park.

The alleged attack was against a 15-year-old girl, police said.

"He had made statements to the girls in reference to him being a vampire," Lawrence police Sgt. Matthew Miller said. "It led to injuries to the girls' necks and subsequently some sexual assault to each girl."

Read the complete article at TheLouisvilleChannel.com

Grunters not welcome at Wimbledon

GRUNTING noises made by female tennis players as they strike the ball are getting out of hand, and rules should be changed to crack down on the practice, Wimbledon referee Alan Mills has said, according to a report Sunday.

Mills, Wimbledon's chief official for 22 years who retires after this week's tournament, which begins on Monday, told The Sunday Times he believed coaches were teaching young women players to grunt.
"I don't like it at all. Today there is probably more grunting than there has ever been," he said.

"If I was playing an opponent making so much noise, I think I'd just laugh. But it's what young players are being coached to do.

"Many of the non-grunting players are unhappy about the noise pollution and a kind of counter-grunt culture has emerged in recent years whereby offended parties ape their opponent's noises."

He added: "Officials can only act if the player is shown to be making the noise on purpose, which is virtually impossible to do.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Chimp paintings outsell Warhol

THREE paintings by a chimpanzee named Congo have been sold at auction in London to an American buyer for a total of £14,400 ($34,000), many times the estimated price.

Congo's works went under the hammer today in a sale that included works by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French cubist Fernand Leger and US pop artist Andy Warhol.
The Warhol paintings failed to sell.

Presale estimates had put their price at between £600 and £800 ($1400 and $1900).

The buyer, Howard Hong, said he was a great fan of modern and contemporary painting.

Nicknamed the Cezanne of the ape world, Congo turned out more than 400 paintings and drawings under the encouragement of anthropologist Desmond Morris.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Child dies while parents play World of Warcraft

A Korean couple in their twenties left the baby alone while they played World of Warcraft at a net café - sadly the baby died of suffocation. Both mother and father were arrested for child neglect.

The pair left their home at 4pm to go play the game and the couple didn't return home until 9pm when they found their four-month old daughter lying on her stomach, tragically having died of suffocation.

"We were thinking of playing for just an hour or two and returning home like usual, but the game took longer that day," the Incheon couple told police.

The police told reporters that investigation told them that the couple played World of Warcraft whenever they had time.

"It's unfortunate, because the tragedy could have been averted if the couple had just left their daughter with Yu's mother-in-law, who lived upstairs from them," said the Police. "We booked the pair on criminal charges, judging that when you consider the situation, they were responsible for their daughter's death."

Read the complete article at Boomtown

No bikinis for Miss Russian Military contest

Army chiefs have slapped a ban on bikini-wearing during the first ever Miss Russian Military beauty contest today.

Nineteen women soldiers are to parade with guns in full military uniform down a catwalk in Moscow, reports local media.

They were then set to strip off for more conventional bikini pictures but military officials have now ruled that they must stay covered up.

Major-general Nikolai Burbyga, senior judge of the Miss Military Beauty Contest, said: "I agree with the decision that female officers should not get undressed. I'd rather keep their bodies a military secret."

The girls were selected from all over Russia, and from different parts of the army including rocket launching units, the air-force and navy.

The winner of the contest will get a crown and be promoted to a higher rank so she can go on tour to promote the work of the Russian armed forces, local media reported.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Grocer fights 105 costly traffic fines

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese vegetable peddler has asked a Beijing court to overturn police fines totaling more than a year's pay after he made the exact same illegal turn 105 times, state media said Sunday.

Du Baoliang was captured making the illegal turn past a no-entry sign on his way from home to his vegetable stall by a hidden camera, part of a network set up to automatically record traffic violations, reports said.

Du, 40, was unaware of the violations until he went to the traffic management office and was told he owed 10,500 yuan ($1,270) -- more than the 9,422 yuan average annual per capita income for urban residents, reports said.

Du paid the fines, but then sued to get his money back and a further 3,000 yuan in compensation for lost vegetable sales while fighting the case, the Xinhua Daily Telegraph said.

He argues that traffic officials hold some responsibility for failing to notify him that he had broken the law early on.

"Of course I do want to win the case even though I was cited 105 times. If I had received any advice at an early date I would not have done it 105 times," the Beijing News quoted Du as saying.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Grapefruit, The Fountain Of Youth?

A new study shows the smell of grapefruit on women makes them appear younger.


New York, NY -- A study of smells shows that the scent of grapefruit on women make them seem younger to men, about six years younger.

However, a grapefruit fragrance on men does nothing for them.

The study by the Smell and Taste Institute in Chicago was conducted to determine what makes a women smell young, but not too young, like pink bubble gum.

Institute director Alan Hirsch said he smeared several middle-aged woman subjects with broccoli, banana, spearmint leaves, and lavender but none of those scents made a difference to the male species

But the scent of grapefruit changed man's perception. Hirsch said that when male volunteers were asked to write down how old the woman with grapefruit odor was, the age was considerably less than reality.

Read the complete article at WFMY News 2

Bar of soap sells for $18,000

BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) -- Perhaps the oddest piece of work at Art Basel is a bar of soap, displayed on a square of black velvet, purportedly made from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's fat, removed during liposuction.

Gianni Monti's work called 'Clean Hands' -- the title is a play on the name of an anti-Mafia group -- sold in less than an hour for 15,000 euros ($18,000) to a private Swiss collector, according to Monti's Galerie Nicola von Senger of Zurich.

The work from the Swiss-based Italian has shock value with a twist, but Monti is not alone reveling in super-charged sales this week at Art Basel, the world's largest annual art fair where 275 dealers in modern and contemporary art display their wares making it a mecca for over 50,000 collectors and curators.

Prices are soaring for star-quality artists, topping levels charged for the old masters in a market that has an estimated $20 billion annual turnover, making veteran art experts wonder if this feeding frenzy can really last.

Read the complete article at CNN.com

Ketchup mishap stains his reputation...

LONDON (Reuters) - An email between a highly paid lawyer and a secretary over a tomato ketchup stain has become the talk of legal circles in London, leaving the sender distinctly red-faced.

British media reported with glee the tale of Richard Phillips who emailed the secretary to ask her to pay a four pound ($7.30) dry-cleaning bill after she accidentally spilled tomato ketchup on his trousers.

The secretary, who had just returned to work after her mother died, was so irate she forwarded the email to several colleagues at the firm of Baker & McKenzie, who in turn passed it on to others.

The emails quickly appeared on the Internet and in the press.

"Dear Jenny," the lawyer wrote, "I went to the dry-cleaners at lunch and they said it would cost four pounds to remove the ketchup stains. If you could let me have the cash today that would be much appreciated."

Secretary Jenny Amner replied: "With reference to the email, I must apologize for not getting back to you straight away but due to my mother's sudden illness, death and funeral I have had more pressing issues than your four pounds.

"Obviously your financial need as a senior associate is greater than mine as a mere secretary."

Colleagues had offered to hold a collection to cover the bill but Amner paid it herself.

The law firm was not impressed.

"I can confirm we are aware of the incident," a spokeswoman said. "This is a private matter between two members of staff that clearly got out of hand. We are investigating."

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

This cat is two-faced

ROSEBURG, Ore. - A newborn kitten recently entered the world with two faces and, hopefully, at least nine lives. Gemini was born Sunday with two mouths, two tongues, two noses and four eyes.

"I kind of feel sorry for her, because I can't know for a fact if she's going to live or die," its owner, Lee Bluetear of Glide, told the (Roseburg) News-Review. "If she makes it, she should be a perfectly normal and healthy cat. Other than having two faces."

Roseburg veterinarian Alan Ross, who examined the kitten on Tuesday, said he can't estimate the kitten's life span. He said when he first saw the kitten, he wouldn't have given her more than a 10 percent chance of survival.

"With the three of our veterinarians here, we have a combined total of 50 years of experience," Ross said. "We have never seen anything like this."

Read the complete article at Sun-Sentinel.com

Husband's Snoring Lands Wife In Jail

(AP) FARGO, N.D. Maybe DeAnn Miller-Boschert will finally be able to get some sleep—in jail.

Miller-Boschert, 45, stabbed her husband with a pen and hit him over the head with a 3-pound dumbbell to get him to stop snoring Thursday, police said.

She was charged with simple assault, a misdemeanor, after her husband called police from a convenience store.

Police Sgt. Jeff Skuza said the woman first poured water on her husband, but that did not wake him up.

“She then stabbed him with a pen in the arm twice,” he said. “After he went back to sleep after the pen thing, she woke him up again with a workout weight.”

Read the complete article at WCCO

Thai Man Commits Suicide Using Super Glue

BANGKOK, Thailand (AHN) - Bangkok police say a young man found dead Thursday committed suicide by applying super glue to his nose and mouth, suffocating to death.

The body is found Thursday morning in his bedroom, with a note stating, "Here is all that I have, take what you please."

The man's family tell authorities he and his sister had argued Wednesday over money she owed him. He then went into his room;his body was found dead ten hours later.

Read the complete article at All Headline News

Two PETA Employees Arrested on Animal Cruelty Charges in N.C.

(AP) - Two Hampton Roads employees of Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have been charged in Ahoskie, N.C., with animal cruelty after dumping dead dogs and cats in a shopping center garbage bin, police said Thursday.

Investigators staked out the bin after discovering that dead animals had been dumped there every Wednesday for the past four weeks, Ahoskie police said in a prepared statement.

Police found 18 dead animals in the trash bin and 13 more in a van registered to PETA. The animals were from animal shelters in Northampton and Bertie counties in North Carolina, police said. The two were picking up animals to be brought back to PETA headquarters for euthanization, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said Thursday.

Neither police nor PETA offered any theory on why the animals might have been dumped.

Local officials and veterinarians said they were told that PETA would find homes for the animals, not euthanize them. PETA has scheduled a news conference for Friday afternoon to discuss the charges.

Read the complete article at WAVY.com

MP launches drug test machine, tests positive

THE efficiency of a high-tech drug-testing machine unveiled in Britain was amply proven when the government minister showing it off tested positive for cannabis.

Edwina Hart, social justice minister in the semi-autonomous regional government of Wales, was found to have been in contact with the drug after having a hand swab analysed by the Ion Track narcotics machine.
William Graham, a member of the Welsh Assembly, who had arranged for police to demonstrate the machine at the Assembly building, also tested positive for cannabis.

However, the politicians were keen to stress that such was the power of the device, positive results could easily come from so-called "cross contamination", for example by touching cash or a door handle previously handled by a drugs user.

"You could pick it up from anywhere couldn't you?" Hart said.

"I can't think where I could have got it from," added Graham.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Boys 'used for human sacrifice' in the UK

Children are being trafficked into the UK from Africa and used for human sacrifices, a confidential report for the Metropolitan Police suggests.

Children are being beaten and even murdered after being labelled as witches by pastors, the report leaked to BBC Radio 4's Today programme said.

Police face a "wall of silence" in investigations because of fear and mistrust among the groups involved.

It follows the case of a girl tortured by her guardians for being a witch.

Three people, including the girl's aunt, were convicted of trying to "beat the devil out of" the un-named 10-year-old - originally from Angola.

The report was commissioned by the Met after the death of Victoria Climbie in February 2000 and because of concerns over so-called faith crimes.

The 10-month probe was also intended to be part of efforts to "open a dialogue" with Asian and African communities to prevent child abuse in the London boroughs of Hackney and Newham.

Information was gathered with the help of social workers, human rights lawyers and race relations experts from within these ethnic minority groups.

Today programme reporter Angus Stickler, who obtained the police report due to be published later this month, described it as "absolutely chilling".

"The most gruesome details come from the African communities," he said.

"This report talks of rituals, of witchcraft, being practised in churches in London. It is described as big business."

Read the complete article at BBC News

Hungry For Love, Man Will 'Work For Wife'

OMAHA, Neb. -- An Omaha man is on a mission to find a wife, and he's taking it to the streets.

Harold is 45, and he's bought a billboard, started a Web site, and spent Tuesday on the corner of 72nd and Dodge streets with a picket-style sign -- all designed to find him a wife. The idea started with those signs people hold that say: "Will work for food." Harold's slogan is: "Will work for a wife."

"I'm looking at this as a summer campaign," Harold said. "This is my summer project. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?"

Harold is determined to find his mate, and he's not afraid to use unconventional methods.

"My problem is, I don't meet women. I'm a truck driver. I meet people on the road, but at home, I don't meet any women," he said.

The billboard, signs and business cards drive people to Harold's Web site WillWorkForAWife.org. The site outlines exactly what he wants.

"I want a woman who is kind, who is polite, courteous, that treats other people with respect, dignity, and integrity," Harold said.

The billboard will be in downtown Omaha later this month.

"I would like to be married by Christmas, if you want the truth on it, but I don't think that'll happen," the bachelor said.

Harold has already spent about $1,000 searching for a spouse.

"How much will I spend? That's an open-ended question. How much am I willing to spend? Five to $10,000," Harold said. "Cheaper than getting a mail-order bride."

Read the complete article at NBC 4

Cheerleaders Accused Of Framing Rivals For Feces Pizza

KELLER, Texas -- High school cheerleading is very competitive. But some cheerleaders have gone to great lengths to get back at rival squads.

In Texas, some high school cheerleaders were sent home from cheerleading camp after allegedly putting human feces on a pizza and trying to frame rival cheerleaders for the deed.

Cheerleaders from Fossil Ridge High School in Keller, Texas, had a pizza sent to the Keller High School squad on the last night of a camp at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Less than an hour later, some Keller cheerleaders took the pizza to the Fossil Ridge sponsor, claiming that Fossil Ridge cheerleaders had doctored the pizza with feces.

After more questioning, however, four Keller cheerleaders were sent home.

It is unknown what discipline the girls may face at school.

Read the complete article at NBC 4

Brazilian doctors uncover 'Michelangelo code'

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Two Brazilian doctors and amateur art lovers believe they have uncovered a secret lesson on human anatomy hidden by Renaissance artist Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.

Completed nearly 500 years ago, the brightly colored frescoes painted on the Vatican's famous sanctuary are considered some of the world's greatest works of art. They depict Biblical scenes such as the "Creation of Adam" in which God reaches out to touch Adam's finger.

But Gilson Barreto and Marcelo de Oliveira believe Michelangelo also scattered his detailed knowledge of internal anatomy across 34 of the ceiling's 38 panels. The way they see it, a tree trunk is not just a tree trunk, but also a bronchial tube. And a green bag in one scene is really a human heart.

The key to finding the numerous organs, bones and other human insides is to first crack a "code" they believe was left behind by the Florentine artist. Essentially, it is a set of sometimes subtle, sometimes overt clues, like the way a figure is pointing.

"Why wasn't this ever seen before? First, because very few people have the sufficient anatomical knowledge to see these pieces like this. I do because that's my profession," said Barreto, who is a surgeon in the Brazilian city of Campinas.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

'Star Wars' princess inspires real royal name

OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian Princess Leah's name was inspired by a character in a "Star Wars" movie, the mother of the infant princess was quoted as saying Thursday.

"I must admit that I have always been a big 'Star Wars' fan, and Princess Leia has always been the most beautiful in the whole world," Princess Martha Louise said in an interview with the Norwegian daily Aftenposten.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Cinema-goer attacked by snake

A woman was attacked by a four feet long python as she watched Mr and Mrs Smith at a cinema in the United Arab Emirates.

She was rescued by another woman movie-goer who calmly unwrapped the snake from her leg and took it out of the cinema.

Mother-of-three Sherana Alansudhir said the woman was hysterical and lying on the floor of the cinema in the Wafi City area of Dubai, reports www.7days.ae website.

She said: "When someone with a mobile phone with a flashlight pointed at it, we saw it was a snake. I told her to shut-up and stop screaming.

"I got hold of the snake's tail but the woman pushed me away. It was curling up tighter on her leg. So I began to unwrap the snake and carried it to the foyer.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Workers keep right to flirt

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A German court has upheld the right of Wal-Mart staff in Germany to flirt at work, a spokesman said Thursday, showing that Germany's restrictive labor laws also have their permissive aspects.

The court rejected parts of Wal-Mart's code of conduct relating to employees' love lives, alcohol and drug use and a requirement for staff to report code violations via a so-called ethics hotline, the spokesman said.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Abortionist accused of eating fetuses

A Kansas City abortionist is out of business after investigators discovered a grisly house of horrors at his clinic – with fetuses kept in Styrofoam cups in his refrigerator and one employee accusing him of microwaving one and stirring it into his lunch.

The unsanitary conditions in Krishna Rajanna's clinic prompted legislative approval of new abortion regulations in Kansas, a bill that was vetoed by the governor. Rajanna's activities have reportedly been the subject of law-enforcement investigations for nearly two years.

Read the complete article at WorldNetDaily

Women wanted to test sex machine

A Serbian man who has invented a sex machine for women is appealing to western women to test his device.

Nesa Proka, from the central town of Krusevac, made the appeal after failing to find any willing Serbian women.

He has taken out a patent on what he says is the "ultimate sex aid" for lonely women after spending three years working on it.

The machine, which runs on a 390 volt electric engine, simulates sex and has a seven and a half inch artificial 'penis'.

He said: "My sex machine has an artificial penis that can make up to 180 moves in a minute. A man can only manage that intensity of movement for about five seconds but the machine can do it for as long as the woman wants.

"And it comes with a set of controls to fully regulate the speed and intensity a woman for individual sex."

But Proka said he would have to market it in the west because he had not been able to find any Serbian woman to test it out.

"Western women are more liberal. I couldn't find a woman here to try the sex machine," he told local daily Glas Javnosti.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Microsoft bans 'democracy' for China web users

Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal has banned the words "democracy" and "freedom" from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending Beijing's political censors.

Users of the joint-venture portal, formally launched last month, have been blocked from using a range of potentially sensitive words to label personal websites they create using its free online blog service, MSN Spaces.

Attempts to input words in Chinese such as "democracy" prompted an error message from the site: "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech from this item." Other phrases banned included the Chinese for "demonstration", "democratic movement" and "Taiwan independence".

Read the complete article at MSN Money

Boy, 4, Dies After Spin on Disney Ride

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - A 4-year-old boy died after a spin on a Walt Disney World spaceship ride so intense that some riders have been taken to the hospital with chest pain.

Daudi Bamuwamye lost consciousness Monday aboard "Mission: Space," which spins riders in a giant centrifuge that subjects them to twice the normal force of gravity. The boy's mother carried him off the ride, and paramedics and a theme park worker tried to revive him, but he died at a hospital.

An autopsy was scheduled Tuesday to determine the cause of death.

The sheriff's office said the boy met the minimum 44-inch height requirement for the ride.

The $100 million ride, one of Disney World's most popular, was closed after the death but reopened Tuesday after company engineers concluded that it was operating normally.

Disney officials said in a statement that they were "providing support to the family and are doing everything we can to help them during this difficult time."

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Gays set group hug record

GERMAN gays and lesbians marching in the northern city of Hamburg on Saturday said they set a new world record for a group hug, with 16,000 people embracing each other for 10 seconds.

"This march should bring people together, regardless of whether people are homosexual or heterosexual," said drag queen Olivia Jones, one of organizers.

Braving cold and rainy weather, the marchers beat the previous group hug record set last year by 5117 Canadian high school students.


Read the complete article at News.com.au

Ex-Forest ranger starts fire in classroom

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (AP) - An elementary school was evacuated Thursday after a retired forest ranger accidentally started a fire while teaching students about 19th-century life.
Gary Hodgson was trying to show fifth-graders how pioneers built fires without matches when some gunpowder ignited, school officials and police said.

The classroom filled with smoke, but no students were seriously injured.

It wasn't exactly clear how the 9:30 a.m. accident happened.

Hodgson was hospitalized in stable condition with burns to his face, hands and chest.

Read the complete article at The Beaufort Gazette

Mom’s Ashes Replaced By Potato Chips

HOUSTON (AP) Two sisters are suing a synagogue and two funeral companies, after finding a potato chip can in place of their mother's remains.

Marcelle Lieberman and Harriet Lieberman Mellow made the discovery a year ago in a Houston mausoleum.

Read the complete article at WCCO

Got a baby face? Don't run for office

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A baby face may win hearts but it doesn't win votes, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Students picked the winning U.S. congressional candidate nearly 70 percent of the time merely by glancing at their photos and deciding which one looked more competent, they said.

"This remarkable effect ... likely reflects differences in 'babyfacedness,'" Leslie Zebrowitz of Brandeis University and Joann Montepare of Emerson College, both in Massachusetts, wrote in a commentary.

For their study, Alexander Todorov and colleagues at Princeton University showed pairs of photographs of real candidates for Congress, winners and losers, to more than 800 students.

They asked them to choose the candidate they thought had won or would win, and asked them why. On average, the volunteers looked at each pair of photos for one second.

The students chose correctly 68.8 percent of the time, Todorov and colleagues report in this week's issue of the journal Science.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

A tale of a rat and a burger

Family sues after rodent's head found in Big Mac. McDonald's denies negligence in food handling.

It was a mixture of curiosity and discomfort as everyone assembled around the hood of the car, staring at the box containing a Big Mac.

According to witnesses, Heath Miller, an assistant manager at the McDonald's at Highway 401 and Weston Rd., opened the box and lifted the bun.

"I saw what looked to me like a mouse or rat," Richard Zeppa, a Toronto kinesiologist who unwittingly found himself in the middle of the bizarre scene, recalled in a statement read into the record for a court proceeding.

"The mouse looked like it was browned or grilled or something," added Halima Jama, who worked with Zeppa at a medical clinic on Dixon Rd.

"It kind of looked like a rodent's head," said Miller, who inspected the burger following a customer complaint. He offered his description in transcripts filed with the Superior Court of Justice.

In short order, the rodent went from a freezer to a laboratory to the centre of a $17.5 million lawsuit, which is winding its way through court nearly six years after the June 24, 1999 incident.

Few details have emerged until now. But the transcripts, filed in connection with an upcoming court hearing, flesh out some of the allegations and defences in the case, including competing theories of how the rat got in the burger.

The controversy began when Jama's younger sister, Ayan Abdi Jama, then 9, arrived at the fast-food restaurant with her mother and ordered a Big Mac.

A few bites into her lunch, the Grade 4 student says she told her mother "there was something wrong with the burger."

"The texture. Like, it didn't feel right," she would say later.

A statement of claim filed on behalf of Ayan alleges she was served a Big Mac containing the severed head of a rat, "complete with eyes, teeth, nose and whiskers."

Read the complete article at Toronto Star

New device gives women teeth where it matters

A rape victim once wished for teeth "where it mattered". Now a device has been designed to "bite" a rapist's penis. The patented device looks and is worn like a tampon, but it is hollow and attaches itself with tiny hooks to a man's penis during penetration.

"We have to do something to protect ourselves. While this will not prevent rape it will assist in identifying attackers and securing convictions," claims Sonette Ehlers, inventor of the device.

Not everyone, however, is convinced of its usefulness.

Lisa Vetten, of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) says: "It is like we are going back to the days where women were forced to wear chastity belts. It is a terrifying thought that women are being made to adapt to rape by wearing these devices.

Read the complete article at IOL.co.za

Toads married in Hindu ceremony

KHOCHAKANDAR, India (Reuters) -- Two giant toads were married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in eastern India at the weekend by villagers hoping to appease the rain gods and end a dry spell.

Some 400 people cheered and blew conches as women put streaks of vermilion on the female toad's head while a band played music and priests solemnized the marriage to the chanting of Hindu hymns.

The toads were picked up from separate ponds, dressed in bright red clothes and brought to the marriage venue in a decorated palanquin in Khochakandar village in West Bengal state late Sunday.

The married toads were released into a pond after the ceremony in the village about 365 km (225 miles) north of the state capital, Calcutta.

Read the complete article at CNN.com

£70k found in old laundry basket

A German pensioner found nearly £70,000 in an old laundry basket she had bought at a flea market for just five pounds.

The woman, from Bavaria, was cleaning the basket when she found two savings accounts books worth nearly £60,000, and more than £10,000 cash.

She took the money immediately to her local police station, telling officers: "I want to sleep with a clear conscience."

Read the complete article at Ananova

Pizza man shot, but still delivers pizzas

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor bullets will apparently stop a Tampa, Fla., pizza store worker from making his appointed deliveries.

Thomas Stefanelli was dispatched Saturday night to make four pizza deliveries, and he did just that -- despite a.32-caliber bullet wound in his leg, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reported.

The 37-year-old Stefanelli told the newspaper was shot in his thigh about 10:30 p.m. Saturday after arriving to make a delivery at what he discovered was a vacant house. A man in a Halloween mask approached him, pointed a revolver at him and demanded money.

The Times said Stefanelli began fighting with the robber and two shots were fired, one wounding the deliveryman.

With his cell phone broken, he drove to his next delivery address, where he called his boss to ask him to notify police. He then made his final three deliveries.

Read the complete article at Webindia123.com

Teen gets scholarship from death row prisoners' group

GREENSBORO, North Carolina (AP) -- A college student whose younger sister was murdered more than a decade ago was presented Tuesday with a scholarship from an unlikely source -- death row inmates from around the country.

Zach Osborne was only 6 years old, and his sister, Natalie, was 4 when she was raped and murdered in 1992. Their mother's boyfriend, Jeff Kandies, is on North Carolina's death row for the crime.

On Tuesday, Osborne, 19, received a $5,000 college scholarship from the group of inmates who solicited money through their bimonthly publication "Compassion." Including Osborne's grant, they have given out seven scholarships worth about $27,000.

"We would like to support him in realizing his dream of becoming an officer of the law and finding a way to prevent future violence," wrote Dennis Skillicorn, a death row inmate in Missouri who is the newsletter's editor, in the May issue. "Our intent is genuine."

Read the complete article at CNN.com

Uni slaps sex tax on students

A Romanian university has slapped a 'sex tax' on students inviting their partners to spend the night with them in dormitories.

The Alexandru Ioan Cuza Univeristy in Iasi charges £4 each time a boyfriend of girlfriend spends the night with one of the 1,800 people living on campus.

One dormitory manager said: "If they want to spend the night with their girlfriends or boyfriends then they should pay. This is not their home. And it is not such a high price to pay."

He added that hundreds had already paid the charge, with male students particularly keen to pay and saving the receipts to show friends.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Cab company fears '4 curse' backlash

SHANGHAI'S biggest taxi company is calling in all cabs with an unlucky four in their licence plate numbers to boost students' chances in this week's college entrance exams.

The word for "four" in Mandarin and Cantonese sounds like the word for "die" and in Shanghainese has the added connotation of being a loser.

"Lots of parents refuse to take cabs with number plates which they consider unlucky, and we've seen many of them get angry at us because we have used them to carry their children in past years," a Shanghai Dazhong Taxi Company official was quoted as saying by the China Daily.

Parents and children across China do everything they can to maximise their chances of success in the rigorous annual test, which is the ticket to higher education and a fighting chance in the country's increasingly competitive job market.

The high pressure that surrounds the exam has turned cheating into an underground industry.

Police around China recently cracked 28 cases in which suspects advertised text message exam answers for sale, Xinhua news agency said.

"Last year, several people, including college teachers, were convicted of selling test papers of national college English proficiency exams for illegal profits and sentenced to jail terms," it said.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

91-Year-Old Fights Off Purse Snatcher

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) She’s 91 and uses a hearing aid and eyeglasses, but Katherine Woodworth wasn’t about to let somebody steal her purse.

Woodworth clobbered the would-be thief with her bag until he ran away, police said.

“I didn’t have my hearing aid in, and I thought he said that he was going to take my pulse,” Woodworth said. “Then he said it again, that he was going to take my purse, and I said, ‘No, you’re not.”’

She fought off the man in a department store parking lot Saturday afternoon, authorities said.

Read the complete article at WCCO

Court says gay man can drive

ROME (Reuters) - A Sicilian court condemned road authorities Monday for suspending the driving license of a man after finding out he was gay.

The court on the Mediterranean island said being gay was merely "a personality disturbance" which had no bearing on a person's ability to drive, Ansa news agency reported.

The 23-year-old man, who was identified as Danilo G., got into trouble with the road license authorities in the city of Catania after they discovered he had been exempted from military service because he was gay.

The authorities suspended his driving license ahead of further checks on his "suitability" to take the wheel.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Frogs rain down on Serbia

Traffic came to a halt and locals fled inside after thousands of frogs fell from the sky onto a Serbian village.

Residents in Odzaci told local daily Blic they thought the world was coming to an end.

Aleksandar Ciric said: "I saw all these small frogs just start raining down. There were thousands of them."

Another villager, Caja Jovanovic, added: "This huge 'cloud' seemed to come out of nowhere and its shape and colour looked very strange.

"We were all wondering what it was when suddenly frogs started to fall from the sky. I thought maybe a plane carrying frogs had exploded in midair."

But climatology expert Slavisa Ignjatovic said there was a simple scientific explanation for the incident.

He said: "A whirlwind has sucked up the frogs from a lake, the sea or some other body of water somewhere else and carried them along to Odzaci where they have fallen to the ground. It is a recognised scientific phenomenon."

Read the complete article at Ananova

Police Officer Pulls Over His Stolen Car

CHARLESTON, S.C. Jun 6, 2005 — An off-duty police officer on a Sunday drive saw something awfully familiar his recently stolen Volkswagen Jetta.

North Charleston patrolman Ethan Bernardi whipped his cruiser around and pulled over the stolen vehicle. He called other deputies, who arrested three suspects, police said.

"One of the advantages to having off-duty police officers using their patrol cars while off-duty is that they are able to respond to crimes when needed," North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt said.

Read the complete article at ABC News

Laugh off the extra pounds

Researcher: 15 minutes giggling = 50 calories

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Dieters looking for another edge might want to consider exercising their sense of humor -- scientists have found that a good laugh is a calorie burner not to be ignored.

It may not be as good for reducing the waistline as going to the gym or resisting that ice-cream sundae, but American researchers have found that 10-15 minutes of genuine giggling can burn off the number of calories found in a medium square of chocolate.

The findings on the weight-loss possibilities of the uniquely human experience of laughter were presented at the close of the annual European Congress on Obesity on Saturday.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, recruited 45 pairs of friends, shut them in a room decorated like a cheap hotel -- scientifically known as a metabolic chamber -- played them comedy clips on a TV screen and measured how many calories burned when they laughed.

The researchers separately tested seven pairs of male friends, 17 pairs of female friends and 21 mixed couples.

"We didn't tell them that the goal of the study was to measure laughter, because then they might have forced it. And forced laughter is regulated by a totally different part of the brain. We wanted it to be genuine laughter," said the lead researcher, Maciej Buchowski, director of bionutrition at Vanderbilt.

The volunteers were told the researchers were testing emotional reactions to various video clips.

Read the complete article at CNN.com

Woman Busted With 51 Fish Under Her Skirt

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) There must have been something fishy about the way she walked.

Customs officials said Monday they stopped a woman as she arrived Friday in the southern city of Melbourne on a flight from Singapore and found 51 live tropical fish allegedly hidden in a specially designed apron under her skirt.

“During the search customs officers became suspicious after hearing ‘flipping’ noises coming from the vicinity of her waist,” the Australian Customs Service said in a press release. “An examination revealed 15 plastic water-filled bags holding fish allegedly concealed inside a purpose-built apron.”

Read the complete article at WCCO

Woman leaves £1.2 million to dogs

A woman left £1.2 million to dogs in her will.

Marion Heywood from Uppermill, Greater Manchester, left the money to dog charities - and nothing to her family.

Marion who ran ten dance schools, died childless last November. She had a sister and two brothers reports The Sun.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Separate Hurricane Shelter For Sex Offenders?

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) A sheriff has proposed banning sex offenders and predators from public hurricane shelters in his county.

Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger said sex offenders should be evacuated to a separate shelter where they can be monitored.

Eslinger told the Orlando Sentinel that he has proposed using a 50-bed work release center at the Seminole County Jail in Sanford as an emergency shelter for sex offenders.

Deputy sheriffs would be sent to the home of each known offender who fails to report to the shelter, Eslinger told the newspaper.

Unless they are home or in another approved location, they would face arrest for violating their probation, he said.

The state Department of Corrections handles evacuations of sex offenders on a case-by-case basis, spokesman Robby Cunningham said.

“There are certain places they have to go,” such as a correctional facility or with relatives, he said. “They are not allowed to go to (public) shelters.”

Officials said 41 of the 211 sex offenders and predators registered in Seminole County do not have emergency evacuation plans.

Last year, officials said two sex offenders were sent by their probation officers to Lyman High School in Longwood, one of several Seminole County schools designated as public shelters.

The men were isolated from each other and other people at the shelter, Longwood police investigator Herb Stewartson said.

Outrage over the arrests of sex offenders in the separate killings of two Florida girls this year prompted some communities to toughen their laws governing where sex offenders can live.

Read the complete article at KCBS

N.C. Officials: Man Comes to Court Drunk

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - A man smelled of alcohol and stumbled when he appeared in traffic court to answer allegations that he didn't comply with penalties arising from a drunken driving case, court officials said.

So court officials performed a blood alcohol test on Johnnie Patt Ndogo, 55, who registered a concentration of 0.23 percent, nearly three times the state's impairment standard of 0.08 percent and more than double the 0.10 he registered at the time of his driving-while-impaired arrest.

Durham County District Court Judge Marcia Morey promptly found Ndogo in contempt of court Friday and jailed him for three days.

Read the complete article at My Way News

Firefighters Leave Stove On, Causing Fire

WATERLOO, Iowa - Firefighters returned to a smoke-filled fire station after they left food cooking on a stove. Firefighters rushed off on an ambulance call Wednesday night, forgetting to remove the chicken they were cooking, officials with the fire department said.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Elderly couple leads police on merry hunt

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An elderly Australian couple evaded police on a 1,400 mile journey by car and bus after setting off in protest when the wife was denied an extension of her driving license because of old age.

Tom and Marian Foulkes, both in their 80s, drove from their Melbourne home in the southern state of Victoria to the north of New South Wales state and halfway back again, avoiding police searching for them.

At one stage, the couple had their car keys confiscated by a police officer who thought they were disoriented, but they hit the road again, this time in a bus.

Their two weeks on the run ended Wednesday when they were found holed up in a hotel in the Australian capital Canberra.

Paul Foulkes, who reported his parents missing, said they were afraid of losing their independence as his father had earlier lost his driving license.

"They wished to demonstrate that they are capable people and they can manage themselves and they can drive," Foulkes told Reuters Thursday. "The desire to be independent, to go off, it's the human spirit isn't it, to want to travel especially when there are excessive restrictions put on them."

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Boot bondage slave alert

A suspected captive thrown into the boot of a car "freed" by police turned out to be a willing sex slave playing a kinky game.

The 39-year-old man was pulled out of the car in Germany wearing nothing but a leather thong and collar.


An alarmed onlooker called police in the southern town of Bayreuth after seeing a woman locking someone in the boot.

But the supposed kidnapping turned out to be nothing more than a couple getting their sexual kicks.

A police spokesman said: "It turned out they were a couple from the S&M scene.

"The mistress was driving with the slave in the boot."

Read the complete article at Sky News

Bone adds meat to simian myth

A BONE found on a British beach has sparked renewed interest in one of the country's most curious myths: that a monkey washed ashore during the Napoleonic Wars was executed by suspicious citizens for being a French spy.

Police in Hartlepool, on the north-east coast of England, confirmed today that the 15cm bone found on a beach last month was not human but came instead from a monkey or an ape.

The discovery has intrigued Hartlepool residents given the town's curious folklore from the Anglo-French Napoleonic conflict, which lasted from 1793 to 1815.

According to popular legend, a monkey dressed in a French uniform was washed ashore at Hartlepool, where it was tried by magistrates on suspicion of being a French spy.

The monkey did not answer questions so the magistrates presumed it was guilty, and it was hanged from a lamppost.

Although the tale's authenticity is unknown, Hartlepool's football team has long used a man dressed in a monkey suit – dubbed 'H'Angus' – as its mascot.

In a bizarre twist to the story, the man who used to wear the monkey suit, Stuart Drummond, was elected Hartlepool mayor in 2002 after running for the post in the guise of H'Angus.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Women drive? Are you crazy!

Saudis Outraged Over Women-Drive Proposal

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - He just wanted his colleagues in the government's legislative arm to discuss the possibility of conducting a study into the feasibility of reversing the ban on women drivers — the only prohibition of its kind in the world.

But Consultative Council member Mohammad al-Zulfa's proposal has unleashed a storm in this conservative country where the subject of women drivers remains taboo.

Al-Zulfa's cell phone now constantly rings with furious Saudis accusing him of encouraging women to commit the double sins of discarding their veils and mixing with men. He gets phone text messages calling on Allah to freeze his blood. Chat rooms bristle with insulting accusations that al-Zulfa is "driven by carnal instincts with 454 horsepower."

There even have been calls to kick al-Zulfa from the council and strip him of his Saudi nationality.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Mom Upset Over Toe-licking Incident

A Carroll County mother is accusing one of the teachers at her son's elementary school of having inappropriate physical contact with her son, having him lick the teacher's toes in exchange for candy.

The mother says she discovered what happened on Friday, when she saw a note, bearing the teacher's name in the signature, written in her 10-year-old son’s school yearbook.

“I saw a note from a teacher, saying, ‘Good luck next year. Don't lick anyone else's toes. You're silly. Love, Mrs. Kilpatrick,’” said Denise Strozier, the student’s mother. “So, I'm, like, okay. What is this about licking somebody's toes?”

She says her son, a student at Temple Elementary School, then described inappropriate physical contact this past February with teacher Jody Kilpatrick in front of a dozen other children.

“He said that [the teacher] says, ‘Well, everybody else has candy. And if you lick my toes, you can have some candy,’ And I said, ‘Are you sure that's what you [heard?]’” Strozier said. “He said, ‘Yes, ma'am, all my friends were there and I licked her toes, and I got candy.’”

Read the complete article at 11alive.com

Trust me! I am a hormone

LONDON (Reuters) - It could be the criminals' dream drug -- a hormone that makes people trust you.

Scientists in Switzerland and the United States have found that exposing people to the hormone Oxytocin makes them more willing to bond with others.

The same people exposed to the hormone but faced with a computer did not show increased willingness to take risks.

"Oxytocin specifically affects an individual's willingness to accept social risks arising through interpersonal interactions," they wrote in the science journal Nature.

It is hardly surprising. Oxytocin -- also known as the "cuddle" hormone -- is released by both men and women at sexual orgasm, and the bloodstream levels have been shown to rise during massage but fall with recollection of a negative emotion.

"We find that intranasal administration of Oxytocin causes a substantial increase in trusting behaviour," the scientists wrote.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Prayers are answered for distracted congregation

LONDON (Reuters) - British telecoms operator BT Group Plc has wired up a church in Wales to allow the congregation to hook onto local high-speed Internet connections when they want a break from the sermon. Britain's largest fixed-line telecoms operator said on Tuesday it had installed a Wi-Fi wireless network access point, known as a hotspot, in Reverend Keith Kimber's St John's Rectory church in the city of Cardiff.

"The church has to move with the times and I wanted to make St John's a sanctuary for everyone, including business people with laptops and mobiles," Kimber said in a statement issued by BT. "I have no problem with people quietly sending an email or surfing the Internet in church, as long as they respect the church."

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Mugged three times in an hour

A German man who was mugged in a night club was mugged again two more times while waiting for the police.

Reiner Hamer, 27, from Oberhausen, lost his wallet containing £120 and his mobile phone when three men attacked him in the toilet of his local night club.

He called police from outside the club using a friend's mobile, but while he waited for them to arrive he was approached by three other men, who stole his watch and cigarettes.

As he leaned back against the wall to recover, another five men approached him and again threatened him, stealing his jacket and the last of the small change.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Bit of a fix for bride and best man...

Doctors had to be called to separate the bride and best man after they were caught in the act during a wedding in Croatia.

The couple were trapped together by a muscle spasm after a friend of the groom walked in on them as they had sex in the toilets.

Unable to be pulled apart, the couple had to endure a procession of wedding guests who came to see what they had been doing before doctors could turn up.

Unable to help, they had to transport the pair on a stretcher to the local hospital where she was given an injection to relax her muscles, allowing the best man to get free.

The wedding party in Varazdin, Croatia, continued after the groom announced the celebrations were to mark his divorce rather than his wedding

Read the complete article at Ananova