Odd News Posting [Archive]

Muramasa

06-06-2007, 11:17 AM

World's oldest adornments found

Wed Jun 6, 9:50 AM ET

RABAT (Reuters) - Perforated shells discovered in a limestone cave in eastern Morocco are the oldest adornments ever found and show humans used symbols in Africa 40,000 years before Europe, the kingdom's government said.

The small oval Nassarius mollusc shells, some dyed with red ochre, were probably pierced to be strung into necklaces or bracelets 82,000 years ago.

"This classes the adornments in Pigeon's Cave at Taforalt as older than those discovered previously in Algeria, South Africa and Palestine," the Culture Ministry said in a statement.

The find represents "a big step in the understanding of cultural innovations and the role they played in human history".

Morocco has yielded important prehistoric finds including one of the oldest known dinosaur skeletons but little is known of the humans that inhabited the region before Berber farmers settled over 2,000 years ago.

The shells were found and dated by a team of scientists from Morocco, Britain, France and Germany trying to find out how climate and landscape change affected human behaviour between 130,000 and 13,000 years ago.

The work is part of a broader study into whether the Strait of Gibraltar dividing Morocco from Spain acted as a corridor or a barrier for early humans trying to move between Africa and Europe.

Muramasa

06-06-2007, 11:17 AM

Teen hits school during driving lesson

Tue Jun 5, 4:29 PM ET

JASPER, Ind. - A 15-year-old girl crashed her SUV into Jasper High School during a driving lesson, causing $50,000 in damage, police said. Jordan M. Sander was practicing Sunday afternoon with her father, John C. Sander, in the school's parking lot.

She was making a right turn when the sport utility vehicle went over a sidewalk and into the north side of the building, police said. Neither Jordan nor her father was injured. No charges were filed.

The accident also caused about $3,500 damage to the SUV.

Muramasa

06-06-2007, 11:18 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20070606/2007_06_06t101306_450x296_us_dutch_drink_odd.jpg?x =180&y=118&sig=.t5Rvo97VP01Dex4MpipJA--

Just add water - students invent alcohol powder

Wed Jun 6, 10:04 AM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch students have developed powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.

The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gramme packets that cost 1-1.5 euros ($1.35-$2).

Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.

"We are aiming for the youth market. They are really more into it because you can compare it with Bacardi-mixed drinks," 20-year-old Harm van Elderen told Reuters.

Van Elderen and four classmates at Helicon Vocational Institute, about an hour's drive from Amsterdam, came up with the idea as part of their final-year project.

"Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16," said project member Martyn van Nierop.

The legal age for drinking alcohol and smoking is 16 in the Netherlands.

In Germany, alcopops -- sweet drinks containing alcohol and in powder form -- caused quite a stir when launched on to the market. Alcohol powder, classified as a flavoring, was sold in the United States three years ago.

The students said companies interested in making the product commercially could avoid taxes because the alcohol was in powder form. A number of companies are interested, they said.

Muramasa

06-07-2007, 09:35 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20070607/2007_06_07t061741_450x324_us_olympics_beijing_name s.jpg?x=180&y=129&sig=YDDTZZKy4OxN0XCl06KMQQ--

Hello toilet, goodbye WC for Beijing Games

Wed Jun 6, 9:55 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing's battle to standardize and correct English-language signs ahead of the 2008 Olympics has claimed another head -- "W.C.."

By the end of the year, all public conveniences in the city will be called "toilets" instead of the venerable, Victorian-era sounding abbreviation for "water closet," state media reported on Wednesday.

"In many Western countries they don't use the term W.C. at all," the Beijing Morning Post said.

"Because in English, it's equivalent to what we would call in China an outhouse, and is a rather crude slang term," it added, without explaining how it had got this impression.

Also on the list are road signs. Use of the romanized form of Chinese, known as "pinyin," will be replaced by the actual English word, except for proper names, the newspaper added. Out will go Dong Changan Jie and in will come East Changan Avenue.

But a rather more vexing question has been what to do about menus to help the hundreds of thousands of tourists, athletes and reporters expected to flood the city, many of whom will not speak a word of Chinese, let alone understand Chinese characters.

An initial list had been formulated and sent to experts for approval, the Beijing News said.

All restaurants and hotels rated three star and above will have to use the standard names once they come out, it added.

Linguists are struggling about the best way to translate popular dishes like "ants climbing the tree" -- spicy fried vermicelli with finely chopped pork -- into English accurately yet preserving the original meaning, officials have said.

They are hoping to avoid confusing visitors with the mish-mash of translations now on offer. One well-known Beijing restaurant chain has dishes called "It is small to fry the chicken miscellaneous" and "mixed elbow with garlic mud."

Muramasa

06-07-2007, 09:37 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070606/capt.31b5e8c617f64ec48a7308e29e16afc7.diamond_find _ardj104.jpg?x=180&y=118&sig=VZL.CvMK6iFME.QJnwnZRA--

Teen finds 2.93-carat diamond along path

Wed Jun 6, 6:41 PM ET

MURFREESBORO, Ark. - Walking along a path taken by thousands of others at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, Nicole Ruhter noticed something everyone else had missed — a tea-colored, 2.93-carat diamond.

Ruhter, 13, of Butler, Mo., said she would name her find the "Pathfinder Diamond" after pulling what she described as a broken pyramid from the ground. Her parents, grandparents, brother and two sisters had already spent the day digging in two other fields before heading down the path just after 7 p.m. Tuesday.

"We were walking through the path and I just walked and saw this little shine," said Ruhter, who has just finished the seventh-grade. "We wrapped it up in a little dollar bill and took it back and showed them."

Ruhter said both park rangers and her vacationing family got excited about the diamond, found along a service road. So far this year, visitors to the park have found 332 diamonds, three of them Tuesday alone, said Bill Henderson, assistant park superintendent.

While the park does not do appraisals, Henderson said experts appraised a 4-carat diamond found previously in the park between $15,000 to $60,000. Henderson said Ruhter's diamond did have chips and several imperfections.

"It's a nice diamond," he said. "It looked like it had been broken off at one side."

For now, Ruhter and her family said they'd keep the diamond for a time and find out how much it is worth before attempting to sell it.

"I was kind of praying to God. I was saying, 'I don't care if it's worth whatever it's worth, I don't care if it's a tiny little sliver of something, I just want something,'" Ruhter said. "Ten minutes later, I just found it."

Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world's only diamond-producing site open to the public and visitors are allowed to keep the gems they find. On average, two diamonds are found each day at the park.

The largest of the 25,000 diamonds found since the state park was established in 1972 was the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight, a white diamond found by a visitor from Texas in 1975.

Muramasa

06-07-2007, 09:38 AM

Man sues over long-lasting erection

Tue Jun 5, 11:44 PM ET

NEW YORK - A man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and caused him to be hospitalized.

The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods of New York said he bought the nutrition beverage made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG at a drugstore on June 5, 2004, and drank it.

Woods' court papers say he woke up the next morning "with an erection that would not subside" and sought treatment that day for the condition, called severe priapism.

They say Woods, 29, underwent surgery for implantation of a Winter shunt, which moves blood from one area to another.

The lawsuit, filed late Monday, says Woods later had problems that required a hospital visit and penile artery embolization, a way of closing blood vessels. Closing off some blood flow prevents engorgement and lessens the likelihood of an erection.

Woods' lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, names Novartis Consumer Health Inc. as a defendant. A spokeswoman for the company, Brandi Robinson, said Tuesday the company was aware of the lawsuit but does not comment on pending litigation.

Woods' lawyer did not return telephone calls for comment Tuesday.

Novartis' Boost Plus Web site describes the drink as "a great tasting, high calorie, nutritionally complete oral supplement for people who require extra energy and protein in a limited volume," in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

antics22

06-07-2007, 10:26 AM

wtf?

Muramasa

06-08-2007, 09:16 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070607/capt.ad7723387b594dfbbcf6cfb0d2d6a00d.wheelchair_t ruck_ride_dt108.jpg?x=180&y=135&sig=pgo8aw06zozSKbrPyA8y1g--

Mich. man in wheelchair takes wild ride

By JAMES PRICHARD, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 8, 5:57 AM ET

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - A 21-year-old man got the ride of a lifetime when his electric wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a semitrailer and was pushed down a highway for several miles at about 50 mph.

Ben Carpenter was unharmed but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He had been secured to his wheelchair by a seat belt. Carpenter, who has muscular dystrophy, told a television station that he thought he might not make it through the ride.

"I was probably thinking that this is going to keep going and not stop anywhere, 50 or 60 miles somewhere," he told WOOD-TV of Grand Rapids.

Ben Carpenter's father, Donald, told The Associated Press that his son had started to cross at an intersection Wednesday afternoon in Paw Paw, about 140 miles west of Detroit. The light changed to green while his son was in front of a semi, which started moving.

The wheelchair's handles became lodged in the grille, the father said, and the wild ride started.

Motorists called 911 on their cell phones, and a pair of undercover police officers who happened to be nearby saw what was happening. They pulled the truck over and told the disbelieving driver, Donald Carpenter said.

The chair was undamaged except for losing most of the rubber on its wheels, he said.

"It's a very bad story that ended very well," he said. "We're just thrilled that he's still around."

Muramasa

06-08-2007, 09:18 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070607/i/ra1156761388.jpg?x=180&y=117&sig=A2Z52BpWbIvwneMC_qDJpQ--

Californians may be forced to neuter pets

By Jim Christie Thu Jun 7, 6:56 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California may become the only U.S. state to require the sterilization of pets under a bill passed by the state Assembly, pitting dog and cat lovers against animal rights activists.

"It's a horrific bill," said Maureen Hill-Hauch, executive director of Castleton, New York-based American Dog Owners Association, adding that enforcement of the bill in theory could wipe out California's dog population.

The bill would require pet owners to spay and neuter their dogs and cats, or face a $500 (250 pounds) fine for each animal.

Breeders, as well as owners of guide dogs, could obtain exemptions.

The Democrat-led state Assembly narrowly approved the bill late on Wednesday. It now goes to the state Senate amid a flurry of legislation that must be passed by Friday.

Republicans in the minority in both chambers do not consider the bill a priority and say it is too intrusive. "It's micro-managing," said Republican Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa.

Supporters say the bill requiring pets to be spayed or neutered is necessary to reduce the population of unwanted pets dumped in the state's shelters.

At least 500,000 animals each year are killed in the most populous U.S. state, imposing an unacceptable "humanitarian" cost on California, said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, the Democrat promoting the bill.

Those dogs and cats also impose a big expense to the state as keeping and killing them costs $300 million a year, Levine said in a telephone interview.

Leslie Nuccio of the San Francisco area group Bad Rap -- Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls -- said the bill offers a solution to California's "pet overpopulation problem" because too few owners voluntarily spay or neuter their pets.

"Unfortunately, it just hasn't been enough to staunch the flow of unwanted animals," she said.

Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the bill and will not disclose whether his two dogs have been spayed or neutered, said spokesman Aaron McLear: "He doesn't want to get into the personal lives of Sarge and Spunky."

Terenus

06-08-2007, 10:26 AM

Too much time on your hands.

Muramasa

06-08-2007, 01:09 PM

Too much time on your hands.

Well its an interesting read =)

Muramasa

06-11-2007, 09:44 AM

Blackout leaves coaster riders dangling

10 minutes ago

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - A dozen riders on a roller coaster spent half an hour hanging upside down — 150 feet above the ground — after a power outage shut down the attraction.

Spectators cheered when the riders were brought to the ground from the highest point of a loop on the X-Coaster, but one passenger threw up after reaching safety.

The X-Coaster was one of several rides brought to a halt by the outage that originated somewhere near the park.

"You could tell who got off the (X-Coaster) because their faces were red," said Angela Salter. She was riding the Gauntlet, another coaster, and said park employees worked quickly to free her.

The park resumed normal operations, although the X-Coaster remained closed.

One X-Coaster passenger, Jay Plummer, 37, was taken to St. Joseph Mercy Medical Center in Hot Springs after complaining of neck pain and a headache.

"It was very scary," said his girlfriend, Connie McBride. "I love the amusement park, but I will never get on the X-Coaster again."

The park has experienced outages before, but usually they last only seconds, said Dan Aylward, Magic Springs president and general manager.

Entergy Corp. was investigating but crews found no faulty wiring.

"The cause could be a (tree) limb or as simple as an animal (on the lines)," said Mark Hunt, general manager of customer service for Entergy. "We could find no faults, but we are going to continue to investigate until we find the cause."

Muramasa

06-11-2007, 09:45 AM

Two jailed after bridge built by blind man collapses

Mon Jun 11, 7:27 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court has jailed two officials after they let a blind contractor build a bridge which collapsed during construction and injured 12 people, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

Huang Wenge, township head of Bujia in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, and colleague Xia Jianzhong were sentenced to 18 months and one year in jail, respectively, for not stopping the project, Xinhua said.

"Huang Wenge and Xia Jianzhong, who were in charge of road management and supervision, did not ask the contractors to provide certificates guaranteeing their proficiency," it said, citing the court ruling.

"When they knew the bridge was being built by a blind contractor, they did not stop it," it said, adding the contractor had changed the blueprint without getting a professional to look at the design.

"After the blind contractor changed the blueprint, he carried out the work only using a roughly drawn draft of the plan, which caused the bridge to collapse," the report said.

Xinhua did not explain how the contractor was able to run the project considering his inability to see.

Muramasa

06-11-2007, 09:46 AM

Randy sniffer dogs get the sack

Mon Jun 11, 8:45 AM ET

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Two Thai street mutts who became ace sniffer dogs at an airport near the notorious "Golden Triangle" opium-producing region have been fired for urinating on luggage and sexually harassing female passengers.

The pair, Mok and Lai, had been plucked from obscurity under a program initiated by King Bhumibol Adulyadej to turn strays into police dogs, the Bangkok Post said on Sunday.

Although they won plaudits from police for their work in sniffing out drugs at northern Thailand's Chiang Rai airport, near the border with Laos and Myanmar, so many passengers complained about their behavior they had to be fired.

"He liked to pee on luggage while searching for drugs inside," Mok's former handler, Police Lieutenant Colonel Jakapop Kamhon, said. "He also liked to hold on to women's legs."

"Both were just as good as foreign dogs trained for use in drug missions," he added. "But they were stray dogs, so their manners were worse than those of foreign breeds."

Mok and Lai now work on a farm, herding chickens and pigs, the paper said.

yajo

06-11-2007, 06:53 PM

subscribing. g r 8 - thread..

Muramasa

06-12-2007, 09:38 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070607/capt.ad7723387b594dfbbcf6cfb0d2d6a00d.wheelchair_t ruck_ride_dt108.jpg?x=180&y=135&sig=pgo8aw06zozSKbrPyA8y1g--

Mich. man in wheelchair takes wild ride

By JAMES PRICHARD, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 9, 2:32 AM ET

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - A 21-year-old man got the ride of a lifetime when his electric wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a semitrailer and was pushed down a highway for several miles at about 50 mph.

Ben Carpenter was unharmed but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He had been secured to his wheelchair by a seat belt. Carpenter, who has muscular dystrophy, told a television station that he thought he might not make it through the ride.

"I was probably thinking that this is going to keep going and not stop anywhere, 50 or 60 miles somewhere," he told WOOD-TV of Grand Rapids.

Ben Carpenter's father, Donald, told The Associated Press that his son had started to cross at an intersection Wednesday afternoon in Paw Paw, about 140 miles west of Detroit. The light changed to green while his son was in front of a semi, which started moving.

The wheelchair's handles became lodged in the grille, the father said, and the wild ride started.

Motorists called 911 on their cell phones, and a pair of undercover police officers who happened to be nearby saw what was happening. They pulled the truck over and told the disbelieving driver, Donald Carpenter said.

The chair was undamaged except for losing most of the rubber on its wheels, he said.

"It's a very bad story that ended very well," he said. "We're just thrilled that he's still around."

Muramasa

06-12-2007, 09:39 AM

Japan's Potter translator may face back taxes

Mon Jun 11, 11:03 PM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) -
Harry Potter's Japanese translator could use a little magic in her dispute with tax authorities.

Yuko Matsuoka, who has translated and published the global best sellers, has been feuding with Japanese tax officials over nearly $29 million (14.7 million pounds) in income they say she failed to declare.

Matsuoka, 63, has said she is a resident of Switzerland, but Kyodo news agency said on Tuesday that authorities in Japan and Switzerland had determined that she effectively lived in Japan through 2005, quoting sources close to the case.

Japanese tax officials want her to pay more than 700 million yen (2.9 million pounds) in back taxes on 3.5 billion yen of undeclared income for three years up to 2004 because she was involved in publishing in Japan and frequently spent time there, Kyodo said.

Matsuoka could also face back taxes for 2005, Kyodo added.

Japanese tax officials declined to comment, as did Matsuoka's Tokyo publishing house Say-zan-sha Publications.

Matsuoka was quoted as saying in a statement that her "good faith" had been recognised by authorities in both nations.

"My mission and joy in life is to bring the fantasy of the Harry Potter series to many millions of young readers in Japan, not to encourage fantasy by commenting on such sensationalist figures," Kyodo quoted her as saying.

Matsuoka beat Japan's big publishing houses to win translation rights for the Harry Potter books after reading the first book through the night. Her feat transformed Say-zan-sha Publications, which her late husband founded, from a struggling publisher run out of her apartment into a full-fledged company.

The fifth "Harry Potter" film will premiere in Japan later this month.

Muramasa

06-12-2007, 09:40 AM

Spooked deer takes 'revenge' on runner

Mon Jun 11, 10:31 PM ET

BRAINERD, Minn. - Kandi Hanson has a history of run-ins with deer. She totaled her first car and damaged two others in collisions with deer. This weekend, the deer struck back.

As Hanson approached the halfway mark of the 10-kilometer Sour Grapes Half and Half run Saturday, a spooked deer darted out of the woods and crashed into Hanson, tossing the 28-year-old into the air and sending her sprawling onto the grass before disappearing into the woods.

"There were two deer and the first one literally flew by right in front of us and brushed us," the Pequot Lakes woman said.

Hanson and two friends, Lottie Oehrlein and Robin Warden, shrieked at their encounter with the first deer before cautiously continuing their run, oblivious of the second deer.

"We started running a little bit again and Lottie yelled out, 'Here comes another one' and I couldn't get out of the way fast enough, it plowed into me."

Hanson didn't know how to react.

"I was very surprised, my eyes were huge, I was part crying, part laughing. I didn't know what to do," she said.

But Hanson spit the dirt out of her mouth, brushed herself off and finished the race. She escaped with only minor scrapes, bruises and soreness.

Sour Grapes director Jeanne Larson said race organizers were prepared for common runners' ailments, but not this.

"When I'm running I consider myself lucky to even see a deer. Getting hit by a deer while running I don't consider so lucky," she said.

Although Hanson finished in 31st place, the middle school teacher didn't come away empty-handed. She received a first-place plaque for being airborne the longest.

Muramasa

06-12-2007, 09:40 AM

Man who bit off rooster's head gets deal

Mon Jun 11, 6:15 PM ET

NEW YORK - A man who told police he bit the head off a rooster accepted a prosecution offer Monday to drop the case if he is not rearrested within the next six months.

Humberto Rodriguez was arrested June 29, 2006, and charged with animal cruelty after a neighbor spotted the rooster's headless torso on the fire escape outside his Manhattan apartment and called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

ASPCA spokesman Joe Pentangelo said after Rodriguez' arrest that the defendant admitted to ASPCA police that he bit his bird, which a friend had given him about six months earlier. The rooster's head was never found.

A complaint filed in Manhattan Criminal Court at Rodriguez' arraignment quoted him as telling the ASPCA officer, "I killed the rooster. I bit the head off. I bit the rooster's neck. He died, and then I cut its head off with a knife."

Pentangelo said the rooster also had two broken wings.

Rodriguez told the ASPCA's investigators that he committed the foul deed because the rooster had injured a pet pigeon he kept in the apartment, Pentangelo said.

The deal that Rodriguez accepted, called adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, means he does not have to enter a guilty or not guilty plea and if he is not arrested within the next six months his case will be dismissed.

Rodriguez, 52, faced up to a year in jail if convicted after trial.

His Legal Aid lawyer, Christine Bella, did not answer her telephone Thursday evening.

It's illegal to possess a live rooster in the city, the ASPCA said.

Muramasa

06-12-2007, 09:41 AM

Wild new flavours spice up German sausages

Tue Jun 12, 6:17 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - Hoping to spice up their summer business, German butchers have introduced a new line of exotic-tasting sausages with flavours ranging from kiwi, maraschino cherry, lemon and even aloe vera.

The wide variety of new ingredients may seem like heresy to what is for many ordinary Germans the national dish. But for others the new flavours may help negate stagnant demand for the greasy Bratwurst you can find on almost any street corner.

Berlin butcher Uwe Buenger has developed a "chili-honey" Bratwurst while rival Dankert has come up with a "kiwi wurst" that also includes pineapples and maraschino cherries, Bild newspaper reported on Tuesday.

For sausage connoisseurs, there is also the "Truefflebratwurst" that includes truffle, a fungus spiced with black and white pepper. Other sausages in Berlin are made of lamb, ginger, parsley, cardamom and edible blossoms.

smokinevo9

06-12-2007, 09:54 AM

this thread is stupid good

Muramasa

06-13-2007, 10:00 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070613/capt.xjk10706130927.japan_pepsi_cucumber_xjk107.jp g?x=380&y=235&sig=GKU4lvbd8NMkchU0tHLuqw--

Cucumber-flavored soda sold in Japan

Wed Jun 13, 7:47 AM ET

TOKYO - Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with "Pepsi Ice Cucumber" — a new soda based on the crisp green gourd.

The soft drink, which hit stores here on Tuesday, doesn't actually have any cucumber in it — but has been artificially flavored to resemble "the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber," said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan's Pepsi distributor, Suntory Ltd.

"We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat," Takemoto said. "We thought the cucumber was just perfect."

The mint-colored soda is on sale just for the summer and only in Japan, Takemoto said. She said initial sales were brisk, and Suntory aims to sell 200,000 cases over the next three months.

Pepsi trails behind industry leaders Coca Cola (Japan) Company, with about 15 percent of the Japanese cola market, and also faces stiff competition from non-fizzy bottled drinks like green tea and coffee, which are popular here.

Suntory said it sold 20.5 million cases of Pepsi brand drinks in 2006, including its popular Pepsi NEX zero-calorie soda.

Muramasa

06-13-2007, 10:04 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070612/capt.d284a88c7585476882beb2963152e15f.67_million_d ollar_pants_dcjm106.jpg?x=380&y=259&sig=Dd.liz5G0ogOsLFZdepdmw--

Judge suing dry cleaner cries over pants

By LUBNA TAKRURI, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 12, 11:07 PM ET

WASHINGTON - A judge had to leave the courtroom with tears running down his face Tuesday after recalling the lost pair of trousers that led to his $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaner.

Administrative law judge Roy L. Pearson had argued earlier in his opening statement that he is acting in the interest of all city residents against poor business practices. Defense attorneys called his claim "outlandish."

He originally sued Custom Cleaners for about $65 million under the District of Columbia consumer protection act and almost $2 million in common law claims. He is no longer seeking damages related to the pants, instead focusing his claims on two signs in the shop that have since been removed.

He alleges that Jin Chung, Soo Chung and Ki Chung, owners of the mom-and-pop business, committed fraud and misled consumers with signs that claimed "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service."

Pearson, representing himself, said in opening that he wanted to examine the culture that allowed "a group of defendants to engage in bad business practices for five years."

An attorney for the Chungs portrayed Pearson as a bitter man with financial troubles stemming from a recent divorce who is taking out his anger on a hardworking family.

"This case is very simple. It's about one sign and the plaintiff's outlandish interpretation," attorney Chris Manning said.

The Chungs were to present their case Wednesday. Manning asked D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff to award them reimbursement for their legal costs if they win.

Pearson called several witnesses Tuesday who testified that they stopped going to Custom Cleaners after problems with misplaced clothes.

Pearson also called himself as a witness, saying his problems began in May 2005 when he brought in several suits for alterations. A pair of pants from a blue and maroon suit was missing when he requested it two days later. He said Soo Chung tried to give him a pair of charcoal gray pants.

As Pearson explained that those weren't the pants for the suit, he choked up and left the courtroom crying after asking Bartnoff for a break.

Pearson originally asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit, which was more than $1,000. But because the Chungs insisted the pants had been found, they refused to pay.

Manning has said the cleaners made three settlement offers to Pearson, but the judge was not satisfied and increased his demands — including asking for money to rent a car so he could drive to another business.

Muramasa

06-13-2007, 10:06 AM

German vandal, 70, nabbed spraying rude graffiti

Tue Jun 12, 8:25 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German pensioner has been arrested for vandalism after being caught spraying the word "Puff" (whorehouse) on houses in the Bavarian town of Hof, near the Czech border, a police spokeswoman said on Monday.

The 70-year-old had sprayed at least two houses with graffiti when a young man saw him in action with his spray can and challenged him, the spokeswoman said.

The elderly vandal dropped the can and ran, but the younger man caught up with him and held him down until police arrived. The spokeswoman said the houses he had sprayed were just people's homes and his motive was unclear.

Muramasa

06-13-2007, 10:06 AM

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070612/capt.nyol98206122248.blue_lobster_nyol982.jpg?x=22 7&y=345&sig=fDzPSie3okni6Nex4GhJ3g--

Rare blue lobster avoids the cooker

Tue Jun 12, 10:46 PM ET

NEW LONDON, Conn. - Call it crustacean discrimination. A lobster caught last weekend by Steve Hatch and his uncle Robert Green was spared from being cooked and ripped apart on a plate because of its color.

The 1 1/2-pound clawed creature is bright blue, the result of an extremely rare genetic mutation.

It turned up Sunday morning in one of Hatch and Green's lobster traps at the mouth of the Thames River.

"I've heard about them but this is the first one I've ever seen," Hatch told The Day of New London newspaper.

Later that afternoon, he put the lobster in a cooler and brought it to the Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration, where it will live out its days in an elementary school classroom for children to learn about.

Catherine Ellis, curator of fish and invertebrates at the aquarium, said only one in 3 million lobsters are "true blue," meaning their color is the result of genetics and not the environment.

The one caught Sunday will join two other blue lobsters at the aquarium.

Researchers at the University of Connecticut found that the blue coloring occurs when lobsters produce an excessive amount of protein because of a genetic mutation.

But if blue lobsters are cooked like their red brethren, they too turn red, Ellis said.

Muramasa

06-13-2007, 10:08 AM

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Chinese surname shortage sparks rethink

Tue Jun 12, 3:31 AM ET

BEIJING (AFP) - With more than a billion people now sharing just 100 surnames, Chinese authorities are considering a landmark move to try to end the confusion, state media reported Tuesday.

Current Chinese law states that children are only allowed take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang.

In a country of around 1.3 billion people, about 85 percent share only 100 surnames, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Ministry of Public Security in April and published in the China Daily newspaper on Tuesday.

The survey found 92 million people shared the surname Li, while 88 million were called Zhang. A further seven surnames -- including Chen, Zhou and Lin -- are held by at least 20 million Chinese.

Another report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences found at least 100,000 people share China's most popular name, Wang Tao.

Under a new draft regulation released by the ministry of public security, parents will be able to combine their surnames for their children, a move that could open up 1.28 million new possibilities, the China Daily reported.

For instance, a father named Zhou and mother named Zhu could choose to call their child either Zhou, Zhu, Zhouzhu or Zhuzhou, the report added.

Guan Xihua, a household registration officer with the Beijing public security bureau, said the lack of variety caused trouble in daily life and the new regulation would slash repetition.

Du Roufu, from the academy, said combined surnames had already become popular with younger couples even though such combinations were not strictly permitted by law.

The draft also allows ethnic minorities to register some letters and characters among new names, but bans any foreign letters.

Du said the move for ethnic minorities would encourage them to use traditional surnames and avoid the practice of taking Han Chinese surnames, which reduces the variety of names and harms their cultural heritage.

AvengeDEvO

06-13-2007, 10:26 AM

The judge suing the cleaners is a little bitch! He should be disbarred.

Muramasa

06-14-2007, 09:26 AM

Baby monitor picks up video from NASA

2 hours, 40 minutes ago

PALATINE, Ill. - A mother of two in this suburb of Chicago doesn't have to turn on the news for an update on
NASA's space mission. She just flips on her baby monitor. Since Sunday, Natalie Meilinger's baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis.

"Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you'll usually see," said the elementary school science teacher. "No one would ever expect this."

Live video of the mission is available on NASA's Web site, so it's possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

"It's not coming straight from the shuttle," NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. "People here think this is very interesting and you don't hear of it often — if at all."

Meilinger silenced disbelieving co-workers by bringing in a video of the monitor to show her class on Tuesday, her students' last day of school. At home, 3-month-old Jack and 2-year-old Rachel don't quite understand what their parents are watching.

"I've been addicted to it and keep waiting to see what's next," Meilinger said.

Muramasa

06-14-2007, 09:27 AM

Indian man, 73, fails school exams on 38th try

Thu Jun 14, 7:32 AM ET

JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - A 73-year-old Indian farmer who vowed not to marry before passing his high school exams has failed to get through for the 38th time.

Shiv Charan Yadav has been taking the exams -- normally given to schoolchildren at the age of 15 -- every year since 1969, without success.

He was in his 30s when he first decided to better himself through education.

This year, he failed everything except Sanskrit, scoring only 103 out of a possible 600 points.

He said he found mathematics especially hard, blaming the subject for dragging down his score.

"Once I pass I want to get married to a girl who's under 30," Yadav, who lives alone in Kohari village in the western desert state of Rajasthan, told Reuters.

He is now revising for his 39th attempt next year.

Muramasa

06-14-2007, 09:28 AM

Norwegian McDonald's to serve salmon wrap

2 hours, 46 minutes ago

OSLO (Reuters) - McDonald's restaurants in Norway will launch a new fresh salmon wrap in August to satisfy increasing demand from consumers for healthy food, company officials said on Thursday.

The Nordic nation is the world's biggest salmon exporter.

"It's local, it's Norwegian, and something we are proud to be launching, and it fits into the trend that people want to eat more healthily," said Margaret Brusletto, spokeswoman for McDonald's Norwegian subsidiary.

A wrap is a sandwich-like meal made of a filling wrapped inside a soft tortilla shell. McDonald's restaurants in the United States and the UK already serve chicken wraps.

Plans call only for the product to be sold at the 67 McDonald's restaurants in Norway, but the American fast-food chain's partner, the world's biggest salmon farmer Marine Harvest, hopes it will also catch on internationally.

Muramasa

06-14-2007, 09:28 AM

Trooper stops naked couple in SUV

Wed Jun 13, 10:58 PM ET

BELLEVUE, Wash. - Drunken driving is bad, but drunken driving while naked could be worse. A Washington State Patrol trooper pulled over an SUV on Interstate 90 in this Seattle suburb after observing it driving erratically about 1:20 a.m. Friday.

The trooper found both the driver and his female passenger were naked, with alcohol containers in the vehicle. They apparently had been interrupted in the middle of an intimate act, said Trooper Jeff Merrill, a State Patrol spokesman.

A 19-year-old Seattle man was arrested for investigation of drunken driving, a gross misdemeanor, and investigation of embracing while driving, which Merrill said was a misdemeanor. The 20-year-old Seattle woman was cited for being a minor in possession of alcohol, he said. The patrol did not release their names.

Muramasa

06-14-2007, 09:28 AM

Squirrel goes on rampage in Germany

Thu Jun 14, 8:20 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.

The squirrel first ran into a house in the southern town of Passau, leapt from behind on a 70-year-old woman, and sank its teeth into her hand, a local police spokesman said on Thursday.

With the squirrel still hanging from her hand, the woman ran onto the street in panic, where she managed to shake it off.

The animal then entered a building site and jumped on a construction worker, injuring him on the hand and arm, before he managed to fight it off with a measuring pole.

"After that, the squirrel went into the 72-year-old man's garden and massively attacked him on the arms, hand and thigh," the spokesman said. "Then he killed it with his crutch."

The spokesman said experts thought the attack may have been linked to the mating season or because the squirrel was ill.

Muramasa

06-14-2007, 09:29 AM

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Konami to sell skincare software for Nintendo DS

Thu Jun 14, 6:43 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese software maker plans to launch a skincare guide for use on Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s hot-selling portable game gear DS, giving beauty tips based on users' basal body temperature and hormone balance.

Konami Corp., known for such sports titles as "Pro Evolution Soccer", said that by marking a target date such as a wedding in the software, DS users can get customised, daily skincare instructions in the run-up to the big day.

"We have developed the software under the concept of getting pretty while having fun," Konami Digital Entertainment Corporate Officer Naoyuki Notsu told a news conference.

Konami Digital Entertainment is Konami's game software unit.

The DS has two screens, opens like a book and allows gamers to control play with a stylus, instead of manipulating a keypad.

Its intuitive playing style coupled with software designed to cater to game novices, such as the "Nintendogs" pet training game, have helped Nintendo expand its clientele beyond a young male audience to include women and the elderly.

The skincare software will go on sale on October 18 in Japan for 4,500 yen (18 pounds). Konami has no specific plans at the moment for an overseas launch.

($1=122.74 Yen)

Muramasa

06-14-2007, 09:30 AM

Man gets 2 DUI's in day from same cop

Wed Jun 13, 5:03 PM ET

MISSOULA, Mont. - A man was cited for drunken driving twice in the same day, by the same officer, and jailed after authorities said he showed up drunk for his arraignment.

Court records said Adam T. Lundgren, 42, was cited for misdemeanor drunken driving after being spotted driving erratically at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

He was later released to a sober friend, but jumped from the friend's car and returned to downtown Missoula, where he continued drinking, court records said.

At about 10 p.m., Lundgren drove into a bridge railing and started to run away. Witnesses captured him and held him until police arrived.

Officer Cody Lanier of the Missoula Police Department again cited Lundgren for drunken driving, along with reckless driving and failing to heed a stop sign.

Lundgren posted $700 bail later Monday night, but was jailed Tuesday afternoon after showing up drunk for his Municipal Court arraignment, court records said.

Muramasa

06-14-2007, 09:31 AM

Trooper finds teen driver fleeing school

Wed Jun 13, 4:54 PM ET

SOUTHEAST, N.Y. - When a state policeman pulled over a car that was being driven at night without lights, he found a 14-year-old boy at the wheel, making his escape from a Connecticut boarding school.

His two passengers, also runaways, were 10 and 11 years old, police said. One had a teddy bear with him.

When the policeman asked whose car it was after the Tuesday night traffic stop, the driver said, "We don't know, we stole it," the police report says.

Police would not identify the school, but The Journal News reported on its Internet site Wednesday that it was the Devereux Glenholme School in Washington, Conn. Calls to the school were not immediately returned.

The school is about 30 miles from where the boys were pulled over. They were headed for Manhattan, where one boy's parents lived, Reilly said.

"They didn't like the boarding school, so they ran away," he said. He said they found the car, a 1990 Dodge Shadow, with keys in it outside a highway department or firehouse.

Each of the boys was charged with criminal possession of stolen property, returned to the school and ordered to appear in Family Court on Monday.

Muramasa

06-15-2007, 09:43 AM

Deputy's dog eats cruiser seats, dies

Thu Jun 14, 10:21 PM ET

BEND, Ore. - After Koda escaped from his kennel, he chewed through the dog food stored in the sheriff's department patrol car. Then he started in on the seats. Apparently, deputies say, he choked on the foam.

The 2-year-old Belgian malinois died on Monday, just a few months after joining Deschutes County deputies as a patrol dog.

The department concluded that the deputy who was Koda's handler was not negligent. The department did not identify him.

"He's pretty devastated," Capt. Tim Edwards said Wednesday in announcing Koda's death. Grief counseling was made available to the officer, Edwards said.

Edwards said he's not sure why Koda ate the car seats, but it could have been boredom.

"Many police dogs are high-drive dogs," he said. "They have to do something. It's like ADHD."

The Belgian malinois resembles a German shepherd but is smaller.

Edwards said Koda had seemed to be doing well in his law enforcement duties.

"He was a very sharp, intelligent dog," he said. "Seemed like he was going to work out to be a very good canine for us."

Muramasa

06-15-2007, 09:44 AM

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Text in time saves nimble-fingered teen

Thu Jun 14, 10:38 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian teen-ager woken by a night-time noise dashed off a warning text message to her mother just in time to be rescued from an intruder who burst into her bedroom.

Alerted by the mother's screams, relatives rushed to the rescue, breaking down a door and scaring off the man, who escaped through the back of the house, the New Straits Times said.

Salima Mohamad Noor, 17, said a man broke into her bedroom and placed a knife at her neck just as she finished sending the message on her cellular telephone.

"I was terrified and started screaming when he threatened to kill me," the newspaper quoted Salima as saying. "He also said no one would come to my rescue as he had already locked my mother's bedroom door from the outside."

But her mother's loud screams drew the attention of Salima's uncle, who kicked open the front door, frightening away the intruder, the paper added.

About 80 percent of Malaysia's population of roughly 26 million own a cell phone, statistics show, with many teenagers proficient in text messaging, as a cheaper way of talking to friends than telephone calls.

Muramasa

06-15-2007, 09:45 AM

U.S. man suing over trousers aims to fund more cases

By Andy Sullivan Thu Jun 14, 10:43 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The judge who sued his dry cleaning shop for $54 million over a lost pair of trousers said as the trial wrapped up on Wednesday that he would use any winnings he might get to encourage others to follow suit.

Roy L. Pearson, an administrative judge for the District of Columbia, said he only needed $2.5 million for himself to cover the emotional distress he suffered after Custom Cleaners misplaced a pair of pants he brought in for alteration.

The remainder, he said, would be used "as an incentive for other attorneys in private practice to take on these kinds of cases."

District of Columbia Judge Judith Bartnoff said she would issue a written decision within a week in the case.

Pearson's lawsuit has drawn international ridicule. It also drew plenty of chuckles from spectators who crowded into the stuffy municipal courtroom.

Even Bartnoff had a hard time keeping a straight face as Pearson, wearing a gray pinstripe suit and a stained lavender tie, wielded a 6-inch-thick (15-cm-thick) binder of laws and court decisions that he said bolstered his case.

Shop owner Soo Chung, an immigrant from
South Korea, was not so amused.

"Economically, emotionally, and health-wise as well, it's been extremely hard for us," Chung said through an interpreter as she broke down crying. It has cost tens of thousands of dollars to defend against the lawsuit, with a quarter of that covered by donations, a spokeswoman said.

Pearson claims a "satisfaction guaranteed" sign at the dry cleaning shop violates a consumer-protection law because he was unsatisfied with the response of Chung and her husband and son when they misplaced his pants in 2005.

The Chungs say they located the pants a few days later, but Pearson said they were not his.

The pants in question -- gray, with cuffs -- hung by the witness stand as the Chungs' attorney questioned whether Pearson's interpretation of the sign was reasonable.

"Does the sign read: 'If you are not satisfied with our service, you the customer can ask for whatever you want, including $67 million, and you will receive it'?" attorney Chris Manning asked.

Pearson, who reduced an original demand for $67 million to $54 million last month, arrived at the figured based on fines accruing for the four years allowed under the statute of limitations and other costs, such as $15,000 to rent a car to use another dry cleaning shop.

Bartnoff seemed skeptical as well, poking holes in Pearson's legal reasoning on many occasions.

"This is a very important statute to protect consumers of the District of Columbia. It's also very important that statutes like this are not misused," Bartnoff said.

Muramasa

06-15-2007, 09:46 AM

Not everyone happy lost dog is back

Thu Jun 14, 10:23 PM ET

FULLERTON, Calif. - There was no puppy love when Jewel met Jade. Jewel, the Correy family pet, disappeared seven years ago. Misty Correy and her children hoped the microchip in the dog's back would help find the Siberian husky.

"After three months, we figured we would never see Jewel again," Correy said. So they got Jade, a yellow Labrador.

Last month, the family got a call from a humane society in Yuma. An animal control officer had found Jewel wandering down an empty road and they had traced her through the chip.

It's unclear how Jewel got to Arizona and became lost again.

Correy's daughter, Breezy, 16, and her older brother drove for 14 hours to retrieve Jewel.

"I hugged her all the way home," Breezy said.

When she got home, Jewel acted like she had never left, heading straight for Breezy's room and scratching at the door like she used to, the teenager said.

However, Jade appears to be a happiness holdout.

Correy said the two dogs "have been fighting since they met."

Muramasa

06-18-2007, 02:28 PM

Doctors find 6 sewing needles in baby

7 minutes ago

BEIJING - Doctors in southern China were planning to perform surgery on a 1-year-old boy whose parents took him to a hospital because he had been unusually fussy and learned he had six sewing needles in his body, newspapers reported Monday.

The child's parents, migrant workers from southwest China, said they had no idea how the needles ended up in their son, nicknamed Xiao Yu.

The Beijing Youth Daily ran a color photo of an X-ray showing five needles throughout the boy's torso. The Beijing Morning Post printed close-ups of the X-ray, plus another that showed a needle that had apparently been pushed through the top of the child's head.

The photographs showed the needles completely embedded inside the boy.

"We have to perform the surgery as soon as possible, but we cannot promise that we can remove all the needles," the doctor, Gu Yong, was quoted as saying.

The parents said they took Xiao Yu to a hospital on June 2 after he cried for three or four nights in a row and ate less than usual.

An X-ray taken there revealed two needles inside the boy's chest. He was sent for surgery at another hospital, where a second X-ray revealed four more needles — two in his scrotum, one in his head and another in his abdomen.

The parents, who work at a bag factory in southern China's Guangzhou city, said no strangers have come into contact with the boy.

Muramasa

06-18-2007, 02:31 PM

1 car, 2 thefts, 2 arrests in 1 day

Sun Jun 17, 7:07 AM ET

YAKIMA, Wash. - This is one Honda Accord thieves may want to avoid. The car was stolen twice in one day in Yakima County, and authorities quickly arrested suspects both times.

The car was stolen near Tieton early Friday, according to the sheriff's office. A detective in an unmarked car spotted it around 10:45 a.m. in Terrace Heights as it raced another Accord. The detective gave chase, losing one of the Hondas when the pair split up.

He followed the other until the driver abandoned it. Then, the detective chased the driver on foot until he kicked in a door at a nearby residence and went inside, sheriff's officials said.

Officers found a 21-year-old Yakima man in the home and arrested him for investigation of possessing the stolen car, attempting to elude police and burglary.

Meanwhile, another man got behind the wheel of the freshly abandoned Accord and stole it. That man, a 22-year-old from Sunnyside, also abandoned the vehicle a short distance away after realizing it had a flat tire, sheriff's officials said. He also was arrested.

Authorities were looking for the other Accord involved in the racing incident. They had a license plate number and said it, too, was reported stolen.

Muramasa

06-18-2007, 02:34 PM

Woman wins $29,000 for topless stroll

Mon Jun 18, 5:47 AM ET

NEW YORK - A woman arrested for exposing her breasts has accepted a $29,000 settlement from the city, her lawyer said.

Jill Coccaro, 27, was arrested on a topless stroll two years ago, despite a 1992 state appeals court ruling that concluded women should have the same right as men to take off their shirts.

Coccaro, who now goes by the name Phoenix Feeley, remained in custody for 12 hours before she was told prosecutors were not going to pursue charges.

Her attorney, Jeffrey Rothman, told the Daily News that his client won the civil rights settlement from the city, which did not admit or deny wrongdoing.

"We hope the police learn a lesson and respect the rights of women to go topless," Rothman said.

Feeley told the New York Post that she was not treated well after her Aug. 4, 2005, arrest in Manhattan's Lower East Side section. She claimed in an October lawsuit that a police officer yanked her out of a patrol car by her hair and police took her to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

She told the newspaper she had gone bare-breasted after running the 2004 city marathon without police bothering her.

"I've always just felt that was something natural," Feeley said of going topless. "I've kind of always done it out of practicality."

Muramasa

06-18-2007, 02:35 PM

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Milan airport blocked by hare hunt

Sun Jun 17, 12:59 PM ET

MILAN (Reuters) - Flights to and from Milan's Linate airport were suspended for three hours on Sunday while staff and volunteers tried to capture hares and rabbits which have been overrunning the runways.

The hunt succeeded in herding 57 hares and four rabbits into fenced off areas of the airport where they were captured to be taken to nearby nature reserves.

Airport authorities, more used to flight disruption due to wildcat strikes among staff of ailing national carrier Alitalia, said the operation had been a full success.

"It was necessary because animals passing in front of ground radar were creating false alarms in the control towers," said Marco Alberti, a director of SEA, the company which manages Milan's airports.

Muramasa

06-18-2007, 02:36 PM

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Rooftop statues prompt suicide fear calls

Mon Jun 18, 12:25 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Statues scattered across central London rooftops as part of artist Antony Gormley's latest exhibition are proving a serious headache for police.

Since the 31 life-sized replicas of Gormley's naked body went up in early May, police have been bombarded with telephone calls from members of the public reporting that they had spotted a would-be suicide jumper.

"We had several calls a day in the early stages and are now receiving two or three a day," a police spokeswoman said.

"In most cases, callers are questioned specifically about what they have seen and we are able to reassure them that they have seen one of the statues."

But suggesting that police have better things to do, she asked: "How long will the statues be in place?"

Gormley's exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery runs to August 19

Muramasa

06-18-2007, 02:38 PM

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China censors "Pirates" for "vilifying Chinese"

Fri Jun 15, 11:22 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has censored part of the latest installment of hit Hollywood movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" for "vilifying and defacing the Chinese," the official Xinhua news agency said Friday.

The role of Hong Kong star Chow Yun-Fat, who plays pirate lord Captain Sao Feng, had been slashed in half to just about 10 minutes of screen time, the report said.

It cited local magazine The Popular Cinema as saying: "The captain played by Chow is bald, his face heavily scarred. He also has a long beard and long nails, whose image is still in line with Hollywood's old tradition of demonizing the Chinese."

"Chinese censors also cut Chow's line in which he states 'Welcome to Singapore' because it hints Singapore is a land of pirates ...," Xinhua added.

It quoted Zhang Pimin, deputy head of the film bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, as saying the cuts had been made "according to the country's relevant regulations on film censorship" and "China's actual conditions."

The cuts "will not impair either the continuity of plot or the image of characters," said Zhang, declining to provide more details.

Still, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," has already performed well at the Chinese box office, Xinhua added, earning 1.18 million yuan ($154,800) on its first day in Shanghai alone.

This is not the first time a Hollywood film has angered the Chinese censor.

Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning "The Departed" ran into trouble due to its mention of a Chinese plan to buy military equipment, government sources told Reuters earlier this year.

But censorship on the big screen has little impact in China, where pirated, uncut versions of the latest movies can easily be bought on the street for around $1.

($1=7.624 Yuan)

Muramasa

06-19-2007, 09:35 AM

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Reptiles smuggled in garden gnomes

Tue Jun 19, 4:44 AM ET

SYDNEY, Australia - What's in a gnome? For surprised Australian customs officials, the answer was snakes and lizards.

During a routine check of international mail on June 10, an officer discovered two snakes and three lizards stuffed inside three of the diminutive garden figurines in a shipment from Britain.

"When the package was opened, the officer spotted several snakes moving about. The package was immediately resealed," Australian customs said Tuesday in a statement.

A day later, officials at the same facility X-rayed another package from Britain and found five snakes and five lizards stuffed inside pottery figures and other ornaments.

Both packages had been had been declared as gifts.

It was not immediately clear what types of snakes and lizards were in the shipments.

It is illegal to bring live reptiles into Australia without a license. No one was arrested over the incident, but customs said its investigation was continuing.

Wildlife smuggling carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and fines of up to $92,000 if convicted.

The reptiles had to be euthanized due to quarantine regulations.

Muramasa

06-19-2007, 09:37 AM

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Geese get revenge: Pate may cause rare disease

2 hours, 22 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Geese force-fed and then slaughtered for their livers may get their final revenge on people who favor the delicacy known as foie gras: It may transmit a little-known disease known as amyloidosis, researchers reported on Monday.

Tests on mice suggest the liver, popular in French cuisine which uses it to make pate de foie gras and other dishes, may cause the condition in animals that have a genetic susceptibility to such diseases, Alan Solomon of the University of Tennessee and colleagues reported.

That would suggest that amyloidosis can be transmitted via food in a way akin to brain diseases such as
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, which can cause a rare version of mad cow disease in some people who eat affected meat products or brains.

Amyloidosis can affect various organ systems in the body, which accumulate damaging deposits of abnormal proteins known as amyloid. The heart, kidneys, nervous system and gastrointestinal tract are most often affected but amyloidosis can also cause a blood condition.

The researchers used mice genetically engineered to be susceptible to amyloidosis, which can be inherited.

"When such mice were injected with or fed amyloid extracted from foie gras, the animals developed extensive systemic pathological deposits," Solomon's team reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.

Sometimes Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is described as a type of amyloidosis as well.

Symptoms are often vague and range from fatigue and weight loss to swelling and kidney damage.

Like CJD, mad cow disease, scrapie and related diseases, amyloidosis is marked by abnormal protein fragments. In the case of CJD, the proteins are called prions.

"On this basis, we posit that this and perhaps other forms of amyloidosis may be transmissible, akin to the infectious nature of prion-related illnesses," the researchers added.

"In addition to foie gras, meat derived from sheep and seemingly healthy cattle may represent other dietary sources of this material."

Muramasa

06-19-2007, 09:39 AM

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Saddam's golden gun goes on display

Mon Jun 18, 10:22 AM ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) -
Saddam Hussein was truly the man with the golden gun. And to prove it, Australia has put the weapon on display at its war museum.

Australia went to war in
Iraq to remove Saddam's weapons and still maintains forces in and around the Middle Eastern country.

On Monday, the Australian War Memorial accepted a golden Tabuk rifle -- the Iraqi equivalent of the AK-47 -- from the Australian military, which in turn received it from allied U.S. troops in thanks for taking part in the Iraq war.

"This weapon is an example of the excesses of the former Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein," the Memorial's Assistant Director Nola Anderson said.

The rifle was found by American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) during the clearance of buildings around Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.

Muramasa

06-19-2007, 09:40 AM

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Vatican issues "10 Commandments" for motorists

By Philip Pullella Tue Jun 19, 8:23 AM ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not drive under the influence of alcohol. Thou shall respect speed limits. Thou shall not consider a car an object of personal glorification or use it as a place of sin.

The
Vatican took a break from strictly theological matters on Tuesday to issue its own rules of the road, a compendium of do's and don'ts on the moral aspects of driving and motoring.

A 36-page document called "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road" contains 10 Commandments covering everything from road rage, respecting pedestrians, keeping a car in good shape and avoiding rude gestures while behind the wheel.

"Cars tend to bring out the 'primitive' side of human beings, thereby producing rather unpleasant results," the document said.

It appealed to what it called the "noble tendencies" of the human spirit, urging responsibility and self-control to prevent the "psychological regression" often associated with driving.

The document's Fifth Commandment reads: "Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin".

Asked at a news conference when a car became an occasion of sin, Cardinal Renato Martino said "when a car is used as a place for sin".

One part of the document, under the section "Vanity and personal glorification", will not go down well with owners of Ferraris in motor-mad Italy.

"Cars particularly lend themselves to being used by their owners to show off, and as a means for outshining other people and arousing a feeling of envy," it said.

It urged readers not to behave in an "unsatisfactory and even barely human manner" when driving and to avoid what it called "unbalanced behaviour ... impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy ..."

Praying while driving was encouraged.

Vatican City, the world's smallest sovereign state, doesn't have many of the problems listed in the document.

It has about 1,000 cars, the speed limit is 30 kph and one Vatican official said the last accident inside Vatican City's walls was about 1-1/2 years ago, resulting in minor damage.

Muramasa

06-19-2007, 09:41 AM

Mugger, from robber to robbed

Tue Jun 19, 8:23 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A would-be German thief went from predator to victim when he tried to mug a taxi driver but ended up having his own wallet snatched instead.

After the 20-year-old stole the driver's wallet, a scuffle broke out between the two, in which the cabbie not only recovered his property but also took his attacker's wallet, police in the western town of Aldenhoven said on Tuesday.

The driver then locked himself in his taxi and called the police, who were amazed to find the mugger waiting patiently for them on the kerb next to the vehicle when they arrived.

"He wanted his wallet back," a police spokesman said.

After taking the man in for questioning, police released him and returned his wallet. He faces charges for attempted robbery.

Muramasa

06-19-2007, 09:42 AM

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Licence plates pricier than small car

Tue Jun 19, 3:25 AM ET

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Number plates in Shanghai now cost more than a small car in China.

Over the weekend, about 9,000 people bid for 6,000 car plate numbers, which were snapped up at an average price of 47,711 yuan (3,150 pounds), according to Xinhua news agency.

That's more than the 39,800 yuan price tag for Chery Automobile Co.'s 1.1 litre-engine QQ subcompact, one of China's hottest-selling compact cars.

It is also more than twice the per-capita disposable annual income in the city, China's richest, and the highest average price since Shanghai started the monthly auction in 2002 to limit traffic in the congested city.

Xinhua did not give the highest price in the licence plate auction but said the lowest was 47,200 yuan.

Other Chinese cities auction off auspicious plate numbers such as those featuring the number "8", which sounds similar to the expression "to get rich".

On Sunday, a man bought the number A000A1 for 420,000 yuan for his Mercedes-Benz in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, local media said. The initial bidding price was 5,000 yuan.

A pilot scheme for customised numbers in four cities, including the capital Beijing, was scrapped days after its launch in 2002, however, after Chinese drivers created such inventive combinations as FBI001, SEX001 and IAM007 for their licence plates.

Muramasa

06-20-2007, 09:29 AM

Court nixes bid to sell 'World Cup air'

Wed Jun 20, 7:39 AM ET

BEIJING - A Chinese company that once tried to sell land on the Moon has lost an appeal against a court ruling that stopped it from selling bags of "World Cup air," state media reported Wednesday.

Xinhua News Agency said that Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics Science and Technology Co. lost a suit against the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce, which refused its application to sell "special air from a special place."

Last December, the Chaoyang District People's Court ruled against the company's proposal to sell green plastic bags full of air from stadiums that hosted matches in the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Li Jie, the company's chief executive officer, had planned to sell the bags to soccer fans for 50 yuan ($6.60) each.

Xinhua said the Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court ruled against the company's appeal, saying "air is too vague and unstable a concept to be covered by commercial classifications."

Li first registered his company in September 2005, offering to sell individuals ownership of an acre of lunar land for 298 yuan ($38).

But a month later the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce revoked the firm's business license on the grounds a company cannot sell things it does not own, Xinhua said.

Li sued the authority, but the suit was rejected in November 2006 by the Haidian District Court. An appeal to the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court was rejected in March.

Muramasa

06-20-2007, 09:29 AM

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China's "professional noses" sniff out polluters

Wed Jun 20, 1:52 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - An environmental monitoring station in southern China is recruiting people with keen noses to sniff out foul gases in the atmosphere and provide more accurate readings of air quality.

A team of 11 "professional noses" at a monitoring station in Panyu, an industrial town in the Pearl River delta in Gaungdong province, had been trained by air pollution experts, Wednesday's China Daily quoted a senior official at the station as saying.

"Now we can differentiate between hundreds of smells that may make people ill, before making an assessment on their density," vice-director Liu Jingcai said.

"The work is quite unpleasant. We have to stay in a lab smelling those awful gases repeatedly," he added.

Liu said the team would complement the station's scientific equipment with the aim of helping bring pollution violators -- including chemical producers and rubbish processing sites -- to account.

But long-term career prospects were hazy.

The professional noses' accreditation would need to be renewed every three years, "as one's sense of smell diminishes with age", the paper said.

Muramasa

06-20-2007, 09:30 AM

Grapes of wrath symbolise fight with Mafia

By Nicola Scevola Wed Jun 20, 3:15 AM ET

ROME (Reuters) - A new Italian white wine has become a symbol of the fight against organised crime, incurring the wrath of gangsters from Naples because it was produced from grapes grown on land confiscated from a Mafia godfather.

Campo Libero, which means "Free Field", was presented this month as the first wine made in Lazio region with grapes grown on land taken from an important member of the Camorra -- as the Naples version of the Mafia is known.

The lightly sparkling white wine is made from Trebbiano grapes cultivated by Il Gabbiano ("The Seagull"), a charity that employs people with troubled backgrounds, such as drug addicts and former detainees.

"The fact that we could turn a land bought with illegal earnings into something totally clean is the most important message we could send," said Dario Campagna, chairman of Il Gabbiano.

Campagna, a 50-year-old with silver hair, had no previous expertise in wine-making. At the beginning he had to rely on the knowledge of local farmers and he is modest about Campo Libero's bouquet, calling it a "farmer's wine".

But he hopes it will symbolise to consumers the value of fighting organised crime.

Thanks to a law passed in 1996 by the Italian parliament, property belonging to convicted Mafiosi can be used for social purposes. In 2003, Il Gabbiano was given 10 hectares of land that had been abandoned for years.

It once belonged to Francesco Schiavone, head of the most powerful and violent Camorra family of Naples, whose empire spread from Naples to the farmland only 60 km (37 miles) from Rome.

DIRTY MONEY

Roberto Saviano, a Camorra expert, wrote in his bestseller "Gomorra" that the Schiavone clan ran illegal drugs and arms but also had semi-legal businesses such as cement production and property developing, a shady empire worth some 5 billion euros ($7 billion).

The land on which Campo Libero grows was confiscated after Schiavone was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The gangster had already devoted part of this land to growing grapes that were illegally sold on the market.

There is evidence that the rest of the land was used for shadier activities. When Campagna first started digging to build a dirt road inside the property, he found old Italian lira banknotes, shredded and buried less than a metre underground.

The lira was replaced with the euro in Italy in 2001 and the old notes were supposed to be disposed of safely, to avoid their toxic lead content seeping into farmland. But the Camorra is infamous for taking money to get rid of waste illegally.

"I think Schiavone got paid to dispose of the banknotes and simply decided to hide them here," said Campagna. "When we got the land, it was like a rubbish dump. It took us three years and a lot of work to change it."

This year Il Gabbiano produced 10,000 bottles of wine, but it hasn't been an easy job. Campagna, a teetotaller, first asked local farmers for practical help and advice.

But every time they made an appointment to start working, the farmers mysteriously failed to show up.

"Finally someone told us that one of Schiavone's relatives lived in the area and the people were afraid he would find out they were cooperating with us," said Campagna.

He called the police and got them to drop by twice a day on patrol. He also asked an agronomist from another town to help. Soon, when local farmers saw nothing bad had happened, they agreed to come and lend the charity workers a hand.

SABOTAGE

"This was our first real success," recalled Campagna, who has applied for public funding to renovate an old building on the property and adapt it to receive primary school students.

His dream is to create an educational farm to show youngsters how wine, flour and other natural products are made and, at the same time, teach them the value and importance of staying on the right side of the law.

But his success appears to have displeased the former owners.

One night last September, just before the first harvest was due, unidentified saboteurs destroyed half the crop by cutting the metal wire supporting the vines, which collapsed under the weight of the ripe fruit.

"We woke up and saw we had lost around 50,000 kilos of grapes out of 140,000," said Campagna. "It was a real blow."

Police are investigating but Campagna has his suspicions.

"I think the Camorra are to blame. They want the law letting their assets be confiscated to fail. It's in their interests for this land to stay untouched. It's a sign of power."

That is why Campagna and his workers did not give up and last March replanted the vines from scratch.

"It will take years for the vines to grow again, but it's worth it," he said. "The more we fight for this wine, the better it will taste in the end."

Muramasa

06-20-2007, 09:31 AM

Firefighters flush cat from storm drain

Tue Jun 19, 10:17 PM ET

PARKERSBURG, West Virginia - It took two fire trucks, five firefighters, several animal rescuers and about 250 gallons of water to rescue a kitten that refused to come out of a West Virginia storm sewer drain.

Animal control officers tried coaxing the gray tabby with encouraging words and food Monday afternoon before giving up after about an hour and a half.

Parkersburg firefighters tried banging tools on one end of the pipe and flashing lights Monday night near the Parkersburg-Belpre Bridge in hopes of driving him out the other end, but that failed.

Only when firefighters flushed about 250 gallons of water_ enough to wet the kitten's paws — through the pipe that the feline rushed into the hands of Firefighter Kevin Siers, who was standing inside a manhole.

"We had about an hour and a half of fun," Siers said Tuesday. "Everybody was pretty tickled" when the cat emerged.

After a very frightening day and night, the kitten seemed more relaxed on Tuesday and was warming up to humans, said Dan Hendrickson with the Humane Society of Parkersburg. A visitor to the shelter was signing adoption papers Tuesday afternoon.

Siers and state Fire Marshal Sterling Lewis said it is not uncommon for fire departments to attempt such rescues.

Firefighters have rescued iguanas off of telephone poles, snakes out of sewer pipes and cats out of trees, Siers said.

"Firefighters will go try to save anything," Lewis said.

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:51 PM

Ala. man's finger gets stuck in gas tank

1 hour, 16 minutes ago

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - A man felt the pain of the gas tank, and he wasn't even at a pump. Dwight Clark's dilemma occurred Wednesday afternoon in the parking lot of a pharmacy when he apparently tried to clear some gunk from around the opening of the gas tank. His finger got stuck in his gas tank's opening.

"His finger went in past the knuckle and was stuck," Huntsville Fire & Rescue Capt. Nolen Locke said. "People had sprayed WD40 all over, but that didn't work."

Locke said rescue workers tried several ways to free Clark without cutting the metal because he didn't want them to damage his truck. But they eventually had to cut through.

"We started with a Sawzall, but the vibrations made it too painful for him," Locke told The Huntsville Times. "Then we used tin snips to finish it."

He said it took about 25 minutes to get the fuel valve out, with Clark still stuck. He was then taken to Huntsville Hospital, where doctors worked to free his finger.

"I've been a firefighter for 16 years and I've never seen anything like it before," Locke said.

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:52 PM

Feces parking ticket proves costly

1 hour, 44 minutes ago

AUSTIN, Minn. - A man has been ordered to pay nearly $3,000 to the woman who became seriously ill in April after opening a parking ticket envelope in which he had placed dog feces.

Joshua Steven Solberg, 22, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct Friday in Mower District Court.

According to court documents, Judge Fred Wellmann ordered Solberg to pay $2,921.70 to the woman, who worked in the Austin Police Department office.

City prosecutor Lee Bjorndal said restitution will go toward paying the victim's medical costs not covered by insurance. Her medical bills totaled more than $5,000, he said.

Solberg also must write an apology letter to the victim and pay a $300 fine, with another $200 and a 90-day jail sentence stayed for one year.

The complaint says Solberg was ticketed for overtime parking April 18 for leaving his vehicle parked in front of his residence. He placed the ticket envelopment with his payment — and the dog feces — in a drop box for citations at the Law Enforcement Center.

When the office employee opened envelopes from the drop box, she noticed a brown fluid leaking from one envelope. The complaint says the fluid got onto her hands, which she washed, and also contaminated her desk. She awoke the next day with a headache and vomited repeatedly and was hospitalized for about two days with an undetermined illness.

Solberg said he was upset about the ticket and denied targeting any particular person.

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:53 PM

Ex-Marine kills bear with log

38 minutes ago

HELEN, Ga. - A camping trip to Low Gap Camp Grounds turned into a harrowing experience for Chris Everhart and his three sons when they tangled with a 300-pound black bear.

But the encounter last weekend proved fatal for the bear.

The bear had taken the Everharts' cooler and was heading back to the woods when 6-year-old Logan hurled a shovel at it.

Fearing what might happen next, the Norcross father and ex-Marine grabbed the closest thing he could find — a log.

"(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head," Chris Everhart said. "I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear."

The man was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

Riddleberger said some U.S. Forest Service agents were at the camp issuing a citation in an unrelated case. They got to the scene in a few minutes and verified what happened, he said.

Riddleberger said fines are usually set by counties, but Everhart's will be set by the federal government since the incident happened on federal property.

"We've not had an attack in Georgia," he said. "The key thing to learn from this is if there's a bear around, do not have your garbage or food available. If we manage our food, we won't have bears around."

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:53 PM

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Alaskan man pleads guilty to sale of seal penises

Thu Jun 21, 10:54 AM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - An Alaska man has pleaded guilty to selling more than 100 fur seal "oosiks" -- or penises -- to a local gift shop that intended to sell the items as an aphrodisiac.

Michael Richard Zacharof, an Aleut and former tribal president from the Bering Sea village of St. Paul, pleaded guilty this week to one count of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Federal law forbids the sale of any raw marine mammal parts unless they have been crafted into pieces of Alaska Native artwork.

In Zacharof's case, the former tribal leader sold the raw seal penises to a gift shop catering to customers from Asia. The shop then sold the items for about $100 each, according to the Justice Department.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Steward said seal penis bones, also known as seal sticks, are believed to have properties similar to erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra.

Zacharof faces a possible one-year prison term and a $20,000 fine, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:54 PM

Shiftless crooks clutch over stick..

Wed Jun 20, 1:35 PM ET

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Two U.S. car thieves failed to make their getaway in a car they had just stolen because they couldn't figure out how to use its manual transmission, a witness said on Wednesday.

The teenagers armed with a gun approached a man outside a pizza restaurant in Marietta, Georgia, late on Monday. They stole his wallet and the keys to his Honda Accord, got into the car but couldn't make it start because it had stick shift, according to John Williamson, 18, a restaurant employee.

"The kid was just sitting in the car trying to start it but he had no idea what to do. He looked dumbfounded. The only thing he had going was the radio," said Williamson who witnessed the scene.

While the thief was trying to start the car, restaurant employees called the police who arrived and caught the teenagers as they tried to escape into nearby woods.

Unlike many parts of the world, the majority of cars in the United States are automatic and many drivers are unused to driving "stick shift" vehicles, in which a clutch pedal must be depressed to change gear.

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:55 PM

84-year-old man drove 67 years without license

Wed Jun 20, 11:19 AM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - An 84-year-old Dutch driver astonished police this week when he admitted during a random check that not only was his car uninsured but he had been driving without a license for 67 years.

Dutch media said Wednesday the man had escaped detection because he had never got a speeding ticket or been involved in a crash.

The man promised police he would ditch his car, which had also never been put through a vehicle safety test, reports added.

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:56 PM

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China gives fashion instructions to police

Thu Jun 21, 1:08 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's police have been given new orders -- no strangely dyed hair, no beards, no sideburns; and leave your scarfs and jewellery at home.

The Ministry of Public Security has issued the order to "establish a good image for the people's police", domestic media said on Thursday.

"When police are in uniform on duty, they are not allowed to wear scarfs or jewellery, paint their nails, or have colourfully dyed hair," the Beijing News said, citing the new rules.

"Male police officers cannot have long or curly hair, sideburns, shave their hair bald or have beards," it said, adding female police officers cannot have hair longer than shoulder length.

"Unless there is a specific job need or illness of the eye, police cannot wear coloured glasses," it added.

The police are also banned from smoking in public and entering places of entertainment such as bars, unless for work, while in uniform, according to the regulations which take effect this month.

Those who violate the rules will be given a warning or may be sacked, it said.

It is not the first time the government has given fashion tips.

In April, Beijing prohibited female taxi drivers from dying their hair bright red or yellow and from wearing chunky earrings, hoping to improve the city's image ahead of next year's Olympics.

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:56 PM

4,000 pounds of pig blood spills on road

1 hour, 21 minutes ago

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — A valve on a truck hauling animal waste from a Klamath Falls processing plant broke, spilling 4,000 pounds of pig blood. A biohazards cleaning company from Prineville was called in to clean up about 200 feet of roadway flooded by the blood.

Residents worried about the stench and health hazards.

"It could make our animals sick," said Amanda Dearing, whose house is along the road. "It could make us really sick."

Authorities said they hadn't determined why the valve broke.

The semitrailer truck was leaving Masami Foods on Wednesday afternoon, bound for Tacoma, Wash

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:57 PM

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Cannabis buyers face biometric testing

By Sabine Fiedler Thu Jun 21, 8:33 AM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Buying cannabis in the Dutch city of Maastricht will soon mean having your fingerprints taken, your face scanned and your biometric data recorded.

All 15 coffee shops in the southern city are spending about 100,000 euros (67,000 pounds) installing a security system that makes it harder for an under-age cannabis smoker to enter than a terrorist to set foot in Europe, according to Marc Josemans, head of the local coffee shop union.

"We are ashamed for this attack on your privacy", reads an explanatory leaflet about the system starting in September.

The coffee shops face a continual struggle to prove they are not selling to people under the age of 18 or more than 5 grams of cannabis a day to any one individual.

If they can't, they risk being shut down.

"If a 17-year-old comes here, shows the ID of his very similar-looking older brother and then gets caught by the police with cannabis bought in our shop, we have to prove that he broke the rules, not us," said Josemans.

Cannabis is theoretically illegal in the Netherlands but has been tolerated in small amounts since the 1970s.

Customers in Maastricht will have their fingers and face scanned. The scans will be compared with stored data and, if everything matches, they will be able to enter the coffee shop.

No names and addresses are stored and details on the amount of cannabis bought every day will be saved only until midnight.

The information is completely secure, coffee shop owners say. But Josemans concedes 90 percent of his clients don't like the system and he expects the new measures to hurt sales initially.

"I don't like them registering what you buy, it's too much Big Brother", says Barry, 34. "But a fingerprint is okay."

Muramasa

06-21-2007, 03:58 PM

Naked couple die from S.C. rooftop fall

Wed Jun 20, 11:33 AM ET

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Police on Wednesday were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet from the roof of a downtown office building to their deaths.

The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver around 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Clothing was discovered on the roof, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released.

"It's too early to rule out anything," Columbia police Sgt. Florence McCants said, but McCants said a preliminary investigation didn't show any sign of foul play.

Muramasa

06-22-2007, 09:25 AM

Man aims to break world treadmill record

Fri Jun 22, 3:21 AM ET

NEW YORK - Ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes will attempt to break the world record by running more than 153.76 miles in 24 hours on a treadmill in Times Square.

He'll start running at midnight Thursday and be suspended between two billboards. One billboard will run live video for viewers, along with a clock and mileage counter.

Karnazes plans to raise $1 million for the Athletes for a Cure Foundation, with the money going to prostate cancer research.

"I'm doing this event to help raise awareness for prostate cancer, which affects one in six men," he said. "I represent two organizations, the Athletes for a Cure Foundation and Accelerade, which is a new protein-enhanced sports drink. They are helping me achieve this goal by raising awareness for the disease and to hopefully find a cure in my lifetime."

His next goal is to run 4,200 miles across North America in the spring.

Muramasa

06-22-2007, 09:26 AM

Man accused of taking skull for ashtray

Thu Jun 21, 11:14 PM ET

FITCHBURG, Mass. - Police say a gravedigger stole body parts — including a skull and a thigh bone — from a broken casket at a church cemetery and took them home to make an ashtray.

"While he was digging a grave, a casket was broken open, so (investigators) believe he took the body parts to make an ashtray and a pipe," Police Lt. Kevin O'Brien told the Sentinel & Enterprise of Fitchburg.

Police discovered the theft when they went to his apartment Wednesday after his wife complained that her husband, Keith Chartrand, killed her dog. She said she found the body parts among his belongings.

Police charged Chartrand, 30, with removing a body from a grave and cruelty to animals.

Fitchburg District Court Judge Arthur Haley III ordered Chartrand held on $50,000 bail at a court hearing on Wednesday where Chartrand told the judge the charges against him was "bogus."

Chartrand's lawyer, Martin Maynard, did not immediately return a call to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The Rev. Edward Chalmers of St. Bernard's Cemetery said he believed the remains probably were taken from an older part of the cemetery where many graves did not have vaults.

Muramasa

06-22-2007, 09:31 AM

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Hacker claims Harry Potter's alleged ending on Web

By Jim Finkle Thu Jun 21, 10:48 AM ET

BOSTON (Reuters) - The mystery surrounding the end to fictional British boy wizard Harry Potter's saga deepened on Wednesday with a computer hacker posting what he said were key plot details and a publisher warned the details could be fake.

The hacker, who goes by the name "Gabriel," claims to have taken a digital copy of author J.K. Rowling's seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," by breaking into a computer at London-based Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

For months now, leading up to the book's July 21 release, legions of "Harry Potter" fans have debated whether Rowling killed Harry or one of his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, in the final book.

Gabriel has posted information at Web site InSecure.org that, if true, would answer that question.

"We make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring," Gabriel said in the posting.

"Harry Potter" publishers have taken great pains to keep the conclusion a secret and preserve the multibillion-dollar entertainment enterprise surrounding the boy wizard.

A Bloomsbury spokesman declined comment on the hacker's claims.

Kyle Good, a spokesman for U.S. distributor Scholastic Corp., would not say whether the posting was accurate, but did warn readers to be skeptical about anything on the Web that claims to have inside information on the book's plot.

"There is a whole lot of junk flying around," she said. "Consider this one more theory."

David Perry, a spokesman for computer security company Trend Micro, said there was a good chance Gabriel's claim could be a hoax.

"We've had hypes like this on the last couple of Harry Potter books," he said. "There is a very high level of spurious information in the hacker world."

But if true, it could be a problem for Bloomsbury. The "Harry Potter" books have been global best-sellers with fans buying some 320 million versions worldwide, and anticipation for "Deathly Hallows" is high.

In April, U.S. retailer Barnes & Noble said advance orders for the book had already topped 500,000 copies, setting a chain record. Scholastic plans to release a record 12 million copies of "Deathly Hallows" to meet demand.

A stolen copy of the sixth Harry Potter novel, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" surfaced in Britain about a month before its official release in July 2005. Two people were charged after reportedly trying to sell a copy to the London tabloid the Sun.

Four "Potter" movies made by Warner Bros. film studio, a division of Time Warner Inc., have brought in $3.5 billion in global ticket sales, and a fifth film is due in theaters in early July.

(Additional reporting by Bob Tourtellotte in Los Angeles and Kate Holton in London.)

Muramasa

06-22-2007, 09:33 AM

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Ferrari: It ain't a sin to buy the car

1 hour, 44 minutes ago

MARANELLO, Italy (Reuters) - When it comes to luxury sports cars, Ferrari begs to differ with the Pope.

The Vatican issued a document listing its rules of the road, including one warning against using cars "as a means for outshining other people and arousing a feeling of envy".

Ferrari's general manager acknowledged the Vatican's concern that some drivers could use the cars as status symbols, but he said most people bought Ferraris for the love of driving.

"Unless having fun has become a sin, I don't believe it (to be wrong)," Amedeo Felisa told Reuters this week at an event celebrating Ferrari's 60th anniversary in its hometown southeast of Milan.

A unit of Italy's Fiat, Ferrari makes some of the world's most exclusive cars, each worth more than 100,000 euros (67,000 pounds).

Felisa was convinced that buying a Ferrari was not a sin.

"I hope not -- but you should commit at least one from time to time," he said.

Muramasa

06-22-2007, 09:34 AM

I'll give up money, sex ... but not the mobile

1 hour, 45 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - Young Britons would rather give up sex than live without their mobile phones, according to a survey.

One in three people would not sacrifice their mobile phone for one million pounds or more, with women leading the way on those most likely to refuse, the survey by the Carphone Warehouse and the London School of Economics found.

Most respondents aged between 16 and 24 would rather give up alcohol, chocolate, sex, tea, or coffee than live without their mobile phone for a month.

In contrast, more than 40 percent of the those aged over 45 would give the phone simply to be able to have their favourite hot drink.

The online survey polled 1,256 adults aged between 16 and 64.

Muramasa

06-22-2007, 09:35 AM

Tearful shareholder thanks Toyota for job well done

Fri Jun 22, 4:45 AM ET

TOYOTA CITY, Japan (Reuters) - In the auto industry these days, it's good to be Toyota -- and not just because its sales are soaring.

At the company's annual general meeting in Toyota City on Friday, executives were thanked and praised by shareholders, including a local woman who was literally moved to tears as she told the gathering how proud she was to be a resident of the city named after the world's biggest automaker.

"I don't have any question. I just want to thank you for the wonderful work you are doing," said the woman, voice quivering as she fought back tears in the presence of over 2,500 fellow investors.

Shareholders meetings are typically unpleasant events for company executives, who are often subjected to long-winded queries and grilling over weak share prices or high executive remuneration.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s meeting, which wrapped up in under two hours, stood in contrast to that of rival Nissan Motor Co. earlier this week when celebrity CEO Carlos Ghosn fielded more gripes, if not a thrashing, than he has in recent years including one angry shareholder's call for him to resign.

Nissan's shares have underperformed Toyota's of late as the company recorded its first profit fall under Ghosn last year.

Still, any pain Ghosn may have felt probably paled in comparison to the 12-hour session endured by his DaimlerChrysler AG counterpart Dieter Zetsche earlier this year.

Muramasa

06-22-2007, 09:35 AM

N.Z. couple can't name their son '4real'

Fri Jun 22, 3:47 AM ET

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - New Zealand authorities have blocked a couple's bid to officially name their new son "4real," saying numerals are not allowed.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton said they decided to name their new baby "4real" shortly after having an ultrasound and being struck by the reality of his impending arrival.

"For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and ... there's no direct link between the meaning and the name," Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday. "With this name, everyone knows what it means."

But when the parents filed the name with New Zealand's Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, they were told names beginning with a number were against the rules.

The government office has opened negotiations with the parents about the name under a policy that says all unusual names must be given case-by-case consideration.

"The name has not at this stage been rejected," Registrar-General Brian Clarke said in a statement Thursday. "We are currently in discussions with the parents ... to clarify the situation."

Clarke said the rules are designed to prevent names that are "likely to cause offense to a reasonable person." Satan and Adolf Hitler were proposed names that have been declined, he said.

If no compromise has been reached by July 9, the baby will be registered as "real," officials say.

New Zealand law requires all children born in the South Pacific nation to be registered with the Births, Deaths and Marriages registry within two months of birth.

Muramasa

06-22-2007, 09:37 AM

Noise charge dismissed, kids' squeals OK

By FRANK ELTMAN, Associated Press Writer Thu Jun 21, 10:38 AM ET

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - It's what kids do: squeal in delight when they're having fun.

But to some Long Island residents those squeals were unwelcome noise, and they wanted two neighborhood girls playing in a backyard pool to pipe down.

The complaints fell on deaf ears Wednesday night when Bayville's acting village justice dismissed a summons accusing the girls' parents, William and Rachel Poczatek, of violating a village noise ordinance.

"I think the village did the right thing," William Poczatek said.

Poczatek said he was shocked when he and his wife were slapped with a summons. Sure, he said, Ashley, 11, and 5-year-old Chloe make noise when they're outside enjoying their aboveground swimming pool.

"What, are you telling me that a kid can't make noise?" he protested. "It's not fair."

The Poczateks were cleared because the ordinance is usually reserved for "the shouting and crying of peddlers, hawkers and vendors, which disturbs the peace and quiet of the neighborhood," their attorney said.

"The statute didn't apply," insisted attorney Andrew Campanelli, who got no argument from the judge or prosecutor.

Before the hearing, neighbor Sheila Brown said the children's squeals were not your usual brand of merriment.

"I have five dogs," Brown said. "Five dogs don't make this much noise. This is not something that started yesterday. They have been asked politely, but this is an ongoing issue far beyond children just playing in the pool."

Neighbors did not speak with reporters after the court proceeding.

Poczatek offered a conciliatory message: "Yes, we will try to keep them quieter."

Muramasa

06-25-2007, 10:36 AM

British girl, aged two, joins high IQ club

Fri Jun 22, 3:25 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - A two-year-old girl with an intelligence quotient of 152 has become the youngest current member of British Mensa, the international society for highly-intelligent people, it said Friday.

Georgia Brown, aged two years and 10 months, was welcomed into the exclusive club after an assessment by a child psychologist, who was said to be "elated" as the findings were what would be expected for a five or six-year-old.

But the little girl, from Aldershot, in southern England, is still not the youngest member ever to join British Mensa. She missed out by six days to Ben Woods, who joined in the 1990s.

The previous youngest current member was a three-year-old boy with an IQ of 137, who joined in 2005.

Mensa normally only tests people over the age of 10 and a half but accepts younger children who are found to be within the top two percent of the population.

The girl's mother, Lucy, was quoted by the BBC News website as saying that she called in the child psychologist to test her daughter's IQ after spotting that she was a quick developer.

"It's fantastic. We're so proud as a family," she said.

Mensa, which is Latin for table, seeks to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity, according to its website.

It also seeks to provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members as well as to encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence.

Muramasa

06-25-2007, 10:37 AM

"Purity ring" schoolgirl goes to High Court

Fri Jun 22, 10:40 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A teenage schoolgirl will appeal to the High Court on Friday to overturn a ban on her wearing a "purity ring" at school to symbolize her decision to abstain from sex before marriage.

Lydia Playfoot, 16, from West Sussex, says the silver ring is an expression of her faith and should be exempt from the school's rules on wearing jewellery.

"It is really important to me because in the Bible it says we should do this," she told BBC radio. "Muslims are allowed to wear headscarves and other faiths can wear bangles and other types of jewellery. It feels like Christians are being discriminated against."

Playfoot's lawyers will argue that her right to express religious belief is upheld by the Human Rights Act.

There have been a series of rows in schools in recent years over the right of pupils to wear religious symbols or clothing, such as crucifixes and veils.

Last year, the Law Lords rejected Shabina Begum's appeal for permission to wear a Muslim gown at her school in Luton. That case echoed a debate in France over the banning of Muslim headscarves in state schools.

Lydia Playfoot's parents help run the British arm of the American campaign group the Silver Ring Thing, which promotes abstinence among young people.

Members wear a ring on the third finger of the left hand. It is inscribed with "Thess. 4:3-4," a reference to a Biblical passage from Thessalonians which reads: "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin."

Lydia's father, Phil Playfoot, said his daughter's case was part of a wider cultural trend towards Christians being "silenced."

"What I would describe as a secular fundamentalism is coming to the fore, which really wants to silence certain beliefs, and Christian views in particular," he said.

Leon Nettley, head teacher of Millais School in Horsham, denies discrimination, saying the ring contravenes the school's rules on wearing jewellery.

"The school is not convinced pupils' rights have been interfered with by the application of the uniform policy," he told the Brighton-based Argus newspaper. "The school has a clearly published uniform policy and sets high standards."

Muramasa

06-25-2007, 10:39 AM

Police fight new menace: cuddling couples

By Sheikh Mushtaq Fri Jun 22, 10:40 AM ET

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Police in Indian Kashmir usually accustomed to fighting separatist militants have a new target in their sights -- teenagers canoodling in parks, restaurants and at Internet cafes.

The crackdown aims to curb "immoral activities," a senior police officer said on Friday, adding that dozens of places had been raided across Srinagar, the main city of the region, and at least 10 couples detained over the last three days.

Restaurant and Internet cafe owners had also been asked to get rid of cabins and cubicles as they were being "misused" by teenagers in the Muslim-majority region, he said.

"We received a number of complaints from parents that their children, mostly teenagers, would stray into cyber cafes and restaurants instead of schools and colleges," Parvez Ahmad told Reuters.

"Many boys and girls were seen in objectionable postures ... we informed their parents to take them home," he said.

Srinagar, the centre of a 17-year revolt against Indian rule, has seen women separatists raid restaurants, Internet cafes, liquor shops and suspected brothels in the past to stop what they say are immoral and un-Islamic activities.

But it was the first such drive by police since the insurgency erupted in the Himalayan region in 1989.

More than 42,000 people have since been killed in separatist violence, officials say. Human rights activists put the toll at 60,000 dead or missing.

However, overall violence levels have fallen since India and Pakistan -- both of whom claim Kashmir in full but rule it in parts -- launched a peace process in 2004, officials say.

This has also allowed a marginal easing of security restrictions and freer movement of people in Srinagar, leading to youngsters getting bolder in what is a traditional Islamic society, they say.

A police statement said the department would "continue its drive against immoral activities."

Muramasa

06-25-2007, 10:42 AM

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Dry cleaner wins missing pants case

By LUBNA TAKRURI, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A judge ruled Monday in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.

The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city's consumer protection law by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson's expectations of the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store window, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands" or to agree to demands that the merchant would have reasonable grounds for disputing, the judge wrote.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung.

Pearson, an administrative law judge, originally sought $67 million from the Chungs, claiming they lost a pair of trousers from a blue and maroon suit, then tried to give him a pair a pair of charcoal gray pants that he said were not his. He arrived at the amount by adding up years of alleged law violations and almost $2 million in common law fraud claims.

Bartnoff wrote, however, that Pearson failed to prove that the pants the dry cleaner tried to return were not the pants he had taken in for alterations.

Pearson later dropped demands for damages related to the pants and focused his claims on signs in the shop, which have since been removed.

The court costs amount to just over $1,000 for photocopying, filing and similar expenses, according to the Chungs' attorney. A motion to recover the Chungs' tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees will be considered later.

Chris Manning, the Chungs' attorney, praised the ruling, which followed a two-day trial earlier this month.

"Judge Bartnoff has spoken loudly in suggesting that, while consumers should be protected, abusive lawsuits like this will not be tolerated," Manning said in a statement. "Judge Bartnoff has chosen common sense and reasonableness over irrationality and unbridled venom."

Pearson did not immediately respond to a call and an e-mail seeking comment.

Muramasa

06-25-2007, 10:45 AM

Plunging necklines a no-no at Manila masses

Mon Jun 25, 12:35 AM ET

MANILA (Reuters) - The Catholic Church has issued guidelines on what Filipinos should wear to mass in Manila after some parishioners complained about distracting skimpy attire.

"This is to remind people that it would be good to come in appropriate clothing because other people are scandalised," said Peachy Yamsuan of the archdiocese of Manila on Monday.

"It is for the other worshippers who are distracted. You come to the church to pray and if your eyes wander and you see inappropriate clothes, well, it does not add to your spiritual goals."

The majority of the Philippines' 87 million people are Catholic and worshippers throng sweltering churches each Sunday, although some devotees attend religious services in air-conditioned malls, giving the ceremony an informal air.

But Manila's archdiocese has issued posters advising women not to wear short skirts, revealing necklines and spaghetti-strap tops to mass, while men are warned against shorts, caps and basketball jerseys.

Instead, female parishioners are encouraged to wear dresses or long skirts and blouses and men are asked to wear shirts, trousers or jeans.

Muramasa

06-25-2007, 10:46 AM

Knock-out name for baby girl

Sat Jun 23, 9:50 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Baby Autumn Brown has a name to live up - in fact she has over 25 of them.

The little girl's mother Maria, in keeping with her boxing-mad family's bizarre tradition, decided to give her 25 middle names - all culled from the greatest exponents inside the ring.

Her full name, which left register office staff in Perton, Wolverhampton reeling is: Autumn Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jeffries Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Foreman Brown.

Maria told the city's Express and Star: "The whole thing came about because both my mum and dad are obsessed with boxing and have a bit of a daft sense of humour.

"When I was young I couldn't ever remember my name. It took me to the age of 10 to memorise it all."

The 33-year-old mother added: "I'm hoping Autumn has a good sense of humour with her name. It's never done me any harm though."

Muramasa

06-26-2007, 10:16 AM

Court upholds prisoners' right to porn

Tue Jun 26, 8:20 AM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Convicted sex offenders in Sweden are free to read pornography in their cells following a court ruling that has angered the prison service.

The Supreme Administrative Court in Stockholm last week ruled that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service had no right to deny a rape convict access to his porn magazines.

Prison officials had argued that reading porn would interfere with the man's rehabilitation program. They also said the magazines posed a security problem for staff and other inmates because they could increase the risk of the man relapsing into criminal behavior.

But the court, whose ruling cannot be appealed, said the prison service failed to prove that the magazines could "jeopardize the security of the institution."

Prison officials said they had asked the government to change the law so that they could continue to ban porn magazines at the Nordic nation's prisons.

"It increases the risk of assault for other interns and it is provocative for personnel," Elisabeth Kwarnmark, a prison service psychologist, said about the ruling.

Kwarnmark said that other pornographic material, such as adult movies, channels and Web sites, are not permitted in Swedish prisons. Child and violent pornography are also banned.

Muramasa

06-26-2007, 10:17 AM

Barber stabs second client with scissors

Mon Jun 25, 9:42 AM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - An Amsterdam barber has been arrested for stabbing a client with scissors, the second such incident involving the barber, Dutch police said on Saturday.

The client was stabbed and seriously wounded after a fight broke out earlier this week at the barber's shop, police said.

The barber stabbed another client with scissors in 2000. The man later died of his wounds, although the barber was cleared of any charges after a court found he had acted in self-defense.

Police said they were holding the man, 42, and investigating whether attempted manslaughter charges should be brought against him.

Muramasa

06-26-2007, 10:17 AM

Filipino thief asks for "time out" in police chase

Mon Jun 25, 11:58 PM ET

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a "time out".

"He was panting and gasping for air when we caught up with him after a 500 metre sprint," Erwin Buenceso, one of the arresting officers, told local radio station dzBB.

Buenceso said the man and an accomplice broke into a house in the Philippine capital and stole two expensive mobile phones. Screams from the residence alerted a local police patrol, which gave chase.

The robber asked for a "time out" using hand signals.

After he regained his composure, police seized the two stolen phones and brought him to a station for questioning.

Muramasa

06-26-2007, 10:19 AM

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Texan set for execution wants to die laughing

By Jim Forsyth Mon Jun 25, 5:20 PM ET

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man scheduled to be executed on Tuesday wants to die laughing.

Patrick Knight, 39, has been soliciting jokes on the Internet and plans to tell one of them before receiving a lethal injection, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said on Monday.

"He says he wants to keep his execution light," she said.

Knight was sentenced to die for the August 1991 murder of his two elderly neighbours in Amarillo, Texas.

Lyons said a friend of Knight's set up a page on the social networking Web site MySpace.com to solicit jokes, and "hundreds" of suggestions have arrived in the mail.

"I'll be enjoying my last days on Earth," Knight wrote on the Web site. "I'm not asking for pen pals, but I'm asking you to spread the word that I am holding a contest. I want people to send me their best jokes, and to keep me and others with (execution) dates laughing."

Texas leads the nation with 396 executions. None of those put to death have ever joked about it, Lyons said.

"We've certainly had some people who have recited a poem or a Bible verse, some people who have asked forgiveness or who pray," she said. "This is, to my knowledge, the first time anybody has told a joke as their last words."

While she says Knight will be allowed to tell his joke, none of his executioners in the state death chamber at the Walls prison unit in Huntsville, Texas will be laughing, Lyons said.

"Everybody who is there takes it very seriously and will not be participating in the joke," she said. "So knock-knock jokes are out."

Muramasa

06-26-2007, 10:24 AM

Mom makes daughter wear her offenses

Mon Jun 25, 8:55 PM ET

MEMPHIS, Tennessee - A Tennessee mother fed up with her daughter's misbehavior took an unusual tack in for latest punishment, making her stand on a busy street corner with an attention-getting sign.

Tashara Wilkins, 13, held a sign Sunday reading, "I don't obey my parents, I'm a liar. I steal from my mom. I have a bad attitude."

"All other resources haven't worked, so I'm making her be publicly humiliated today," mother Cherie Wilkins told WMC-TV in Memphis. "I hope this works for her. I love my child. ... I could be beating her to death, but I'm not."

She said her daughter's bad attitude Sunday morning led to the public display.

Tashara said having to wear her offenses was eye-opening.

"It might even work," she said. "I'm gonna start (behaving better) because I don't want to be standing out here with everybody looking at me like I'm crazy with this sign."

The mother said her daughter would go to church Tuesday night wearing the sign.

Muramasa

06-26-2007, 10:24 AM

San Francisco bans bottled water for city staff

Mon Jun 25, 3:08 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Thirsty San Francisco city workers will no longer have bottled water to drink under an order by Mayor Gavin Newsom, who says it costs too much, worsens pollution and is no better than tap water.

Newsom's executive order bars city departments, agencies and contractors from using city funds to serve water in plastic bottles and in larger dispensers when tap water is available.

"In San Francisco, for the price of one 1 gallon (3.8 litres) of bottled water, local residents can purchase 1,000 gallons (38,000 litres) of tap water," according to the mayor's order.

Newsom estimates San Francisco could save $500,000 (250,196 pounds) a year under his directive, which also addresses environmental concerns over the amount of oil used to make and transport plastic water bottles.

"All of this waste and pollution is generated by a product that by objective standards is often inferior to the quality of San Francisco's pristine tap water," according to the order.

The ban on the ubiquitous plastic bottles follows a prohibition in March by city officials on plastic shopping bags in large supermarkets because recycling efforts had largely failed.

Hybrid22L

06-27-2007, 02:07 PM

Muramasa

06-28-2007, 12:00 PM

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Tainted toothpaste found in US prisons

By DON SCHANCHE Jr., Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 26 minutes ago

ATLANTA - Thousands of tubes of contaminated Chinese-made toothpaste were shipped to state prisons and mental hospitals in Georgia, officials said Thursday, a sign that U.S. distribution of the tainted products was wider than initially thought.

Officials with the state prison system and with the agencies that run mental hospitals and juvenile detention centers said they knew of no health problems stemming from the Chinese products.

They said the toothpaste contaminated with diethylene glycol, which is often found in antifreeze, was immediately taken out of use as soon as federal officials notified the state about the problem.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised consumers to "avoid using tubes of toothpaste labeled as made in China," according to a statement posted on the agency's Web site.

"Out of an abundance of caution, FDA suggests that consumers throw away toothpaste labeled as made in China," the statement said.

Chinese-made toothpaste has been banned by numerous countries in Asia and the Americas for containing diethylene glycol, or DEG. It is also a low-cost — and sometimes deadly — substitute for glycerin, a sweetener in many drugs.

The New York Times reported Thursday that about 900,000 tubes have turned up in the United States, including correctional facilities and some hospitals, not just at discount stores as initially thought.

China insisted Thursday that the safety of its products was "guaranteed," making a rare direct comment on spreading international fears over tainted and adulterated exports.

China "has paid great attention" to the safety of its exports, especially food, because it concerns people's health, Commerce Ministry spokesman Wang Xinpei said.

"It can be said that the quality of China's exports all are guaranteed," Wang told reporters at a regularly scheduled briefing.

Rick Beal in the purchasing division of the Georgia Department of Administrative Services told The Associated Press that cases of the tainted Chinese toothpaste were sent to two state prisons, five state psychiatric hospitals and four juvenile detention facilities.

The prison system was the largest consumer, with 5,877 cases. The hospitals had 101 cases plus some loose tubes and the juvenile detention centers had 25 cases. Each case had 144 tubes.

Beal said that when the FDA notified the state about contamination with diethylene glycol, the toothpaste was taken out of use.

"It's being stored," he said. "It's segregated from their operating supply. 'Do not use' signs are place on them. And they're pending disposition."

Tracy J. Smith, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Corrections, said the prison system had no reports of any health problems related to the toothpaste.

Thomas Wilson, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Human Resources, which oversees the state's seven mental hospitals, said Thursday that after getting the FDA advisory on June 8, the tubes of tainted toothpaste were immediately pulled and replaced with name-brand toothpaste.

"We asked our clinical directors to be on the lookout for any signs of poisoning or symptoms," Wilson said. "We've not have anybody ill. We are continuing to monitor the situation."

Steve Hayes, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, said none of the youths in the agency's care was affected by the tainted toothpaste.

"We pulled all the product immediately upon notification that there might be a problem and we've continued to monitor the youth in our care," Hayes said. "We've had no illnesses

A spokesman for North Carolina's Department of Correction told the Times that Pacific brand toothpaste was distributed to prisoners who could not afford to buy a name brand at prison stores. The tubes were taken away after trace amounts of DEG was found in them. They said there had been no illnesses reported, and that the toothpaste in question was being replaced with brands not manufactured in China.

Chinese exports came under scrutiny earlier this year with the deaths of dogs and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine.

Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

On Wednesday, three Japanese importers recalled millions of Chinese-made travel toothpaste sets, many sold to inns and hotels, after they were found to contain as much as 6.2 percent of diethylene glycol.

Wang, the Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman, said Chinese experts have already "explained the situation."

He gave no details, although the country's quality watchdog has in past cited tests from 2000 that it said showed toothpaste containing less than 15.6 percent diethylene glycol was harmless to humans.

Also Wednesday, Beijing police raided a village where live pigs were force-fed wastewater to boost their weight before slaughter, state media reported.

Plastic pipes had been forced down the pigs' throats and villagers had pumped each 220-pound pig with 44 pounds of wastewater, the Beijing Morning Post reported Thursday.

Paperwork showed the pigs were headed for one of Beijing's main slaughterhouses and stamps on their ears indicated that they already had been through quarantine and inspection, the paper said. Suspects escaped during the raid and no arrests were made, it said.

Earlier this week, inspectors announced they had closed 180 food factories in China in the first half of this year and seized tons of candy, pickles, crackers and seafood tainted with formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax.

"These are not isolated cases," Han Yi, an official with Wei's quality administration, was quoted as saying in Wednesday's state-run China Daily newspaper.

Han's admission was significant because the agency has said in the past that safety violations were the work of a few rogue operators — a claim aimed at protecting China's billions of dollars of food exports.

___

Associated Press writers Errin Haines in Atlanta and Audra Ang in Beijing contributed to this story.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:30 PM

Man pays $4.88 for plasma TV at Wal-Mart

Fri Jun 29, 7:46 AM ET

MONROE, La. - While Wal-Mart is known for dropping its prices, one West Monroe man took the ad campaign seriously when he dropped the price of a plasma television from $984 to $4.88. Police arrested Chandon L. Simms, 23, on Tuesday at the retail store on a charge of felony theft.

According to police reports, Simms carried a 42-inch Sanyo Plasma TV to a self-checkout aisle after switching the original price tag of $984 with one for only $4.88. Wal-Mart Loss Prevention officers witnessed the alleged transaction and called police.

When the store officers stopped Simms on his way out the door, he produced a receipt for a television purchased at the West Monroe Wal-Mart, authorities said.

Simms told officers that he purchased a TV from the West Monroe store and planned to returrn that one and keep the one he purchased for only $4.88 from the Monroe store. He was then arrested and booked into the Ouachita Correctional Center.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:31 PM

Muggers leave their own pictures behind

Thu Jun 28, 9:13 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - Two German teenagers robbed a girl but accidentally left their own pictures behind for police on a discarded mobile phone.

After stealing a 15-year-old's shoes, money and mobile phone, the two older girls gave her an old mobile phone, police in the western city of Bochum said on Wednesday.

But the two 17-year-olds had forgotten the phone had their own photos, striking smiley poses, which police published online on Tuesday in an effort to find the culprits.

The two muggers turned themselves in almost simultaneously when the pictures appeared on the evening news.

"One girl was brought down by her father after he saw her on the television," said police spokesman Frank Plewka. "Today the pictures were in the papers, so the father's phone has been ringing all day, because everyone recognized them."

Neither of the two had been in trouble with the law before.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:31 PM

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High Dutch driver spurs police chase in cornfield

Thu Jun 28, 9:16 AM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch farmer watched in disbelief as a driver under the influence of cocaine drove a slalom course through his corn field, only to be joined by two police vehicles in hot pursuit, adding to the damage.

Police, backed up by a helicopter, eventually managed to corner the 35-year-old driver after he careered into a neighboring orchard and crashed into a ditch.

"Shoot out two tires... then the problem is solved," irate farmer Ad van Schendel told police, according to the Brabants Dagblad newspaper.

Van Schendel said he estimated the damage to his field near the southern town of Dussen last Friday at 7,000-8,000 euros.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:32 PM

Court acquits teacher in "retard" case

Thu Jun 28, 9:14 AM ET

PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - A teacher who forced a pupil to write "I am a retard" 100 times was acquitted by an Italian court on Wednesday of abuse charges.

The teacher, whose identity was withheld to protect her privacy, forced the punishment on the 12-year-old boy after he blocked a fellow pupil from going to the toilet and called him "gay" and "girly."

The parents had sought 25,000 euros ($33,580) in damages and a public prosecutor had called for a two-month prison sentence, but the court cleared the teacher, a court source said.

The teacher said her punishment of the boy had been appropriate, particularly after a widely publicized case of an adolescent who committed suicide in Italy, apparently after receiving taunts at school about being homosexual.

Gay rights groups had called for the charges to be dropped.

"I never intended to humiliate the boy," the teacher told journalists after she was cleared.

In Italian, she made the boy write: "Io sono deficiente," which literally means "deficient" but is more commonly used as a disparaging term meaning "moron" or "mentally retarded."

"I explained, discussing with him and his classmates, that deficient means 'lacking'. He was 'lacking' sensitivity for one of his classmates," the teacher said.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:32 PM

Added security after peeing incident

Thu Jun 28, 9:17 AM ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will install surveillance cameras around the National War Memorial in Ottawa after three youths urinated on the base of the monument late on the July 1 Canada Day holiday last year.

As well as the cameras, the government said on Wednesday there will be more guards at the memorial and the tomb of the unknown soldier, as well as crowd-control equipment at the site during Canada Day and other special events.

Veterans Minister Greg Thompson said the measures were designed to "help prevent the unfortunate incidents that occurred on July 1, 2006, from recurring."

A 23-year-old man from Montreal was charged with mischief but the case was later dropped after he apologized publicly. He said he was so drunk at the time that he did not realize where he had been urinating.

The incident -- in which one teen was photographed relieving himself -- sparked an outcry from the general public as well as from veterans.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:33 PM

Britain to delete term "prostitute" from law books

Thu Jun 28, 9:18 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is proposing to remove the term "prostitute" from the criminal statutes because it carries too much stigma.

Instead, a new bill that the Justice Ministry has drafted refers simply to persons who sell sex persistently -- defined as twice or more in three months.

"We just wanted to remove the stigma of the label 'common prostitute'," said a spokeswoman for the Justice Ministry.

"It's been around since 1824, so it was a bit outdated. It just wasn't really helpful to label people."

The new bill introduces measures to try to get sex workers out of the industry, and in effect decriminalizes prostitution for those who are not considered persistent.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:34 PM

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Scientists in raptures over flightless Fred

By Ed Harris Fri Jun 29, 11:13 AM ET

BOIS CHERI, Mauritius (Reuters) - The remains of a dodo found in a cave beneath bamboo and tea plantations in Mauritius offer the best chance yet to learn about the extinct flightless bird, a scientist said on Friday.

The discovery was made earlier this month in the Mauritian highlands but the location was kept secret until the recovery of the skeleton, nicknamed "Fred", was completed on Friday. Four men guarded the site overnight.

Julian Hume, a palaeontologist at London's Natural History Museum, told Reuters the remains were likely to yield excellent DNA and other vital clues, because they were found intact, in isolation, and in a cave.

"The geneticists who want to get their hands on this will be skipping down the street," he said, after bringing the last of the remains to the surface.

Given the nickname "Fred" after the 65-year-old who found them, the remains should provide the first decent specimens of dodo DNA, he said.

"Then you can work out how it actually got to Mauritius, because it must have originally flown here before evolving into flightlessness and the big, fat bird that we know," he said.

"We know it's a giant pigeon," he added.

It the first discovery of dodo remains away from the coastal regions, suggesting that the bird, extinct since the 17th century, lived all over the Indian Ocean island, he said.

Hume said the dodo was almost certainly finished off by animals introduced by Europeans about 400 years ago. Theories that it was hunted to extinction by the Dutch were "total nonsense", he said, adding that the remains were highly fragile.

"If you try and pick it up, it just falls apart," he said. "You won't see a mounted, beautiful thing from this."

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:35 PM

Most Canadians would fail own citizenship test

Fri Jun 29, 11:24 AM ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Most Canadians know so little about their own country that they would flunk the basic test that new immigrants are required to take before becoming citizens, according to a poll released on Friday.

The Ipsos-Reid survey showed that 60 percent of Canadians would fail the test. A similar poll done in 1997 showed a failure rate of 45 percent.

"Canadians appear to be losing knowledge when it comes to the most basic questions about Canadian history, politics, culture and geography ... (they) performed abysmally on some questions," the firm said in a statement.

Only 4 percent knew the three requirements a citizen had to meet to be able to vote while only a third could correctly identify the number of provinces and territories. Just 8 percent knew that the Queen is the head of state.

The survey was carried out for the Dominion Institute, which aims to boost knowledge of Canadian history and values. It said all high school students should have to pass a special citizenship exam before they can graduate.

"It is frankly disheartening to see the lack of progress made by our group and the countless other organizations working to improve civic literary of Canadians over the last 10 years," said institute co-founder Rudyard Griffiths.

The Ipsos-Reid survey of 1,005 adults was conducted between June 5 and 7 and is considered to be accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:36 PM

India looking for "Mr Condom"

Fri Jun 29, 2:03 AM ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India, struggling to promote greater condom use among its population, is looking to hire its own "condom man" to follow the example of a former Thai cabinet minister who successfully pushed for safer sex, the Times of India reported.

National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) chief Sujatha Rao said that India needed to find someone like Mechai Viravaidya, famous for getting Thais to talk about sex, condoms and AIDs.

"We are serious about finding India's very own Mr Condom," Rao was quoted as saying after visiting Thailand to study its dramatic increase in condom use over the past decade, which contributed to a sharp fall in new HIV infections.

"He has to feel passionately about the cause as Mechai does ... have a dynamic personality to change both government policy and public perceptions about HIV/AIDS, sex and condoms," Rao said.

Viravaidya became famous in Thailand as the "Condom King" for actions such as taking condoms to World Bank talks as well as for the name of his Bangkok restaurant "Cabbages and Condoms," where condoms are a major part of the decor.

Authorities in India, where many people are hesitant to talk about sex and condoms openly, are trying to push condom use through television, radio and newspapers and by targeting high-risk groups.

India has millions of people who are HIV-positive and many of them face discrimination and prejudice.

In Thailand, Viravaidya's organisation -- the Population and Community Development Association of Thailand -- won the $1-million Gates Award for Global Health this year that is awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:38 PM

Cops hot dog it, chase Wienermobile

Thu Jun 28, 11:04 PM ET

MADISON, Wis. - Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer ... car thief? An Arizona Highway Patrol officer who ran the Wienermobile's plates as the vehicle traveled for a promotion briefly thought the giant hot dog on wheels was, well, hot.

The Wienermobile was on the road for a promotion in which contestants sing the Oscar Mayer jingle for a shot at appearing in a commercial and winning "American Idol" tickets.

The 27-foot-long, 11-foot-tall vehicle was in a construction zone in downtown Tucson Wednesday, slowing traffic. Officer Korey Lankow caught up to it and ran its "Y-U-M-M-Y" license plate to make sure it was street legal.

The plate came back as stolen. Lankow pulled over the Wienermobile, and two more officers arrived to help.

It turns out someone had indeed stolen the "Y-U-M-M-Y" plate off the Wienermobile in Columbia, Mo., back in February. Oscar Mayer officials reported the theft to police there, company spokeswoman Syd Lindner said. The company got a replacement YUMMY plate that same month and notified police in Missouri, Lindner said.

But the plate still came back as stolen Wednesday, with no note that it was OK if found on Wienermobile itself. A message left with the Columbia Police Department seeking to clear up the discrepancy wasn't returned.

Jeff Kendell, 23, of Salt Lake City, was a passenger — or "hot dogger" in Oscar Mayer lingo — in the rolling wiener. Not missing a beat, Kendell handed out wiener whistles to the officers, who took a peek inside the Wienermobile and snapped pictures with digital cameras.

Arizona Highway Patrol spokesman Quent Mehr said Lankow is hearing plenty about it from his buddies.

"The officer, he's just like, 'I don't believe this is happening,'" Mehr said.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:38 PM

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Wimbledon sees red over underwear

By Paul Majendie Thu Jun 28, 3:01 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Wimbledon is getting its knickers in a twist. Tatiana Golovin had the Wimbledon referee reaching for his rule book when she sought to appear on court wearing red underwear.

Was she violating the "predominantly white" dress code laid down by the tournament that is such a stickler for sartorial etiquette?

The fashion guardians of good taste at the world's most genteel tennis tournament gave the French player the go-ahead after much discussion about hemlines and where they stopped and started.

Explaining the decision, a Wimbledon spokesman said on Thursday: "They were cleared with the referee in advance by the player. On the basis that they are underwear, they do not have to conform to the predominantly white rule.

"If they are above the hemline they are deemed to be underwear and not shorts."

The 19-year-old Golovin, who beat Taiwan's Hsieh Su-Wei 5-7 6-3 8-6 on Wednesday, returned to the court on Thursday apparently unperturbed by the headlines her choice of underwear had prompted -- and wearing red knickers again.

Not many post-match news conferences at Wimbledon start with the question "Can I ask you about your knickers?"

Unabashed, the Russian-born player had replied "They say red is the colour that proves that you're strong and you're confident so I'm happy with my red knickers."

Strength and confidence were not enough on Thursday, however and Golovin lost 6-2 3-6 6-1 to Austrian Tamira Paszek.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:39 PM

Frequent N.H. speeder wants limit raised

Thu Jun 28, 9:22 PM ET

DOVER, N.H. - A man with a penchant for speedy driving has come up with an unusual tactic for beating speeding tickets — raise the limit. So far this year, Larry Lemay has been ticketed four times for speeding.

Rather than slow down, Lemay is suing the state Department of Transportation to study traffic and speed limits across New Hampshire, to see whether limits could be raised. Lemay's lawsuit, filed in Strafford County Superior Court, also asks a judge to order the Transportation Department to pay for his legal fees and the cost of the study, an estimated $1,853.

Lemay said he believes many speed limits are set intentionally low so the state can cash in on drivers.

"The state is making a lot of money doing this, and I want it stopped," he said. "It's wrong."

Dave Hilts, the assistant attorney general representing the state, said Lemay's view that higher speed limits would lead to safer driving is shared on the Internet by many speed limit abolitionists, but is misguided.

"Common sense will tell you that going too slow is only a hazard when other people are going much faster," said Hilts. "It's kind of a weird case."

As for Lemay's suggestion that the state sets low speed limits just to catch people with tickets:

"It seems ridiculous to me. I don't know what incentive the state would have to do that," Hilts said. "I've not seen any evidence that that occurs. I don't believe it."

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:40 PM

Florida man's headache mystery solved by a bullet

Wed Jun 27, 12:17 PM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida man awoke with a severe headache and asked his wife to drive him to a hospital, where doctors found a bullet lodged behind his right ear, sheriff's deputies said.

"The nurse looked at him and said, 'It appears that you've been shot,'" the Fort Pierce Tribune quoted St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara as saying. "And he said, 'No way.'"

The wife, April Moylan, fled the emergency room when the bullet was discovered but later told deputies she had accidentally shot her husband as he slept early on Tuesday. She was jailed on a weapons violation charge while deputies pursued additional charges.

The husband, 45-year-old Michael Moylan, woke up with a head pain so severe he suspected he was having an aneurysm and asked his wife to take him to the emergency room, deputies said.

They arrested the wife after obtaining a search warrant and finding a gun and bloody rags in the couple's home near the Atlantic coastal town of Port St. Lucie. The husband was hospitalized in stable condition.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:41 PM

Rider banned over birth-control advice

Thu Jun 28, 9:18 PM ET

LOGAN, Utah - A 76-year-old woman has been barred from the bus station after giving unwanted birth-control advice to mothers with large families. "I think it's wrong. It's a violation of my First Amendment rights," Laura Stevens said.

She was arrested Tuesday for trespassing, a misdemeanor, according to police records.

"She's been making comments to some of the Hispanic passengers that they should be on the pill, that they're taking over our society," said Todd Beutler, general manager of the Cache Valley Transit District.

"The passengers have a right to ride and not be intimidated," he said.

Stevens said she recently noticed a mother struggling to control her six children.

"I felt sorry for her. Maybe she doesn't know that she could get a patch and not have a kid for five years," Stevens said.

She said she will fight the trespassing charge when she appears in Logan's Municipal Court on Tuesday.

"We want her to ride the bus," Beutler said. "We just need to make sure that she's not harassing any other passengers."

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:41 PM

Teacher, students allegedly smoke pot

Thu Jun 28, 5:17 PM ET

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - A Goleta Valley Junior High School teacher is facing charges for allegedly smoking marijuana with two students.

Melissa Dunning, 31, was charged Wednesday with two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one count of furnishing marijuana. She faces arraignment July 3.

The parents of a 14-year-old student at the school told sheriff's deputies on May 31 that they suspected their son and the teacher had been smoking pot, Sgt. Erik Raney said. Dunning had tutored the boy at her home.

Investigators said Dunning smoked pot with the teen on three occasions.

A second 14-year-old student participated one of those time, Raney said.

Muramasa

06-29-2007, 12:42 PM

Mechanic finds kitten under van hood

Thu Jun 28, 5:36 PM ET

TINLEY PARK, Ill. - A certain black cat was lucky someone crossed her path. Mechanic Scott Bella, who works at an auto service shop in this south suburb of Chicago, thought he heard a cat's meow coming from a customer's van he was driving on Tuesday.

"I asked the woman if she had a cat in her van, and she looked at me like I was crazy," the Wilmington man told the Daily Southtown.

When Bella returned to the auto service shop, he lifted the van's hood to find a kitten sitting next to the radiator on the steamy day.

Bella said radiators can generate about 350 degrees of heat, but the kitten came out unscathed. So he named her "Lucky."

He said he plans to take the kitten home, where he hopes she'll get along with his four Rottweilers.

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:30 AM

Illinois man files suit over lost love

Sun Jul 1, 6:55 PM ET

CHICAGO - Stealing someone's heart can cost you: Just ask German Blinov. A Cook County jury ordered Blinov to shell out $4,802 last week after he was sued by a husband from a Chicago suburb for stealing the affections of the man's wife.

Arthur Friedman used a little-known state law to mount the legal attack against Blinov. The alienation of affection law, one of eight across the country, lets spouses seek damages for the loss of love.

But Natalie Friedman, the woman at the center of it all, claims her husband asked her to have sex with other men and women — including Blinov — to spice up their relationship. She supposedly began having feelings for Blinov, prompting her husband to file the lawsuit.

"This guy ruined my life — he backstabbed me," Arthur Friedman told the Chicago Sun-Times. "What he did was wrong. And I did what I had to do to get my point across."

Blinov doesn't deny having a relationship with Natalie Friedman while she was married, but he was surprised to learn he could be sued for it. His attorney also said Natalie Friedman was unhappy with her marriage before the relationship started.

"German was not a pirate of her affections," attorney Enrico Mirabelli said. "Her affections were already adrift."

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:30 AM

Crackdown on officials with mistresses

Fri Jun 29, 8:48 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to sack all officials found to have secretly "kept and supported" mistresses, in a move aimed at raising social morals, state media reported on Friday.

The step hardens up previous policy.

"It is a misunderstanding that officials who have mistresses would only be sacked when the situation is serious," the Beijing News quoted a Ministry of Personnel spokesman as saying.

Mistresses and "second wives" are common among government officials and businessmen in China, and Chinese media have said the financial pressures of keeping mistresses have driven some officials to seek money through bribes or abuse of power.

Corrupt officials are a major cause of public outrage in China, and the country's Communist rulers have warned that if graft is not checked it could threaten the party's grip on power.

The ministry said it had studied the issue and found it "necessary to make a clarification and emphasis" on the punishment for officials who supported mistresses.

"The morality of government officials shown in their management or power operation... directly affects the moral level of the whole society," the spokesman was quoted as saying.

"Therefore, officials should set up good examples, and abide by social morality rules."

Last year, a Chinese vice admiral was jailed for life on embezzlement charges after one of his many mistresses blew the whistle on him when he refused to give in to her demand for money.

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:31 AM

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"Vicious" piranhas are really wimps

Sun Jul 1, 7:17 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Despite their fearsome reputation, piranhas are wimps that gather in large shoals to protect themselves from predators, scientists said on Monday.

Rather than aggressive killers, research shows piranhas are omnivorous scavengers, eating mainly fish, plants and insects, Anne Magurran of Scotland's University of St Andrews said.

"Previously it was thought piranhas shoaled as it enabled them to form a cooperative hunting group. However, we have found that it is primarily a defensive behaviour," she said.

Piranhas face constant attack from predators including river dolphins, caiman -- a relative of the crocodile -- and bigger fish, such as the giant piracucu.

"Their cautious behaviour is crucial to avoid being eaten," Magurran said.

Her work with the Mamiraua Institute in Brazil shows how shoal sizes increase in relation to predation risk, especially when water levels in the Amazon basin are low, giving piranhas less room to escape attack.

The research is featured at the Royal Society's summer science exhibition in London.

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:32 AM

Man beats peacock he says was vampire

Sun Jul 1, 5:12 PM ET

NEW YORK - A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant was attacked by a man who vilified the bird as a vampire, animal-control authorities said.

Beaten so fiercely that most of his tail feathers fell out, the bird was euthanized, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the city's Center for Animal Care and Control.

"It's just unbelievable that someone would do something to a poor, defenseless animal and do it in such a cruel fashion," he said.

The peacock, a male several years old, wandered into a Burger King parking lot in the New York borough of Staten Island and perched on a car hood Thursday morning. Charmed employees were feeding him bread when the man appeared.

He seized the iridescent bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started kicking and stomping the creature, said worker Felicia Finnegan, 19.

"He was going crazy," she said.

Asked what he was doing, she said, the attacker explained, "'I'm killing a vampire!'"

Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them. Authorities were looking for the attacker, described as in his teens or early 20s.

It was not clear how the bird made his way to the Burger King, but a Staten Island resident who raises peacocks said he had given some to a person who lives near the restaurant.

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:32 AM

Man punches 'rude' drive-thru clerk

Fri Jun 29, 10:04 PM ET

PENN HILLS, Pa. - A man who thought the clerk at a fast-food drive-through was rude for not saying "please" and "thank you" punched her in the face, police said. Duane L. Williams, angered by what he felt was the clerk's rudeness, walked into the store to complain just before 8 p.m. Wednesday, Penn Hills police Chief Howard Burton said Friday.

Before the manager could meet with Williams, he walked back outside, pushed open the drive-through window and punched the 19-year-old woman in the face. The clerk was bruised, but not badly hurt, Burton said.

"He didn't like the girl's attitude because she didn't say 'please' and 'thank you,'" Burton said.

The store manager ran outside to get Williams' license plate number and called police.

Williams, 46, told police he had "anger-management issues" when he turned himself in later that night, Burton said.

"He was unable to tell the officer why he did that. He said he remembered opening the drive-through window, but could not remember if he punched the victim or not," Burton said. "I guess he just had a bad day."

Nobody answered the phone listed at the address police supplied for Williams and it was not immediately clear if he has an attorney.

Police filed charges of simple assault, disorderly conduct and harassment Thursday, which were mailed to Williams with a summons to appear in court, Burton said.

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:33 AM

Court: No nudes in Daytona

Sat Jun 30, 5:20 PM ET

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Erotic dancers in adult bars in most parts of this Spring Break city are going to have to wear as much clothing as most people on the beach.

A federal appeals court upheld municipal zoning and nudity ordinances on Thursday after the city and Lollipops Gentlemen's Club made their cases before the court on March 23.

"The bottom line is the 11th Circuit Court (of Appeals) upheld the city's authority to enforce its zoning regulations and public nudity ordinance with regard to the adult entertainment establishments," City Attorney Bob Brown said.

In other words, dancers at adult clubs that serve liquor are required to wear conservative bikinis. G-strings and pasties won't be enough to meet that requirement, the court said.

Both sides were trying to reverse previous rulings.

A district court ruled in January 2006 that Daytona Beach's nudity laws were unconstitutional because they violated the right to free speech, and dancers at adult clubs had been going nude ever since.

Lollipops officials wanted the appeals court to reverse a court ruling from December 2004 that upheld the city's zoning laws, which regulate where adult businesses can operate.

Lollipops lost that one, too.

An attorney for Lollipops said they were prepared to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I don't think it means anything," said lawyer Brett Hartley of Daytona Beach. "We don't see (this) ruling as a major setback. This is just part of the dance."

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:33 AM

Man born in 1901 becomes U.S. citizen

Sat Jun 30, 3:28 PM ET

MIAMI - A 105-year-old Cuban-born man who had at least one pending wish finally had it fulfilled — he became a U.S. citizen.

Jose Temprana celebrated by sipping champagne with friends at the Hispanic Community Center in Miami on Friday.

"I feel different," said Temprana, who served 30 years in Cuban jails. "Satisfied, very happy. It was worth the wait."

Temprana has the vitality of a younger man. Nicknamed "El Nino" (The Boy), he rides his scooter to the store to play the lottery, rolls his own cigars, drinks whiskey with neighbors and has a girlfriend.

"He's just got a great spirit," said his neighbor Patti Hernandez. "Everybody's going, `Come on, he can't really be that old.'"

Temprana was born in the Cuban province of Pinar del Rio on Sept. 26, 1901. He worked as a sponge diver and lobster fisherman and had eight children with his first wife, who died giving birth to the youngest. He remarried, and his second wife died in 2002.

In 1964, he was imprisoned in Cuba for smuggling weapons from the United States into the island for an insurrection against Fidel Castro. Temprana got out at age 93, applied for a humanitarian visa and flew to Miami.

Once here, he worked to get his citizenship but fell short twice.

"I've wanted ... it since I was 8 or 10 years old," Temprana said.

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:34 AM

Turkmen leader given 1 kg gold-and-diamond award

Fri Jun 29, 5:00 PM ET

ALMATY (Reuters) - Turkmenistan's new president was given a gold-and-diamond award weighing around 1 kg (2.2 lb) by parliament on Friday to mark his achievements, local media reported.

Former Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, who built up a personality cult during his 21-year rule, died in December. The new president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has taken steps to soften some of Niyazov's harshest policies.

His prize consists of a chain made of white and yellow gold and encrusted with diamonds.

The award can be given only to presidents for outstanding achievements in domestic and foreign policies.

Berdymukhamedov's predecessor took the title of Turkmenbashi (Head of the Turkmen) the Great and had thousands of portraits and statues of him set up throughout the country.

They include a statue in gold leaf that rotates to face the sun in the capital Ashgabat.

Isolated from the rest of the world under Niyazov and criticised in the West for human rights violations, Turkmenistan has sought to reverse its isolationist policies and pursue more contacts with its neighbours.

Berdymukhamedov has also pledged to improve education, healthcare and pension provision -- cut back under Niyazov -- prompting some to hope for a wider liberalisation in the tightly controlled society.

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:34 AM

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This cheese carving is monumental

Sat Jun 30, 7:23 PM ET

LITTLE CHUTE, Wis. - It's George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln — carved out of a giant block of cheese.

Troy Landwehr used his carving tools to turn a 700-pound block of Land O' Lakes cheddar into a replica of Mount Rushmore.

The cheese carver and winemaker was commissioned by Cheez-It snack crackers to make the monumental carving.

He's heading to New York City in coming days to appear on television and promote the sculpture in Times Square.

Then the carving hits the road on a publicity tour, while Landwehr heads home to Little Chute.

The carving eventually will end up in Oklahoma and be cut into cubes to become a snack itself.

Landwehr said that doesn't bother him.

"In the end, they'll love eating good Wisconsin cheddar down south," he said.

Muramasa

07-02-2007, 09:35 AM

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China's army gets a fashion upgrade

Mon Jul 2, 6:18 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Troops of the People's Liberation Army are to become chic symbols of national pride and sophistication -- so says the commander who oversaw the latest uniform upgrade.

Liao Xilong, director of the Chinese military's logistics department, explained in loving detail the virtues of the new uniforms, which went on display in Hong Kong over the weekend.

"A uniform represents the image of the military and is a country's calling card," Liao told the official Xinhua news agency, complaining that the previous designs "lacked colour coordination".

"This adjustment of our military's uniforms gave more attention to functionality and a human touch, and the stress has been on fullness of the range, colour coordination, pleasant design and clear insignia."

The full rejig of troops' clothes by 2009 will not be cheap -- costing about 6 billion yuan (392 million pounds) for the PLA force of 2.3 million, Xinhua reported on Monday.

Photos of the new outfits on news Web sites showed soldiers, sailors and pilots in tight-fitting jackets and -- in ceremonial versions -- in riding breeches with leather boots.

The tone of green used in army outfits appeared darker than before, and berets are to become standard issue.

One big change was the removal of a red band from green, rimmed hats. Xinhua said critics wanted to keep the flash of colour, which symbolised the ruling Communist party.

"But aesthetics prevailed," the report said. "The blaze of red didn't match the green hat and green uniforms."

Muramasa

07-03-2007, 09:46 AM

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Paris Hilton's garbage sells big on eBay

Tue Jul 3, 7:56 AM ET

LOS ANGELES - An empty can of gourmet dog food taken from Paris Hilton's trash fetched $305 in an eBay auction. The sellers were from the Web site HollywoodStarTrash.com, which also listed several other Hilton items for sale on eBay.

A used toothbrush sold for $305; two envelopes sent to her while she was in jail sold for $510; and a Coke can pulled from her trash went for $51.

The organic gourmet dog food was produced by Party Animal Inc., and can be found in about 150 stores in Southern California and about 40 in New York. It can also be bought through the company's Web site.

____

On the Web:

Star Trash: http://www.hollywoodstartrash.com

Party Animal: http://www.partyanimalpetfood.com

Muramasa

07-05-2007, 11:55 AM

Study: Women don't talk more than guys

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer 39 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Another stereotype — chatty gals and taciturn guys — bites the dust. Turns out, when you actually count the words, there isn't much difference between the sexes when it comes to talking.

A team led by Matthias R. Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, came up with the finding, which is published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The researchers placed microphones on 396 college students for periods ranging from two to 10 days, sampled their conversations and calculated how many words they used in the course of a day.

The score: Women, 16,215. Men, 15,669.

The difference: 546 words: "Not statistically significant," say the researchers.

"What's a 500-word difference, compared with the 45,000-word difference between the most and the least talkative persons" in the study, said Mehl.

Co-author James W. Pennebaker, chairman of the psychology department at the University of Texas, said the researchers collected the recordings as part of a larger project to understand how people are affected when they talk about emotional experiences.

They were surprised when a magazine article asserted that women use an average of 20,000 words per day compared with 7,000 for men. If there had been that big a difference, he thought, they should have noticed it.

They found that the 20,000-7,000 figures have been used in popular books and magazines for years. But they couldn't find any research supporting them.

"Although many people believe the stereotypes of females as talkative and males as reticent, there is no large-scale study that systematically has recorded the natural conversations of large groups of people for extended periods of time," Pennebaker said.

Indeed, Mehl said, one study they found, done in workplaces, showed men talking more.

Still, the idea that women use nearly three times as many words a day as men has taken on the status of an "urban legend," he said.

"We realized we had the data," Mehl said in a telephone interview, so they went back to their recordings and calculated the actual numbers.

Their research began with one group of students in 1998, two groups sampled in 2001, two in 2003 and a final group in 2004. One of the 2003 groups involved 51 students in Mexico, the rest were all in the United States.

The students were fitted with unobtrusive recorders that sampled their conversations — the students didn't know when the recorders were on. From the samples, a total number of words for the day could be calculated.

Of the six groups sampled, women used more words than men in three and men used more words than women in the other three, including the one in Mexico.

The research was limited to college students, but Pennebaker said he believes it would probably apply to others in the same age range.

"The question is, how it applies to people as we get older," he said in a telephone interview on Thursday.

Mehl said he thinks it should apply across age groups, but he wondered how it would be affected by different cultures.

Muramasa

07-05-2007, 11:55 AM

Cat survives 3 weeks crossing ocean

19 minutes ago

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - A cat whose owners thought was lost spent nearly three weeks crossing the Pacific Ocean in a shipping container with no food or water — and appears to be just fine.

The voyage began after Pamela Escamilla lost sight of her 3-year-old calico, Spice, while packing a huge container with household goods in Waikoloa Village, Hawaii.

The container was shipped June 15 to Southern California. Escamilla, 39, and her husband couldn't find the cat before taking their flight and asked neighbors in Hawaii to call if Spice returned.

While the Escamillas feared the worst, Spice spent 18 days in the pitch-black container without food or water as it crossed the Pacific before arriving at the San Bernardino home of Escamilla's parents on Tuesday.

"We really thought that cat was going to be dead," said Edward Gardner, Escamilla's father.

When Escamilla opened the container, she and family members huddled around her noticed fluffs of cat hair on the floor.

They started removing items, and Escamilla climbed into the container to search.

"I saw (Spice) poke her head out from behind some bicycles, and I started to scream," said Escamilla. She gently picked up the cat and went to the veterinarian, who said the feline's prognosis was good.

"It's always a good day when the cat's alive," said Escamilla. "We didn't know what we would find."

Spice's kidneys had shrunk and her bowels were backed up, but she managed to get some food and water down at the vet, Escamilla said.

The vet gave the Escamillas a soup recipe for Spice made of chicken broth and marrow.

"(The vet) said, 'That's a calico for you,"' Escamilla said. "They have a survival instinct."

Muramasa

07-05-2007, 11:56 AM

Woman returns to husband who took her hostage

Tue Jul 3, 9:41 AM ET

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A Brazilian woman whose estranged husband held her hostage at gunpoint on a bus for 10 hours along with dozens of passengers last year has decided to reunite with him.

"I forgave him out of love ... I believe it was an irrational act and that we can resume our life in peace," Brazil's Globo news agency quoted Cristina Ribeiro, 35, as saying on Monday, eight months after the nationally televised hostage drama.

The couple, who have three children, have decided to live together again, Globo reported.

The husband, Andre Ribeiro da Silva, 36, was paroled from prison in late April and is awaiting trial.

"I hear people warning me that he will do it again, but we've talked and grown into the idea of getting back together," the woman said.

Armed with a pistol, Ribeiro da Silva took Cristina hostage on November 10 on a suburban bus on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. He released dozens of hostages during negotiations with police and then surrendered without a shot being fired.

During the incident, he accused her of having cheated on him and threatened to kill her and then commit suicide. The two had been married for 10 years and separated four months earlier.

Muramasa

07-05-2007, 11:56 AM

Afghanistan begins campaign to cut smoking

Tue Jul 3, 9:42 AM ET

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan may be the world's largest producer of heroin, but the government has taken the first step towards to a ban on smoking in public places.

Local media said on Tuesday that the council of ministers had ordered a campaign through the media and mosques to inform the public that smoking in educational institutions, hospitals and government offices has been outlawed.

The ban will be widened later to cover hotels and restaurants.

The reports did not say how the government would monitor the ban or what penalties there might be for violators.

There are no official figures on the number of smokers among Afghanistan's 25 million people, but unscientific observation and questioning by Reuters correspondents suggest around half the men have smoked at some point or another.

Afghans say there are very few women smokers.

War-torn Afghanistan produces over 90 percent of the world's heroin and despite the government's repeated efforts, backed by force and tens of millions of dollars from donor countries, drugs cultivation and consumption is rising each year.

Muramasa

07-05-2007, 11:56 AM

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Chinese villagers eat dinosaur bones

Thu Jul 5, 1:56 AM ET

BEIJING - Villagers in central China spent decades digging up bones they believed belonged to flying dragons and using them in traditional medicines. Turns out the bones belonged to dinosaurs, and now scientists are doing the digging.

Until last year, the fossils were being sold in Henan province as "dragon bones" at about 25 cents a pound, scientist Dong Zhiming said Wednesday.

The calcium-rich bones were sometimes boiled with other ingredients and fed to children to treat dizziness and leg cramps. Other times they were ground up and turned into a paste applied directly to fractures and other injuries, he said.

Dong was part of a team that recently excavated in Henan's Ruyang County a 60-foot-long plant-eating dinosaur that lived 85 million to 100 million years ago. The find was shown to the public Tuesday.

Dong said that when the villagers found out last year the bones were from dinosaurs, they donated 440 pounds to him and his colleagues for research. Over the last two decades, the villagers had dug up an estimated 1 ton of bones.

"They had believed that the 'dragon bones' were from the dragons flying in the sky," said Dong, a professor with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Muramasa

07-05-2007, 11:57 AM

Stolen violin recovered, owner says

Wed Jul 4, 6:29 PM ET

NEW YORK - A prized violin that was stolen while its owner snoozed on a hot subway train has been recovered.

"I'm of course overjoyed!!!," Tom Chiu, a Juilliard School graduate and founder of the avant-garde Flux Quartet, wrote Wednesday in an e-mail message about his Scarampella violin.

The violin and his backpack were stolen June 27.

Chiu said it was raining that night and he went into a hot and humid subway station after a performance and fell asleep. When he awoke, he said, his bags were gone.

Chiu, who calls his violin his "heart and soul for the last 13 years," said in a statement that the violin and the backpack and its contents were turned in to the Metropolitan Transit Authority's lost-and-found, and an MTA official contacted him late Tuesday.

The contents included a violin bow that Chiu has used since childhood.

"Losing it was like losing my voice, my soul. So getting it back is just great," said Chiu, the instrument again in hand.

NYC Transit did not immediately return a call seeking details about the recovery.

At the time of the theft, Chiu said the violin and bow "all have great sentimental value to me and are completely irreplaceable. I hope the person who has my violin will return it to me. I would be forever grateful."

Chiu did not say what the violin was worth. He said it had originally belonged to his parents.

The violin was made by Stefano Scarampella, one of the most highly regarded violin makers from the early 20th century in Italy

Muramasa

07-05-2007, 11:58 AM

Blinded by love, HK man stabbed in eye by girlfriend

Wed Jul 4, 2:58 AM ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong woman who blinded her boyfriend in one eye in a fight six years ago has been jailed for jabbing a chopstick into his other eye, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Last November, Po Shiu-fong, 58, accused long-time boyfriend Kwok Wai-ming, 49, of having an affair, the South China Morning Post reported.

During the row, Po stabbed a plastic chopstick into his left eye, which she had already blinded six years ago when she poked it with her finger.

"Po became hysterical when she saw the wound and mopped it with a towel. The pair then went to bed," the paper said.

"The next morning they had another argument in which she grabbed a chopstick and stabbed Kwok's right eye," it said.

Two days later, he sought medical treatment and filed a police report against Po, whom he had dated since 1993.

The paper said he didn't report the attack six years ago, telling the court his silence was "a love sacrifice".

Kwok lost 10 to 20 percent vision in his right eye, the paper said.

Po was jailed for six months on Tuesday.

"If I forgive her, God would not forgive me," the paper quoted Kwok as saying. "No matter what, nothing could compensate for the loss of my eye."

Muramasa

07-06-2007, 10:02 AM

China public restroom has 1,000 stalls

Fri Jul 6, 9:18 AM ET

BEIJING - They're flush with pride in a southwestern Chinese city where a recently-opened porcelain palace features an Egyptian facade, soothing music and more than 1,000 toilets spread out over 32,290 square feet.

Officials in Chongqing are preparing to submit an application to Guinness World Records to have the free four-story public bathroom listed as the world's largest, the state-run China Central Television reported Friday.

"We are spreading toilet culture. People can listen to gentle music and watch TV," said Lu Xiaoqing, an official with the Yangrenjie, or "Foreigners Street," tourist area where the bathroom is located. "After they use the bathroom they will be very, very happy."

Footage aired on CCTV showed people milling about the sprawling facility and washing their hands at trough sinks. For open-aired relief, there is a cluster of stalls without a roof.

Some urinals are uniquely shaped, including ones inside open crocodile mouths and several that are topped by the bust of a woman resembling the Virgin Mary.

"Other bathrooms are all the same. This one is very special, I've never seen anything like it," one visitor to the tourist area told CCTV.

There are also plans to build a supermarket nearby, which will sell toilet-related items, CCTV reported.

Muramasa

07-06-2007, 10:02 AM

Ice cream vendor accused of selling pot

Fri Jul 6, 5:40 AM ET

BENTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Southwestern Michigan authorities say they arrested an ice cream truck operator who was selling marijuana along with his frozen desserts.

After authorities got tips about the alleged pot-peddler, a deputy "heard jingling bells" about 2 p.m. Thursday and saw the ice cream truck entering a mobile home park, Berrien County sheriff's Lt. Keith Hafer said in a written statement.

Deputy John Hopkins stopped the truck, spoke with the driver and "detected the odor of marijuana coming from the truck (along with tutti-frutti and a couple other flavors)," Hafer wrote.

Authorities searched the van and found several packages of marijuana under the dashboard, the statement said.

The 36-year-old suspect was jailed while awaiting arraignment on charges of marijuana possession with intent to deliver and maintaining a drug vehicle. He also faces an outstanding warrant for skipping child support, Hafer said.

Authorities released the vehicle to the vending company "in spite of an effort by Narcotics Officers to devise a way to forfeit the vehicle and its icy cold treats," Hafer said. He said police would seek revocation of the company's license to operate in Benton Township.

Muramasa

07-06-2007, 10:02 AM

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Firefighter in bikini accepts plea deal

Fri Jul 6, 12:58 AM ET

MASON, Ohio - A man who was arrested in a park wearing a woman's wig and a bikini accepted a plea deal Thursday that dropped a charge of public indecency.

Steven S. Cole, a former volunteer firefighter, pleaded guilty to a charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and disorderly conduct.

Municipal Court Judge George Parker sentenced Cole to attend a mandatory driver intervention program and placed him on two years' probation. Cole was ordered to stay out of the city's public parks during that time and pay a $250 fine.

Parker also suspended Cole's driving privileges for six months, except for work, counseling sessions, family appointments and visits with his probation officer.

Police arrested Cole on April 4 in his truck as he was leaving Heritage Oak Park in this Cincinnati suburb after parents complained about a man dressed in women's clothing.

Police said they found an open, half-empty bottle of beer in the truck, along with a gym bag containing wigs, bikinis, silver go-go boots and other women's garments.

Cole's blood-alcohol test registered 0.17, more than twice Ohio's legal driving limit of 0.08, police said.

The arrest report said Cole told an officer he was on his way to a bar in Dayton to perform as a woman in a contest offering a $10,000 prize.

Muramasa

07-06-2007, 10:04 AM

Woman wins settlement in breast-feeding case

By Edith Honan Thu Jul 5, 10:25 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Watch-maker and clothier Fossil Inc. agreed to pay $3,600 to a woman who was barred from breast-feeding her infant while visiting a company showroom, the New York Civil Liberties Union said on Tuesday.

Lass King, 37, a buyer for a Maine clothing store and a mother of two, said she received a letter of apology and the payment from Fossil after threatening the company with a lawsuit.

In its letter to King, Fossil also said it had issued a policy affirming that breast-feeding was permitted in all Fossil stores and showrooms, said Galen Sherwin, director of the NYCLU's Reproductive Rights Project.

Representatives of Fossil could not immediately confirm details of the settlement.

New York law states that women are permitted to breast-feed "in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be."

The case follows another settlement, reached in September, when the Toys R Us toy store chain agreed to lift its restrictions on where a woman can breast-feed.

King called her experience humiliating.

In August 2006, while meeting with a salesperson in a Manhattan showroom, King was told she was making others feel uncomfortable by breast-feeding her 8-month-old son, Cody.

King was taken to another floor to finish feeding Cody but was then not allowed back into the showroom. In January, as she made plans to again visit a Fossil showroom, she was told by a Fossil representative that breast-feeding was forbidden.

"I wanted to be apologized to. I wanted not to be humiliated or for anybody else to be humiliated either," she told Reuters of her decision to contact the civil liberties organization.

Muramasa

07-06-2007, 10:04 AM

Risque EU defends Internet orgasm clip

Thu Jul 5, 10:27 AM ET

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Talk of monetary union and wine quotas gave way to controversy over orgasms and innuendo at the European Commission on Wednesday as it defended a risque Internet video clip highlighting its backing for European cinema.

The EU executive's usually dry daily news briefing sprung to life with questions over whether a 44-second clip of 18 couples achieving ecstasy in a variety of positions and venues was the best way to show how Brussels uses taxpayers' money.

The raunchy clip is made up of snippets from various general release films that have been funded by the EU, including "Amelie" and "Good Bye Lenin!."

Some reporters also took a swipe at the title of the sequence, asking whether "Let's Come Together" was acceptable innuendo -- and if it was, whether the pun worked in the 27-member Union's other official languages.

A Commission spokesman insisted it had not received a single complaint in the 14 weeks since the clip first appeared on Internet site YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKFTfAWnYh8), suggesting the Brussels press corps should relax and get with the times.

"Let us for once also have a good sense of humor and let us not start the old wars of the fifties about what is sex, what is pornography and what is simply normal to watch on television," spokesman Martin Selmayr appealed.

Muramasa

07-06-2007, 10:05 AM

Girl, 4, called 911 nearly 300 times

Thu Jul 5, 10:02 PM ET

CARPENTERSVILLE, Ill. - Authorities tracked down a 4-year-old girl who called 911 nearly 300 times last month by offering to deliver McDonald's to her suburban Chicago apartment.

Unbeknownst to her mother, the girl used a deactivated cell phone to call dispatchers 287 times in June — sometimes as often as 20 times a shift.

Dispatchers heard the child's voice but could only track the phone's signal to the apartment complex.

So authorities used a ruse to pinpoint her.

"We asked (the caller) what she wanted. She said she wanted McDonald's," said Steve Cordes, executive director of QuadCom's emergency center, which covers Carpentersville.

"We talked with her and we convinced her if she told us where she lives, we would bring her McDonald's," he said. "She finally gave us her address. So we sent the police over — with no McDonald's."

After police arrived, the girl's mother took away the phone, Cordes said.

Under federal law, deactivated cell phones still must be able to access 911. Many deactivated phones will contact an emergency call center if the user holds down the nine key.

Muramasa

07-06-2007, 10:06 AM

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Scientists solve puzzle of Chile's missing lake

Tue Jul 3, 5:06 PM ET

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Scientists said that a lake in southern Chile that mysteriously disappeared last month developed a crack which allowed the water to drain away.

A buildup of water opened a crack in an ice wall along one side of the lake. Water flowed through the crack into a nearby fjord and from there into the sea, leaving behind a dry lake-bed littered with icebergs, scientists told Chilean state television on Tuesday.

"It looks like it's slowly filling up with water again," said Andres Rivera, a glacier expert who headed a team which recently flew over the lake in a bid to solve the mystery.

The lake is situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and is fed by melt-water from glaciers. Earlier this year it had a surface area of 4 to 5 hectares (10-12 acres) -- about the size of 10 soccer fields.

Scientists noticed it had disappeared during a routine patrol of the area in May.

Rivera said the incident was evidence of the effects of global warming.

Muramasa

07-10-2007, 09:55 AM

Bride attacks groom with shoe

36 minutes ago

LONDON - Scottish bride Teresa Brown's dream of a perfect wedding day probably did not include attacking the groom with her stiletto shoe and spending the weekend in a cell.

Police arrested the 33-year-old in the couple's hotel room in April while her wedding reception continued downstairs, prosecutor Alan Townsend said Tuesday at Aberdeen Sheriff Court. She spent the rest of her wedding weekend in a cell.

The distraught groom, Mark Allerton, 40, staggered to the front desk, clutching a bloody towel to his head, Townsend said.

"He indicated that his wife had struck him over the head with a stiletto heel," the prosecutor said.

Police found Brown, a real estate agent's assistant, sitting on the hotel room bed, surrounded by broken glass.

Brown told police she and her husband had "been accusing each other of different things," the prosecutor said, without going into details. Brown said she hit him on the head because he had taken a hold of her, he added.

Brown's lawyer Stuart Beveridge said the newlyweds began throwing things at each other after an argument in their room turned physical. He said Brown had been on antidepressants at the time and had been drinking.

"She and her husband are still together although this incident has not helped," he said, adding she is receiving counseling.

Sheriff James Tierney let Brown off on the assault charge with a warning and fined her 250 pounds ($505) for damaging the hotel room and ordered her to pay the hotel 500 pounds ($1,150) in compensation.

Hilton Treetops said in a statement that they were happy the case has closed.

"This has been a very unusual case," the hotel said.

Muramasa

07-10-2007, 09:56 AM

Missing staple lets murderers appeal

Mon Jul 9, 8:12 AM ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A missing staple from a court document has allowed two murderers found guilty of one of Australia's most brutal killings to appeal against their convictions.

Under a technical loophole, the murderers will argue that an earlier lost appeal was not finalized because the indictment paperwork was never fixed to the court file as required by law.

"It just seems so wrong," said Bev Balding, mother of Janine Balding who was abducted and brutally gang raped and drowned by a group of men on the outskirts of Sydney in 1988.

Balding's murderers are serving life sentences, with a judge's recommendation they never to be released.

"How do they know someone has not removed the staple on purpose? You can't rely on the law when it relies on a solitary staple," Bev Balding told reporters Monday.

The New South Wales (NSW) state government said it was looking at ways to close the technical loophole.

"I understand that closing this loophole through an amendment to the court rules of the supreme court is currently being considered...to avoid it being an issue of discussion in any future case," said NSW acting state premier John Watkins.

Muramasa

07-10-2007, 09:56 AM

Man's smelly feet trigger police raid

Mon Jul 9, 8:11 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police broke into a darkened apartment fearing they would find a dead body, after neighbors complained of a nasty smell seeping out onto the staircase.

The shutters of the apartment had been closed for more than a week and the mailbox was filled with uncollected mail.

But instead of a corpse, they found a tenant with very smelly feet, asleep in bed next to a pile of foul-smelling laundry, police in the southwestern town of Kaiserslautern said on Sunday.

Muramasa

07-10-2007, 09:57 AM

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Calling Paris? Student inherits Hilton's phone number

Mon Jul 9, 8:20 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Days after U.S. college student Shira Barlow got her new cell phone number,

Barlow had unwittingly inherited the old phone number of celebrity hotel heiress Paris Hilton -- and messages from well-wishers and foes alike are still flooding in five months later.

Barlow told the Los Angeles Times in a story published on Friday that the calls and text messages -- usually coming between about 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. on weekends -- at first were mostly from people asking about cool Los Angeles nightclubs.

But in May they were replaced by condolences after the 26-year-old socialite was sentenced to jail for violating probation in a drunken-driving case.

"People were scared for her," the UCLA student told the newspaper.

Barlow said she has resisted the temptation to pose as Hilton to get herself and her friends on the guest lists of exclusive parties.

She also said she has no plans to switch the number because it has been more a source of amusement than a hassle.

She inherited it in February under a practice in which U.S. phone companies recycle old cell phone numbers after six months to meet increasing demand, the Times said.

The newspaper stumbled on the story after a reporter called the number, hoping to reach Hilton, and Barlow answered.

Hilton spent three weeks in a county jail near Los Angeles last month. Her incarceration ignited a worldwide media frenzy and debate about celebrity justice.S. college student Shira Barlow got her new cell phone number, the party inquiries, birthday wishes and late-night calls started arriving.

Barlow had unwittingly inherited the old phone number of celebrity hotel heiress Paris Hilton -- and messages from well-wishers and foes alike are still flooding in five months later.

Barlow told the Los Angeles Times in a story published on Friday that the calls and text messages -- usually coming between about 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. on weekends -- at first were mostly from people asking about cool Los Angeles nightclubs.

But in May they were replaced by condolences after the 26-year-old socialite was sentenced to jail for violating probation in a drunken-driving case.

"People were scared for her," the UCLA student told the newspaper.

Barlow said she has resisted the temptation to pose as Hilton to get herself and her friends on the guest lists of exclusive parties.

She also said she has no plans to switch the number because it has been more a source of amusement than a hassle.

She inherited it in February under a practice in which U.S. phone companies recycle old cell phone numbers after six months to meet increasing demand, the Times said.

The newspaper stumbled on the story after a reporter called the number, hoping to reach Hilton, and Barlow answered.

Hilton spent three weeks in a county jail near Los Angeles last month. Her incarceration ignited a worldwide media frenzy and debate about celebrity justice.

Muramasa

07-10-2007, 09:58 AM

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Women demand female Pamplona bull run - with cows

Mon Jul 9, 5:29 AM ET

MADRID (Reuters) - Women in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona, world-famous for its ferocious bull-running festival, are demanding their own version complete with cows instead of bulls.

A student Web site, www.estudiln.net, set the ball rolling with its campaign "Cows want to run" which asks for a separate encierro, as the bull-runs are known, where only women are allowed to take part.

Women have been allowed to take part in the San Fermin bull-running for some years but they still represent a tiny minority of the thousands of runners who attempt to dodge 600-kilo bulls along an 800-metre course through the streets of Pamplona.

The students say it's only logical that women should have their own bull-run.

"Cows, as well as bulls, have four legs and a natural instinct to run," says their manifesto. "An encierro for cows, would put Pamplona at the vanguard of traditional fiestas with equality for men and women."

Organisers of the festival, which runs from July 7-14, have not responded to the suggestion.

And just what the late Ernest Hemingway, who made the bull-run in Pamplona internationally famous, would have thought will never be known.

Muramasa

07-10-2007, 10:00 AM

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Women drawn to men with muscles

By Julie Steenhuysen Mon Jul 9, 5:39 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Muscular young men are likely to have more sex partners than their less-chiselled peers, researchers at the University of California Los Angeles said on Monday.

Their study, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, suggests muscles in men are akin to elaborate tail feathers in male peacocks: They attract females looking for a virile mate.

"Women are predisposed to prefer muscularity in men," said study author David Frederick of UCLA.

"Most research is focused on what men find physically attractive in women and the career traits women find attractive in men," Frederick said by telephone. "Much less research is devoted to what women find attractive."

He said prior studies concluded a man's desirability was influenced more by his earning potential and commitment. His study found physical characteristics mattered more.

Women were more physically attracted to brawny men, especially for a fling. But when it comes to finding a long-term partner, they tend to pick a regular man over a mate with huge biceps.

"On the one hand, it makes them more sexy to women. On the other hand, it makes women more suspicious about their romantic intentions," Frederick said.

He and colleagues interviewed 99 male undergraduates about their sexual histories. Muscular men were twice as likely to have had more than three sex partners than less-built types.

Frederick and colleagues also asked 141 college women to look at six standardized silhouettes of men ranging from brawny to slender. Most preferred a toned man who was more likely to commit over a muscle-bound man they perceived as more volatile, aggressive and dominant

Muramasa

07-10-2007, 10:00 AM

Japan seeks stress-free tuna for finer dining

Tue Jul 10, 1:37 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese researchers are looking for ways to reduce stress levels in tuna caught in nearby waters, so they taste better when they hit the plate.

A vigorous fish, tuna tends to thrash wildly when caught, which researchers believe raises its body temperature and leads to whitening of its meat, sharply cutting its flavour and value.

"People want to eat tuna when it's as fresh as possible, but once it struggles the freshness goes down," said Kunihiko Konno, a professor at Hokkaido University who is leading the stress-reduction project.

Tuna tend to struggle especially hard if too many are trapped in a net at once or if they are kept in crowded conditions at fish farms, but the researchers are focusing mainly on how to reduce stress when the fish are caught, he added.

Although they have yet to reach firm conclusions, Konno said the best way to reduce stress levels was likely to be quite simple -- and final.

"Kill them very quickly," he said.

Muramasa

07-11-2007, 03:23 PM

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China city debuts opulent public toilet

1 hour, 3 minutes ago

BEIJING - They're flush with pride in Chongqing, where a recently opened porcelain palace features an Egyptian facade, soothing music and more than 1,000 toilets spread out over 30,000 square feet.

Officials in the southwestern Chinese city plan to ask Guinness World Records to have the free four-story public bathroom listed as the world's largest, state-run China Central Television reported Friday.

"We are spreading toilet culture. People can listen to gentle music and watch TV," said Lu Xiaoqing, an official with the Yangrenjie, or "Foreigners Street," tourist area where the bathroom is located. "After they use the bathroom they will be very, very happy."

Footage aired on CCTV showed people milling about the sprawling facility and washing their hands at trough sinks. For open-aired relief, there's a cluster of stalls without a roof.

Some urinals are uniquely shaped, including ones inside open crocodile mouths and several topped by the bust of a woman resembling the Virgin Mary.

There are also plans to build a supermarket nearby, which will sell toilet-related items, CCTV reported.

Muramasa

07-11-2007, 03:25 PM

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Vietnam experiences a "quiet" sexual revolution

By Grant McCool Wed Jul 11, 9:55 AM ET

HO CHI MINH CITY (Reuters) - A young woman lives with her boyfriend but hides it from her family, girls write blogs about love and relationships and couples seeking privacy cuddle in public parks at nightfall.

A "quiet" sexual revolution is unfolding in Vietnam, an intensely family-oriented society that holds strong traditions of women being married by their mid-20s and having children.

Huyen, a 30-year-old public relations executive, came to work in Ho Chi Minh City two years ago from Hanoi. After first staying with an aunt, she secretly moved into her boyfriend's apartment.

"I didn't tell my aunt," she said. "It is quite popular to move in together. Besides, Saigon is big and many couples who have moved together from other provinces live together."

Young people are dating more before marriage, having pre-marital sex, and have more outlets through the Internet to talk about the joys and problems of relationships than previous generations.

Parks in the city still called Saigon are popular at night among canoodling couples for whom privacy is a premium. Although economic change has altered the model of three generations living under one roof, it is still the norm for most.

Sitting on motorcycles with their backs to the road and oblivious to the surroundings, these couples are usually in their 20s, the age group that makes up more than half of Vietnam's 85 million population.

In the heart of the capital, Hanoi, a tree-lined boulevard aptly named Thanh Nien (Young People) runs between two lakes and is known as a "lover's lane" for romantic trysts. Couples cuddle and kiss on their bikes under the trees or in swan-shaped paddle boats out on the water.

LIGHTS OUT

The tradition dates back to the early 1980s when assignations were tacitly permitted by the straight-laced authorities, recalled sociologist Le Bach Duong.

"I still remember they would turn off the lights on Thanh Nien street at 7.30 or 8 at night so it was like an unwritten agreement between the electricity authority and the youth," said Duong, director of the Institute for Social Development Studies.

"At midnight, they turned the lights back on again."

Nowadays, the lights stay on.

It is all part of the socio-economic transformation in the communist-run country that was relatively isolated only 15 years ago after decades of war and economic failure.

"Somebody said it is a time of sexual revolution in Vietnam but it is a bit quieter than that, than what happened say in America in the 1960s and 1970s, but it's growing," said psychologist Khuat Thu Hong.

"It's difficult to explain such a rapid change."

The changes are especially sharp for single women, whose job opportunities and mobility have become equal to those of men in recent years of high economic growth and increased incomes as agrarian Vietnam moves toward industrialization.

Living arrangements are changing, especially for migrants who left home villages to study at university or work in offices and factories around the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City.

Internet chat rooms, web sites, blogs and columns in the state-run "mass media" have become forums for young people to discuss love and sex and sexual orientation.

Vietnamese say attitudes toward sex and relationships have become much more open. However, most preferred not to use their full names in interviews, a telling sign that traditional family values still hold sway.

One outspoken woman is Nhu Khue, a petite 30-year-old who writes her own blog and is an active member of a web site for women www.traicasau.com/forum.

"In Vietnam, old people still want girls to be virgins but times are changing," she said.

Khue and others said that there is a perception that only Vietnamese women who date foreign men have pre-marital sex.

EXTRA-MARITAL AFFAIRS

In general, Westerners living in Vietnam view Vietnamese as abiding by traditional norms, but it is not a prudish society.

"Rice six days a week and pho (noodle soup) on the seventh," is a comment some Vietnamese make to indicate an extra-marital affair or liaisons with a prostitute.

Sharp beeps or vibrations on a married man's mobile phone can elicit quips about "the cat" (lover) calling.

Research on youth by a variety of organizations show that young people are sexually active at the same age as their parents, but the difference is that their parents were married and they are not.

These and other phenomena indicate that sex is no longer seen just for reproduction of children or an heir to work the farm, but more than that, experts said.

"Through our counseling we hear a lot of young people both girls and boys, talk about their pleasure," said Hoang Tu Anh, a medical doctor with the Consultation of Investment in Health Promotion non-governmental organization.

"In the last two or three years, there has been an upsurge in short stories or novels written by female writers on female sexuality," Tu Anh said.

The group runs a web site www.tamsubantre.com that provides a forum for people to chat under the auspices of a moderator about marriage, relationships and reproductive and sexual health.

Donors such as the United Nations Population Fund and others back a Sunday evening call-in show on Voice of Vietnam radio called "Windows of Love," a forum for people of all ages.

"It is quite remarkable that at least outwardly, all this change has not resulted in a break-up of social cohesion," said Ian Howie, UNFPA representative in Vietnam. "The rapidity of change seems to have been accommodated."

Muramasa

07-11-2007, 03:26 PM

Suburb puts a bounty on flies

Tue Jul 10, 8:50 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese city suburb has set a bounty on dead flies in a bid to promote public hygiene, Xinhua news agency said Tuesday.

Xigong, a district of Luoyang in the central province of Henan, paid out more than 1,000 yuan ($125) for about 2,000 dead flies on July 1, the day it launched the scheme with the aim of encouraging cleanliness in residential areas.

"I and colleagues believe it is the best way to push residents to do more for their living environment," Hu Guisheng, the office chief, was quoted as saying.

The payment scheme is the first of its kind in Luoyang, a city of 1.55 million people which is striving to earn the title of "state-level hygienic city."

But critics have questioned the benefits of paying 0.5 yuan (seven U.S. cents) per insect turned in, a scheme which has sparked an online debate.

An Internet user said that although the office had good intentions, the action itself had made the district a laughing stock.

"The key point is the government should encourage residents to clean up the environment so that no flies can live there, instead of spending money on dead flies," the Internet user wrote.

China has a history of using unorthodox means to eradicate pests. When Mao Zedong launched the "Four Pests" campaign during the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, citizens were ordered to kill flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows.

Pest control efforts included banging pots and pans to scare sparrows into flight and have them eventually drop to earth dead from exhaustion.

Muramasa

07-11-2007, 03:27 PM

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Rare giant squid washed up in Australia

Wed Jul 11, 12:32 PM ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) - One of the largest giant squid ever found has washed up on a remote Australian beach, sparking a race against time by scientists to examine the rarely seen deep-ocean creature.

The squid, the mantle or main body of which measured two-metres (6.5 feet) long, was found by a walker late on Tuesday on Ocean Beach, near Strahan, on the western coast of island state Tasmania.

"It's a whopper," Tasmanian Museum senior curator Genefor Walker-Smith told local media on Wednesday. "The main mantle is about one metre across and its total length is about eight metres."

Scientists would take samples from the creature, identified by state parks officials as an Architeuthis, which can grow to more than 10 metres (33 feet) in length and weigh more than 275 kilograms (606 pounds). The Tasmanian animal was 250 kg.

The tentacles had been badly damaged, so the overall length of the animal could not be determined, a Tasmania Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman said. Park rangers had moved the remains from the water.

Giant squid, once believed to be mythical despite occasional sightings by mariners, feed on fish and other squid. Last year, fishermen off the Falkland Islands caught a complete animal measuring 8.62 metres.

Scientists believe giant squid usually live at ocean depths of between 200-700 metres (660-2,300 ft), relying in part on volleyball-sized eyes, the largest in the animal kingdom.

Scientists said giant squid gathered along Australia's continental shelf in cold mid-winter waters to feed on Grenadier fish. The squid were in turn hunted by sperm whales migrating north from the Southern Ocean.

Japanese ocean researchers captured the first ever pictures of a live giant squid in September 2004 off Japan's Ogasawara Islands at a depth of 900 metres.

Muramasa

07-11-2007, 03:28 PM

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Baby mammoth find promises science breakthrough

By Dmitry Solovyov Wed Jul 11, 10:07 AM ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The discovery of a baby mammoth preserved in the Russian permafrost gives researchers their best chance yet to build a genetic map of a species extinct since the Ice Age, a Russian scientist said on Wednesday.

"It's a lovely little baby mammoth indeed, found in perfect condition," said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Science's Zoological Institute, which has been taking care of the mammoth since it was uncovered in May.

"This specimen may provide unique material allowing us to ultimately decipher the genetic makeup of the mammoth," he told Reuters by telephone.

The mammoth, a female who died at the age of six months, was named "Lyuba" after the wife of reindeer breeder and hunter Yuri Khudi who found her in Russia's Arctic Yamalo-Nenetsk region.

She had been lying in the frozen ground for up to 40,000 years, said Tikhonov.

The hunter initially thought the mammoth was a dead reindeer when he spotted parts of her body sticking out of damp snow.

When he realised it was a mammoth, scientists were called in and transported the body to regional capital Salekhard, where she is now being kept in a special refrigerator.

TREASURE TROVE FOR SCIENTISTS

Weighing 50 kg (110 lb), and measuring 85 centimetres high and 130 centimetres from trunk to tail, Lyuba is roughly the same size as a large dog.

Tikhonov said the fact the mammoth was so remarkably well-preserved -- its shaggy coat was gone but otherwise it looked as though it had only recently died -- meant it was a potential treasure trove for scientists.

"Such a unique skin condition protects all the internal organs from modern microbes and micro-organisms ... In terms of its future genetic, molecular and microbiological studies, this is just an unprecedented specimen."

But Tikhonov dismissed suggestions the mammoth could be cloned and used to breed a live mammoth. Cloning can only be done if whole cells are intact, but the freezing conditions will have caused the cells to burst, he Tikhonov.

Tikhonov said the next stop on Lyuba's odyssey would be the Zoological Museum in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.

There, Lyuba will join a male baby mammoth called Dima who was unearthed in Magadan in Russia's Far East in 1977 and until now was Russia's best-known example of the species.

"They will make a nice couple, both roughly aged 40,000 years," Tikhonov said.

From St Petersburg, Lyuba will go to Jikei University in Japan to undergo three-dimensional computer mapping of her body. The mammoth will then return to St Petersburg for an autopsy before being put on display in Salekhard.

Muramasa

07-11-2007, 03:30 PM

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Judge continues to press pants suit

41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A customer who lost a $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaner over a missing pair of pants on Wednesday asked a judge to reconsider the verdict.

Roy L. Pearson, a local administrative law judge, argued that District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff failed to address his legal claims when she ruled that the business owners did not violate the city's consumer protection law by failing to live up to his expectations of a "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store.

"The court effectively substituted a guarantee of satisfaction with 'reasonable' limits and preconditions for the unconditional and unambigious guarantee of satisfaction the defendant-merchant chose to advertise for seven years," Pearson wrote. "That was a fundamental legal error."

The suit originally asked for $67 million.

The motion comes less than a week after the South Korean immigrant owners of Custom Cleaners asked the judge to order Pearson to cover $83,000 in legal fees.

"(The) Plaintiff's motives have been clear — quite simply, to harass Defendants and to attempt to utterly destroy their lives," attorney Christopher Manning wrote.

The case, which drew international attention, began in 2005 when Pearson became an administrative law judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners.

A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later. A week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found, but Pearson denied that they were his and decided to sue.

Pearson's suit was based on a strict interpretation of the city's consumer protection law. It also included damages for inconvenience, mental anguish and attorney's fees for representing himself.

Muramasa

07-11-2007, 03:30 PM

Cash flows free at men's rooms in Japan

Wed Jul 11, 6:52 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Packages containing 10,000 yen (40 pound) bills have been found this week in men's toilets at government offices throughout Japan, baffling officials as to why and who would do them such service.

Most of the bills were accompanied by a hand-written message saying: "Please use them for disciplining," local officials said.

"The first thing that I thought was that someone must have misplaced it so that I have to report it right away," said an official working at the Saitama Prefectural government near Tokyo.

Public broadcaster NHK said cash totalling some 4 million yen had been found in men's rooms at local government offices in 18 prefectures.

The governments have handed the money to the police, but unless someone claims the cash within six months it will be given to those who found it.

Muramasa

07-12-2007, 09:51 AM

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The contraception reception

Wed Jul 11, 9:44 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Condoms of all shapes and sizes were on display at a Beijing fashion show on Wednesday featuring dresses, hats and even lollipops made of the said item.

Models fought through extravagant soap bubble special effects to show off tight-fitting wedding gowns, scaly-looking evening dresses, outrageous bikinis and other garments made entirely of condoms, inflated or otherwise.

The show was held at the Fourth China Reproductive Health New Technologies and Products Expo and organized by China's largest condom manufacturer, Guilin Latex Factory, to promote the use of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

It also marked World Population Day, organized annually by the U.N. Population Fund.

China, with a population now of 1.3 billion, introduced a strict one-child policy in the late 1970s under which many residents are restricted to one child.

"One (child) is not enough -- two are better," said visitor Song Weiliang.

But the main aim of the condom show was to promote AIDS awareness.

China originally stigmatized AIDS as a disease of the decadent, capitalist West -- a problem of gays, sex workers and drug users. Traditionally, none of these officially existed in communist China.

It has belatedly awakened to the problem, and health experts have warned the virus is now moving into the general population. But a lack of sex education and unwillingness to talk about sex still hampers the fight, health experts say.

Muramasa

07-12-2007, 09:52 AM

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Nation bans karaoke bars, Internet cafes?

Wed Jul 11, 9:48 AM ET

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's security agency has ordered the shutdown of karaoke bars and Internet cafes, saying they are a threat to society, a South Korean newspaper reported Wednesday.

Refugees from the reclusive state say such outlets are largely located in the northern region that borders China and are frequented by merchants involved in cross-border business rather than ordinary citizens.

The North's Ministry of People's Security said in a directive that all karaoke bars, video-screening rooms and Internet cafes operating without state authorization must shut immediately, the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper said.

The paper did not say how it obtained a copy of the directive.

"It is so promulgated under the mandate of the Republic in order to crush enemy scheming and to squarely confront those who threaten the maintenance of the socialist system," the daily quoted the ministry directive as saying.

"Most of the people who would go to these places are people who made quite a bit of money, normally not officials or the average person," said Park Sang-hak, an activist for human rights in the North based in South Korea.

Muramasa

07-12-2007, 09:53 AM

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World's tallest man marries, sweeps bride off feet

By Kitty Bu Thu Jul 12, 8:36 AM ET

ERDOS, China (Reuters) - The world's tallest man married a woman two-thirds his size and almost half his age on Thursday in a traditional Mongolian ceremony sponsored by at least 15 companies hoping to cash in on his fame.

Bao Xishun, 56, a 2.36-metre (7-ft, 9-inch) herdsman from China's vast Inner Mongolia region, was carried to his wedding on the back of a mobile yurt pulled by camels at the Genghis Khan holiday resort on the grasslands near Erdos city.

Hundreds of people, some travelling for hours, turned up to see Bao wed saleswoman Xia Shujuan, a mere 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 inches) tall and just 29 years old.

Draped in a shimmering blue silk coat, Bao waved to the crowd before going into an enormous yurt where guests ate lamb and cheese and watched Mongolian song and dance shows.

"If we can have children, we'll have children," Bao told Reuters before the wedding. "If not, then not. If we have a child, I hope he or she can be 1.8-1.9-metres tall. Then he or she can play basketball."

Xia said she was madly in love.

"You need to have feelings for someone to be in love. Even if he is a big shot, you can't love him without feelings," Xia said.

Bao was confirmed as the world's tallest living man by Guinness World Records last year. He overtook the previous holder, Radhouane Charbib of Tunisia, by just 2 mm.

The Guinness World Records says Bao was of normal height until 16 but then put on a spurt that doctors were unable to explain, reaching his full height in seven years.

He put out marriage advertisements around the world, but ended up wedding somebody from his home town, Chifeng.

Bao and his wife were legally married in March, but wanted to also have an authentic Mongolian ceremony.

After a career in the army, where he was recruited for a basketball team, he returned to Inner Mongolia. He now herds livestock and hires himself out for publicity stunts.

In December, Bao saved the lives of two dolphins by reaching deep into their stomachs with his 1.06-metre long arm to pull out pieces of plastic, according to Chinese media.

Because of his fame, Inner Mongolia decided to turn the wedding into a branding event.

"He has a very good image among us in Inner Mongolia," said Bao's agent, Xin Xing. "We plan to use his name as a brand to develop tourism. We want to better help and serve our hometown."

Everything from the liquor drunk at the wedding to the shoes Bao wore were sponsored by a different company.

One firm made a 2.9-metre blanket of camel hair just for the marriage.

Muramasa

07-12-2007, 09:53 AM

Indian kids at graveyard school face nightmares

Thu Jul 12, 7:22 AM ET

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Scores of Indian children attending a school located in a graveyard were having recurring nightmares about ghosts and have appealed to authorities to shift them from the site, officials and residents said.

"I have stopped going to school after many dead people walked out of their graves and came into my dreams, ordering me to reach school on time," said six-year-old Raqib Ansari.

This week, hundreds of children at the school in the eastern state of Bihar, accompanied by their parents, marched to the office of a senior district official, asking for the school to be shifted away from the Muslim graveyard.

About 200 children study in the makeshift school set up several years ago after authorities refused to donate land for a school in Kohari village, 200 km (125 miles) southwest of the state capital, Patna.

Some parents say their children's sleep and health is being affected by dreams of ghosts.

"They used to play and study together and finish their lunch boxes while sitting on top of concrete graves but now the ghosts have come to haunt them at night and they are falling ill," said one father, Riyazuddin Ansari.

"We have no choice as the nearest other school is at least four hours away," he said by phone from Kohari.

There are more than 100 tombs in the graveyard but dozens of fresh graves -- most of them shallow -- have been dug in recent months, further crowding the burial ground.

Authorities in densely populated Bihar said they were trying to provide new land for the school.

"Maybe the dead are not enjoying the noise inside the graveyard any more, but we are looking into the matter," said Ram Yash Singh, a village council official.

Muramasa

07-12-2007, 09:54 AM

Prickly pests pierce security at Israeli a-plant

2 hours, 40 minutes ago

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A new type of intruder has been needling authorities at Israel's top secret nuclear research centre -- one of the four-legged variety.

Israeli Parks Authority spokeswoman Osnat Eitan confirmed a newspaper report that park rangers had been sent to the facility at Dimona, believed by experts to be used to produce atomic weapons, to catch dozens of porcupines that have been chewing through saplings and garden hoses.

Using potatoes and chocolate milk as bait, the prickly animals were being trapped and moved elsewhere, Eitan said.

The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted the site's gardener, David Golan, as saying a porcupine population explosion posed a security threat.

Israel says its conducts nuclear research in Dimona in the Negev desert and refuses to comment on reports that the reactor has produced plutonium for atomic bombs.

Muramasa

07-12-2007, 09:54 AM

Ex-Marine tackles, lectures bank robber

Wed Jul 11, 5:01 PM ET

DECATUR, Ga. - A suspected bank robber was stopped when a former Marine knocked him down and held him until police arrived. Timothy Armstead was at a Washington Mutual Bank on Tuesday to find out how someone had stolen $100 from his account when a man wielding a fire extinguisher came in and demanded $2,000.

The man told bank employees the fire extinguisher was a bomb and they had five minutes to give him $2,000 in $50 bills, DeKalb County police said.

As employees went to the bank vault to comply, the unidentified man began loudly counting down the minutes, attracting the attention of Armstead, police spokesman Michael Payne said.

When the robber tried walking out with the money, Armstead — who was already irritated about the money missing from his account — put his daughter down and knocked the man to the ground.

The man yielded without a fight. And while they waited for police to arrive, Armstead said he lectured the man on his poor decision.

"I just told him it was a very stupid decision and now you get to spend 20 years of your life just for taking some money," Armstead told Atlanta station WSB-TV.

Muramasa

07-12-2007, 09:54 AM

Canadians can now mention bombs, guns at airports

Wed Jul 11, 5:03 PM ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Air travellers in Canada who make comments about bombs and guns will from now on only be arrested if it is clear they are making a serious threat, officials said on Wednesday.

The Canadian Air Transport Safety Authority, trying to clamp down on screeners who alert police every time they hear alarming words, has issued a bulletin urging staff to show more discretion.

A person who announces "You better look through my suitcase carefully, because there's a bomb in there", "I am going to set fire to this airplane with this blowtorch" or "The man in seat 32F has a machine gun" will still be arrested.

But someone who remarks "Your hockey team is going to get bombed (badly beaten) tonight", "Hi Jack!" or "You don't need to frisk me, I'm not carrying a weapon" will first be warned about their behaviour.

Brigitte Caron, a spokeswoman for the authority, compared the new system to handing out yellow warning cards in soccer. A player can receive one yellow card and still stay in the game.

"Sometimes it's just a joke and the person will say 'I'm sorry, I was upset'," she said. In recent years more than 100 passengers have been arrested for making threatening remarks in Canadian airports, she added.

Muramasa

07-12-2007, 09:55 AM

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Mirror, mirror! UAE coach Metsu likes what he sees

By Alastair Himmer Thu Jul 12, 4:47 AM ET

HANOI (Reuters) - Asian Cup glamour coach Bruno Metsu has no problems looking at himself in the mirror -- and he likes what he sees.

The Frenchman, a dead ringer for soft rock crooner Michael Bolton with his wavy hair and suave manner, on Thursday shrugged off suggestions he was under pressure as coach of UAE.

The Emirates take on holders Japan on Friday in a must-win game following their surprise 2-0 defeat by co-hosts Vietnam in their Group B opener.

But Metsu was cool as a cucumber.

"I believe in me. I trust in me," a smiling Metsu told Reuters, as if rattling off an old Bolton classic.

"For me confidence is no problem. I can still look in the mirror and it's not a problem for me!"

The knives were being sharpened for both Metsu and Japan coach Ivica Osim, following his side's 1-1 draw with Qatar in their opening match.

Yet Metsu, who famously guided Senegal to the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup, insisted he was still the man for the UAE job.

"We have five regular players injured," he said. "It's a young team and this tournament is a good first step. Our team has a very good future.

"I'm not worried about the result, more the performance. The press have a job to do. When you win you're a great team and when you lose you're bad."

Metsu added: "If everybody is happy I'm okay. If not I will make my job (elsewhere) and make my bed."

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 12:57 PM

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Judge spares bull that's on Moo Tube

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer Mon Jul 16, 11:03 AM ET

LONDON - A judge on Monday granted a reprieve to Shambo, a sacred bull at a Hindu monastery who had been threatened with slaughter because he is suspected of carrying bovine tuberculosis.

Shambo's plight raised intense arguments about whether public health concerns superseded religious rights. His caretakers at the Skanda Vale monastery in southwestern Wales launched a campaign to save him that included an Internet petition, a blog purportedly giving Shambo's "daily thoughts" and a Webcast called "Moo Tube" that tracked the bull's movements around its hay-filled shrine.

The caretakers argued that the tuberculosis diagnosis was inconclusive, that he could be treated if sick and that killing him would violate their right to worship; Hindus regard cattle as sacred.

Local regulations mandate that cattle supected of carrying tuberculosis be slaughtered. The disease can spread to other cattle and to deer, and in rare cases to humans, dogs and cats, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Judge Gary Hickinbottom at the High Court in Cardiff, Wales, said that there was little doubt Shambo carried the disease but ordered the Welsh government to reconsider its decision in light of whether killing the bull would be proportional to the risk he poses. He said animals have previously been cured of the disease.

Hickinbottom warned that his ruling did not necessarily mean that the bull was out of jeopardy.

"This judgment does not, of course, guarantee that, as the community wishes, Shambo will live until he dies a natural death," Hickinbottom said. "This judgment merely rules that the decisions ... to pursue the slaughter ... were unlawful and will be quashed."

The Hindu Forum of Britain, one of the many groups lobbying to save Shambo, expressed relief at the decision, although the group's spokesman, Sanjay Mistry, acknowledged that Shambo might still be killed.

"I think the judgment is quite strongly in the favor of the temple, and based on that, I think we can be quite confident that at least at this stage that Shambo is safe," he said.

The Welsh government said it would appeal the judgment.

Hindus have long held cows in particularly high regard, and many are adopted by or donated to temples. Shambo is one of a herd of cattle kept on the monastery's 115-acre spread near Carmarthen, in southwestern Wales.

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 12:58 PM

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Remember your home phone number? Forget it!

Fri Jul 13, 11:54 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Can't remember life before mobiles? Chances are you'll also struggle to recall your home phone number and family birthdays.

According to a survey released Friday, the boom in mobiles and portable devices that store reams of personal information has created a generation incapable of memorizing simple things.

A quarter of those polled said they couldn't remember their landline number, while two-thirds couldn't recall the birthdays of more than three friends or family members.

The tech-savvy young fared worse than older people. The under-30s could remember fewer birthdays and numbers than the over-50s, according to the survey.

Two-thirds said they relied on their phone or electronic organizer to remember key dates.

"People have more to remember these days and they are relying on technology more for their memory," said Ian Robertson, professor of psychology at Trinity College, Dublin.

Researchers polled 3,000 people over the last two weeks in the survey for Puzzler Brain Trainer magazine.

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 12:58 PM

Plane returns after drunken brawl on board

Fri Jul 13, 3:40 PM ET

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian plane flying from St Petersburg in Russia to Doloman in Turkey had to turn back midflight after a drunken brawl over a young woman spun out of control, police said in a statement Friday.

Three young Russians boarded the plane drunk Thursday and "continued their party on board."

"One of them took a fancy to a girl but she did not want to socialize with the new admirer," police said.

On rejection, the passenger slapped the woman on her face several times. Another passenger immediately rose to defend her.

"A fight began, the situation started to get out of hand and the crew made the only right decision -- to turn back."

The three drunk men were detained on landing at /a St Petersburg airport. They faced fines of "dozens of thousands of dollars," police said.

The woman received medical treatment at the airport and the plane resumed its flight to Turkey.

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 12:59 PM

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Wigs off as Britain ends courtroom tradition

Fri Jul 13, 11:56 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's lawyers and judges are to break with centuries-old tradition and cease wearing white horse-hair wigs in non-criminal cases, the head of the country's judiciary announced on Thursday.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, said new dress rules would mean the wigs, which British legal professionals have worn since the 17th century, would not be needed in civil or family court cases.

Wing collars and bands -- white cotton strips worn round the neck -- can also be dispensed with in such cases according to the reforms, while judges will need just one gown in future instead of a variety of colorful outfits currently required.

The wigs will still be worn in criminal courts.

"At present High Court judges have no less than five different sets of working dress, depending on the jurisdiction in which they are sitting and the season of the year," Phillips said in a statement.

"After widespread consultation it has been decided to simplify this."

A review carried out in 2003 found that more than two thirds of respondents wanted to eliminate the wigs in civil cases, although most said criminal court judges should still wear them.

Opponents of wigs thought they were anachronistic, as well as uncomfortable and expensive.

A shoulder-length ceremonial wig costs more than 1,500 pounds ($3,000) while the shorter ones worn by lawyers cost about 400 pounds each.

However, the idea of abolishing them has met with disapproval from some lawyers who feel the wigs give them an air of authority as well as anonymity.

"While there will never be unanimity of view about court dress, the desirability of these changes has a broad measure of agreement," Phillips said.

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 01:00 PM

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Master of magic comes up with own Hogwarts

By Rituparna Bhowmik Fri Jul 13, 11:57 AM ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A top Indian magician is set to open a version of Harry Potter's fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, hoping that a master's degree in magic will help keep the ancient art form alive.

P.C. Sorcar Jr., famous for astonishing thousands by making the Taj Mahal "vanish," said he plans to give away the secrets behind his illusions, perfected by his family over eight generations.

"The over 2,000-year-old craft of street magicians was passed on through word of mouth before," Sorcar Jr. said. "It would be a loss for Indian magic if this art was not preserved."

The 61-year-old magician, who is known for mammoth illusions, substituting traditional tricks such as pulling a rabbit out of a hat with producing a horse out of an empty bag, said it was important to nurture this unique tradition.

Magic has entertained Indians through the ages and formed a vibrant part of many social occasions.

However, the advent of television and the Internet has forced magicians to hone their craft to meet the needs of a generation hooked to video games and Western sitcoms.

Veteran magicians say it is still a lucrative career if the government could do its bit by giving some funds and infrastructure to train youngsters.

"DRAMAGIC"

The Masters degree course in "Dramagic" -- as Sorcar Jr. calls it due to the dramatic illusions that will be taught -- will begin next year at the renowned government-run Visva-Bharati University in eastern India.

As part of the syllabus, the illusionist plans to bring in street magicians and performers known as "madaris" to teach students the tricks of their trade.

"For thousands of years foreign tourists spoke of Indian magic in their travelogues," Sorcar Jr. said.

"They said they saw men at street corners make a rope dance to the music of their flute or rise straight up in broad daylight with no apparent support.

In 2000, Sorcar Jr. led thousands of spectators to believe the Taj Mahal had disappeared for nearly 90 seconds. He later explained light rays had been refracted to create the illusion.

His other famous tricks include disappearing after being sealed in a box which was crushed by a road-roller and cycling smoothly through the busy streets of London and San Francisco with his eyes bandaged and plastered.

Sorcar Jr. said he and his daughter Maneka, who is also a magician, had initially planned an illusion to ride a bicycle across the Red Sea, but later abandoned the plan fearing it could hurt religious sentiments.

He now plans to recreate the illusion on Dal Lake, in India's scenic Himalayan state of Kashmir, where a 17-year separatist insurgency has hurt tourism.

"It will be good for Kashmir's tourism," he said.

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 01:00 PM

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Chinese "trucking" live rats to southern restaurants

Mon Jul 16, 3:15 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Live rats are being trucked from central China, suffering a plague of a reported 2 billion rodents displaced by a flooded lake, to the south to end up in restaurant dishes, Chinese media reported.

Rats had been doing a roaring trade thanks to strong supply over the last two weeks, the China News Service quoted vendors as saying.

"Recently there have been a lot of rats... Guangzhou people are rich and like to eat exotic things, so business is very good," it quoted a vendor as saying, referring to the capital of Guangdong province, where people are reputed to eat anything that moves.

Some vendors, who declined to reveal their names, had asked people from a village in Hunan province, near Dongting Lake, to sell them live rats, the Beijing News said on Monday.

"The buyers offered 6 yuan for a kg, but as to where they will sell the rats, they would not say," the newspaper quoted a local resident as saying, adding that villagers had to catch the rats alive.

"If we want to do that, there is no problem. We could catch 150 kg of rats in one night...but we will not do this against our conscience," the villager was quoted as saying.

Some Guangdong restaurants were promoting "rat banquets", charging 136 yuan (8.80 pounds) for one kg of rat meat, the newspaper said.

But the restaurants denied their rats came from Hunan.

Local governments in Hunan have been grappling with the rats, which had already destroyed 1.6 million hectares (6,200 sq miles) of crops and could spread disease, according to media reports.

A lack of snakes, also a popular dish in the south, and owls, a traditional Chinese medicine, was held partly responsible.

Chinese media reported last week that some Internet users from Guangdong had offered rat recipes as a way to deal with the problem.

Scientists have also blamed China's massive Three Gorges Dam project and climate change for the Hunan rodents' flight to dry land.

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 01:02 PM

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"Too sexy for my bus", German woman told

Mon Jul 16, 6:43 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German bus driver threatened to throw a 20-year-old sales clerk off his bus in the southern town of Lindau because he said she was too sexy, a newspaper reported on Monday.

"Suddenly he stopped the bus," the woman named Debora C. told Bild newspaper. "He opened the door and shouted at me 'Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic. If you don't sit somewhere else, I'm going to have to throw you off the bus.'"

The woman, pictured in Bild wearing her snug-fitting summer clothes with the plunging neckline, said she moved to another seat but was humiliated by the bus driver.

A spokesman for the bus company defended the driver.

"The bus driver is allowed to do that and he did the right thing," the spokesman said. "A bus driver cannot be distracted because it's a danger to the safety of all the passengers."

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 01:02 PM

Nazi planes fly over German village for Cruise film

2 hours, 28 minutes ago

BERLIN (Reuters) - Vintage World War Two aircraft bearing swastikas and other Nazi symbols flew low over the German village of Loepten near Berlin on Sunday, but local residents had been warned in advance -- it was for a film.

The planes were being used to film a segment of Hollywood thriller "Valkyrie", starring Tom Cruise. He plays German army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who was executed after a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944.

Pictures taken by locals of the planes flying at low altitude over the village were published in Bild newspaper on Monday. "The residents were warned about possible noise," it quoted Mayor Friedrich Schoenfeld as saying.

It is illegal to display Nazi symbols in public in Germany, although filmmakers and theatrical companies are exempted.

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 01:04 PM

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Starbucks finds imperial palace a forbidding market

Sat Jul 14, 4:24 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A controversial Starbucks coffee shop in the Forbidden City, the former imperial palace at the heart of Beijing, has closed its doors after years of opposition.

A campaign for its closure has been brewing since early this year, when a television anchor complained that the American chain's presence in the symbol of the Chinese nation was trampling on Chinese culture.

The outlet opened in 2000 prompting a media backlash so severe that the museum authorities considered revoking its lease after a couple of months. It has operated without the usual outward corporate Starbucks bunting in recent years.

"Starbucks shouldn't be here. Why bring something so Western to an ancient place like this?" steamed an Australian tourist who gave his name as Justin.

The shop closed on Friday. By Saturday morning, newspapers covered the windows while a crew of workers set up a souvenir shop inside.

Eden Woon, Starbucks vice-president for Greater China, said the museum management had decided to introduce its own branded stores and merchandise after a year-long review.

Starbucks was offered the option to revamp the outlet as a "coffee shop" selling domestic coffee and other beverages alongside its own brew, but decided it wanted to maintain its own brand.

"We have always been in touch and on good terms," Woon said.

"My understanding is the decision was amicable and not aimed at Starbucks."

The company's 3,000 international stores include 239 outlets in mainland China, where many competing coffee chains also sport a round green logo similar to the registered Starbucks logo.

BETTER LATTE THAN NEVER

"It's a shame. I would have enjoyed a coffee if they had it," said Sarah from Texas, touring the palace on a cloudy summer weekend.

The rectangular Forbidden City, formally known as the Palace Museum, covers 74 hectares (183 acres) surrounded by a moat to the north of Tiananmen Square and has a fabled 9,999 rooms. It was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Its outer courtyards are lined with stalls selling trinkets, Olympics souvenirs and drinks, with a makeshift basketball court tucked to one side.

The Starbucks store was located inside the vast complex, where the museum management also operates cafes and eateries selling coffee, tea and beer.

"I don't have a problem with Starbucks, because all the other coffee shops here already make it kind of commercial," said Wu Haiying, who had travelled to Beijing to show the palace to her seven-year-old son.

"Why shouldn't we adopt Western things that are good?"

Muramasa

07-16-2007, 01:04 PM

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Chinese company to sue Google over name

Fri Jul 13, 12:38 PM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese company is suing Google's China subsidiary for copying its name, saying the U.S. search engine's registered Chinese name is too similar to its own and has harmed its operations.

A spokesman for Beijing Guge Science and Technology Ltd. Co. said Google's commercial name had led to the company being constantly disturbed by people calling up its office trying to contact the search engine.

"We just want Google to change their commercial name," Tian Yunshan, a company official, told Reuters on Friday. "We have already passed our demands on to Google ... We will see what happens in court."

The search engine's Chinese name -- a transliteration of the English word "Google" -- was also used in Beijing Guge's commercially registered name, Tian said.

People searching for Google through a local telephone directory assistance service were invariably directed to Beijing Guge, as the search engine was not listed, Tian explained.

The case had been accepted by a court in Beijing's Haidian district, the Beijing News reported. It was not immediately clear if the case could have any chance of success.

Tian declined to comment on Beijing Guge's operations or its products or services, saying it was "not convenient" to disclose such details.

A Google spokesman contacted by telephone declined to confirm the case and said she was unable to provide immediate comment.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:52 PM

130-year-old outhouses yield artifacts

3 minutes ago

VENTURA, Calif. - The spot where a pair of outhouses stood 130 years ago is proving to be a treasure trove for archaeologists who braved the lingering smell in the dirt to uncover some 19th Century artifacts — and a mystery.

The one-time site of privies for men and women has been built upon repeatedly. Recently, crews demolished a former school bus barn on the 3.5-acre downtown site in order to build a condominium complex and a parking garage.

But first, archaeologists were called in. Beginning in late May, they started digging into the ground in a discovery process that could last several more weeks.

They uncovered a pistol, a buoy knife, whisky flasks, a set of false teeth, two dog skulls and a blade from a set of sheep shears.

"It might be an early crime scene," project archaeologist John Foster said. "It looks like the two dogs were decapitated. Then whoever did it dumped the skulls and the blade, thinking the women probably wouldn't be looking too hard into the bottom of the privy."

The work has its drawbacks.

"The further you go down, the stronger the smell," archaeologist Marisa Solorzano said. "But it's not that bad. These privies are archaeological gold mines."

The site was known to be used historically by American Indians, Spanish missionaries, Mexican soldiers and American settlers. Once, there were brothels nearby. The area, the size of two football fields, housed Ventura's first courthouse, jail and hospital during the late 1800s.

Artifacts found at the site along with photographs and other documentation, eventually will go to the Museum of Ventura County.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:53 PM

Misunderstood hand signs trigger brawl

43 minutes ago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A brawl involving five men apparently began over a misunderstanding when a man who is deaf and mute was communicating through sign language and another man took offense, thinking that the hand gestures were disrespectful. Police say what resulted was a brawl in which a gun was fired Sunday outside a pizza store in east Anchorage.

Raymond Keith McWain, 26, had just turned a corner in his car when he noticed a truck with three men alongside his car. The deaf man was communicating with the other two in the truck through sign language, police said.

McWain thought the sign language gestures were some sort of slight or "disrespect" toward him, police said. He made some gestures of his own and honked and cut in front of the truck before pulling into the pizza store. The men in the truck followed.

In the parking lot, McWain and the three men from the truck began pushing and shoving, police said. McWain's cousin, Daniel Harris, 20, who works at the pizza store, came out and began beating the deaf man as the deaf man's companions pummeled McWain.

Multiple shots were fired from at least one gun.

Police are looking into whether Harris pistol-whipped the deaf man. A shot might have gone off then, police spokesman Paul Honeman said.

The men from the truck left the parking lot.

When police arrived they found McWain lying in the parking lot bleeding heavily from his head and upper body, Honeman said. At first police thought he'd been shot, but it turned out his injuries were from being beaten and kicked. McWain was taken to a local hospital where he was listed in fair condition.

The deaf man also went to a hospital later that night for treatment.

Police found Harris crying, crouched near the front counter inside the pizza store, court documents said.

The only man arrested was Harris, who was charged with possession of methamphetamine. When police searched Harris they found several plastic baggies of meth, a glass pipe and $4,691 in his pockets, court documents said.

Harris' bail was set at $15,000. According to a public database, he has no prior convictions in Alaska. The investigation into the fight and gunshots is ongoing.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:54 PM

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False braids cost beauty queen her title

Mon Jul 16, 8:15 AM ET

LA PAZ (Reuters) - The winner of a Bolivian beauty contest for indigenous women was stripped of her title moments after her coronation when judges noticed she was wearing false plaits, organizers said Saturday.

The Miss Cholita Pacena pageant, held in the Andean city of La Paz late Friday, seeks to instill pride in indigenous women who choose to wear the traditional dress of wide skirt, bowler hat and long plaited hair.

But doubts over whether the winner was a genuine Cholita Pacena -- the name for Indian women from La Paz -- led judges to strip her of her victor's sash and call for a rerun, said pageant organizer Walter Gomez from La Paz's city government.

The judges "disqualified the winner because they realized she didn't have plaits, that the plaits she had were false," he told Reuters. "Having short hair means they don't live like Cholitas."

Friday's contest was a far cry from the mainstream beauty contests that are popular in Bolivia, in which the South American nation's indigenous majority are under-represented.

Not a bikini in sight, the toughest test for the 14 contestants was making a speech in the native Aymara language to prove their Cholita credentials.

It is not the first time scandal has hit the pageant. In 2004, the winner caused a stir after her coronation by saying she did not normally wear traditional dress.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:57 PM

Don't trust your man, minister tells women

By Kamil Zaheer Mon Jul 16, 8:17 AM ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian men cannot be trusted in their sexual behavior and are fuelling the country's HIV epidemic, a female government minister said Monday, slamming the country's "hypocrisy" about sex.

Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury said Indian women should protect themselves from HIV/AIDS by keeping condoms as their straying husbands may bring the virus home after visiting other women.

"You cannot trust men or your husbands, with apologies to the men present here," Chowdhury told the inaugural meeting of the National Women Forum of Indian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (INP+), attended by a few men.

"If you believe that men will be careful, then you can forget about protecting yourself."

India has around 2.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS -- the world's third highest caseload after South Africa and Nigeria -- with about 40 percent of those infected being women.

Activists and officials say many women have been infected after their husbands visited prostitutes. Most wives have little power to negotiate safe sex with their husbands in a largely patriarchal and conservative society, they add.

Chowdhury, one of India's most outspoken ministers, said this needed to change.

"We are so embarrassed to ask about condoms. Women need to get condoms to protect themselves, let the men be suspicious," she said.

"Men will not buy a condom when they come staggering home while drunk," she added, evoking laughter and giggles.

This month India launched a $2.8 billion plan to fight AIDS over five years, a more than fivefold jump in spending over the preceding plan, with a strong focus on condom promotion.

Under the plan, India aims to push usage from 2.1 billion condoms this year to 3.5 billion by 2012.

"We are hypocrites. We have a 1 billion population and don't want to talk about sex," Chowdhury told reporters, referring to the refusal of some state governments to implement sex education ostensibly for going against Indian culture.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:57 PM

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Claws out in Florida Keys over Hemingway cats

By Laura L. Myers Tue Jul 17, 10:16 AM ET

KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - A game of cat and mouse is under way between the U.S. government and Florida's Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum over the fate of dozens of felines roaming the former home of the Nobel Prize-winning author.

The claws are out over whether the 47 cats that live on the grounds where Hemingway wrote "To Have and Have Not" should be caged or even allowed to remain on the lush subtropical property, one of the Florida Keys' major tourist attractions.

Around half are six-toed, or polydactyl.

U.S. Animal and Plant Inspection Service officials argue that the house, listed as a National Historic Landmark since 1968, requires a federal Animal Welfare License, like a circus or zoo, in order to keep housing the cats.

The city of Key West and Monroe County, which includes Key West and the other islands in the Keys chain off Florida's southeastern tip, are fighting back against federal intervention.

"I think it's kind of sad that a government agency would be spending taxpayers' money on this," said Linda Mendez, the home's event director and author of the "Hemingway Museum Cats" souvenir book. "We're against caging them because they're not used to it."

The museum opened in 1964 and estimates it has spent nearly $200,000 (97,800 pounds) to comply with federal animal regulations that require proper food storage, veterinary care and containment, such as mesh atop the 6-foot (2-metre) wall around the property.

'WHISPURRER'

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the museum is subject to federal regulations because it promotes the cats online, exhibits them during paid tours, uses them in advertisements and markets them on souvenirs.

It plans to send veterinarian Terry Curtis, an animal behaviorist from the University of Florida -- already dubbed the "cat whispurrer" by locals -- to observe the cats' mental state and physical condition on July 23.

The Hemingway Museum failed three compliance inspections and several cats have been injured or killed since October 2003, the USDA said.

"In 2005 alone, there were 12 occasions when cats left the property; in two of these cases, Hemingway cats were killed by cars," it said.

A federal judge has ordered the two sides to work out their differences.

The spat began when the Florida Keys Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals lodged a complaint in 2003, spurred on by a former Hemingway House volunteer.

According to the tale told to 400 to 600 daily visitors, a ship's captain gave Hemingway his first polydactyl cat, Snowball, and many of the current felines are Snowball's descendants.

The macho writer, an avid fisherman and sportsman, was photographed with cats at his homes in Key West, Cuba and Paris.

But one book claims the cats are descendants of a Key West neighbour's pet crippled by a bullet Hemingway fired to put it out of its misery after it was injured, possibly by a car. The neighbour's cat lost an eye but survived.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:58 PM

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Italy says take off your tie to help the planet

Tue Jul 17, 10:16 AM ET

ROME (Reuters) - Want to help fight global warming? Take off your tie, says the Italian health ministry.

It has urged employers to let their staff dress casually at work in the summer so the air conditioning can be turned down.

"Taking your tie off immediately lowers the body temperature by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius," the ministry said in a statement. "Allowing a more sensible use of air conditioning that yields electricity savings and protects the environment."

It called on all public and private offices to let employees wear no tie during heatwaves like the one that has brought Africa-like temperatures to many parts of Italy this week.

The move echoes a similar initiative from Italy's biggest oil group, ENI, which told its staff earlier this month they need not wear a tie at work.

Tie makers, however, were left hot under the collar.

"Italy confirms that it is a strange country," Flavio Cima said in a letter to financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore under the headline: "I, tie maker, am responsible for global warming".

"We can now happily continue with our lifestyle, using cars, consuming fuel, heating and cooling our homes at leisure. On one condition: we should not wear a tie while we do so," he wrote.

"I should have listened to my friends and become an oil producer instead."

Italy is one of the European Union's worst performers on the pollution front and is among the EU countries expected to exceed their greenhouse gas emission targets.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:58 PM

Court says using the "V" word no crime in Italy

Tue Jul 17, 1:28 PM ET

ROME (Reuters) - Vaffanculo!

Use of the "V-word" -- as common in Italy as the "F-word" is in America and Britain -- is no longer a crime following a ruling handed down on Tuesday by Italy's highest court.

In a decision that had many politer Italians cursing under their breath, the court overturned a 2006 ruling in favour of a deputy mayor whose honour had been deemed offended by a foul-mouthed city councillor.

Article 594 of Italy's penal code includes such offences under a category of honour crimes which carry fines and even jail time in severe cases.

But the high court ruled that the use of Vaffanculo, generally translated as 'f*#% off', was too common in Italy these days to justify penal action.

"Its unfortunately frequent use, sadly widespread ... has changed its impact," the court ruled, while lamenting the "deterioration in language and good manners".

Christian Democrat lawmaker Luca Volonte said the ruling offended him "as an Italian citizen and a parent".

Italy's main consumer rights organisation, apparently worried about the way customers might be treated following the ruling, criticised the high court for backing a cultural slide toward "increasingly vulgar language".

"It leads one to believe that some terms or swear-words might not be insults for the simple reason that they are being used more and more frequently," said Codacons' Carlo Rienzi.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:59 PM

Betel nut-flavoured condoms come out tops in India

Tue Jul 17, 1:57 AM ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian firm has launched a paan-flavoured condom designed to evoke the pungent taste of the betel nut and tobacco concoction chewed and then spat out by millions of South Asians, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Hindustan Latex is targeting the new condom range at prostitutes, who are among the most vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, the Hindustan Times reported.

The company ran taste tests with sex workers, including prototypes with chocolate, banana and strawberry flavours, but the paan flavour came out tops.

"The community loved it as most of the sex workers chew paan," Sanjeev Gaikwad was quoted as saying at the launch in Mumbai. Gaikwad is a director at Family Health International, a public health organisation that helped develop the condom.

Paan is a mildly intoxicating preparation wrapped in a leaf, usually containing tobacco, betel nut and flavourings, and is hugely popular across South Asia. It is chewed to a mouth-staining red pulp before being spat out.

The condoms will at first be made available only to prostitutes, but will we launched to the general public in a few months, the newspaper said.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:59 PM

Unknown spray damages over 300 show cars

2 hours, 16 minutes ago

TULSA, Okla. - Organizers of an annual car show are trying to determine the source of a brown or red spray that damaged almost all of the 329 cars being displayed at the event.

The damage occurred Saturday on the final day of the 35th annual Pontiac Oakland Convention show, which traditionally ends with an outdoor display of the cars — many worth more than $100,000 — on a closed downtown street.

"I'd hate to think of the price at this point," said Larry Crider, the president of the Indian National Pontiac Club, which sponsored the car show. "We need to figure out who sprayed it and why and go from there."

Two possible sources could have been construction at the BOK Center, a few blocks west of where the outdoor display was held, or work on the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where exterior walls were being painted red, but no cause has been definitively determined.

A spokesman for Green Country Interiors, which is in charge of the renovations at the hotel, said a subcontractor handled the outdoor painting work. The company wants to withhold a statement until a report on the chemical that fell on the cars is done.

Because the car show's judging process requires that the cars have at least one window open, most of the cars also suffered interior damage, Crider said.

"You can visually see it," he said. "We can detect every bad place on our cars and our paint and our glass."

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 03:59 PM

Thieves leave $2 in bank vault heist

Tue Jul 17, 11:05 AM ET

VAN BUREN, Ark. - Thieves plucked a two-ton vault from a bank with a fork lift, then ditched it several miles north of the city — with $2 inside, police said.

"We feel like that was a statement to mock us," Van Buren police Detective Keith Lindley said of the meager cash left inside.

Police say thieves knocked a hole through a wall at the First Community Bank on July 1 and grabbed the vault and its $113,000 in cash and travelers checks.

Lindley says the culprits first tried to drill through the safe, then used a cutting torch.

"The heat from the blowtorch would have been enough to burn the money inside," Lindley said. "We're guessing they filled the safe with water first, then dried out the money later."

A passer-by spotted the vault on an asphalt driveway off Old Highway 68 on Saturday, Benton County sheriff's Deputy Doug Gay said.

Investigators suspect the bank heist was carried out by the same people who stole a safe from a restaurant in Fort Smith on May 28. In that case, the thieves cut a hole in the roof to enter.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 04:00 PM

Police excuse angry computer user for outburst

Tue Jul 17, 9:33 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who startled his neighbors when he hurled his computer out of the window in the middle of the night, was let off for disturbing the peace by police who sympathized with his technical frustrations.

Police in the northern city of Hanover said they would not press charges after responding to calls made by residents in an apartment block who were woken by a loud crash in the early hours of Saturday.

Officers found the street and pavement covered in electronic parts and discovered who the culprit was.

Asked what had driven him to the night-time outburst, the 51-year-old man said he had simply got annoyed with his computer.

"Who hasn't felt like doing that?" said a police spokesman.

While escaping any official sanction the man was made to clear up the debris.

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 04:00 PM

Man calls 911 to save him from police

Mon Jul 16, 6:08 PM ET

LARGO, Fla. - A 38-year-old man was arrested after he called 911 and told a dispatcher he was surrounded by police officers and needed help, authorities said.

Police officers met Dana Farrell Shelton after being called to investigate a disturbance at a bar on Sunday but had found no problems and told him to move along.

Shelton, who officers said appeared intoxicated, then called 911 to report he was "surrounded by Largo police," according to an arrest affidavit.

"Our officers were standing there scratching their heads. He called, standing there in their presence," Largo Sgt. Melanie Holley said. "It's one of our 'truth is stranger than fiction' cases."

Shelton was charged with misdemeanor misuse of 911. The charge carries maximum penalties of one year in jail and $1,000 in fines.

___

Muramasa

07-17-2007, 04:01 PM

Attempted robbery ends in group hug

Fri Jul 13, 4:40 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Police on Capitol Hill are baffled by an attempted robbery that began with a handgun put to the head of a teenager and ended in a group hug.

It started about midnight on June 16 when a group of friends was finishing a dinner of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp on the back patio of a District of Columbia home. That's when a hooded man slid through an open gate and pointed a handgun at the head of a 14-year-old girl.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he said, according to D.C. police and witnesses.

Everyone froze, including the girl's parents. Then one guest spoke.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, told the man. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder had a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupery and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

The girl's father, Michael Rabdau, 51, told the intruder to take the whole glass, and Rowan offered him the whole bottle.

The robber, with his hood down, took another sip and a bite of Camembert cheese. He put the gun in his sweatpants.

The story then turns even more bizarre.

"I think I may have come to the wrong house," he said before apologizing. "Can I get a hug?"

Rowan, who works at her children's school and lives in Falls Church, Va., stood up and wrapped her arms around the armed man. The four other guests followed.

"Can we have a group hug?" the man asked. The five adults complied.

The man walked away a few moments later with the crystal wine glass in hand. Nothing was stolen, and no one was hurt.

Once he was gone, the group walked into the house, locked the door and stared at each other — speechless. Rabdau called 911, and police came to take a report and dust for fingerprints.

Police classified the case as strange but true. Investigators have not located a suspect. The witnesses thought he might have been high on drugs.

"We've had robbers that apologize and stuff but nothing where they sit down and drink wine. It definitely is strange," said Cmdr. Diane Groomes, adding that the hugs were especially unusual. "The only good thing is they would be able to identify him because they hugged him."

___

Muramasa

07-18-2007, 02:15 PM

Teens allegedly taunt hippos and survive

13 minutes ago

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Kansas City Zoo plans to press charges against two teenage boys who allegedly climbed into the hippo exhibit and threw rocks at the two-ton mammals, zoo officials said.

A 14-year-old witness spotted the boys Monday as the hippos were becoming angry and charging. The boys, whose identities were not released, survived the encounter without injuries.

Randy Wisthoff, the zoo director, said the boys, both 14, are from St. Louis and were apparently trying to impress a girl.

The massive hippos, which spend much of their days submerged in water, are often considered one of the most dangerous animals in the world.

Wisthoff said zoo officials did not see what happened. When security guards arrived, the boys were outside the hippo enclosure and tried to run away, but the guards caught them.

Wisthoff said none of the three paid admission to the zoo and had sneaked in.

"We're going to prosecute whenever we can when people do stupid things," Wisthoff said. "Everything here is wild. They're behind fences for a reason. There's a reason you don't let people go in with hippos or elephants or tigers or giraffes."

The Kansas City Zoo has two female adult hippos, which were not harmed. Their enclosure consists of a water tank and a pathway to their holding barn.

Hippos, native to Africa, are the third-largest land animals, after elephants and white rhinos. They can weigh up to 3 1/2 tons and are plant eaters.

John Davis, a national expert on hippos, said it was a crazy stunt, considering the animals' weight and that they can run faster than the average human, at least for short distances.

"If they do feel threatened, their size, intelligence, speed and teeth enable them to enforce their territory," said Davis, who keeps track of the 118 captive hippos in North America as curator of mammals at Riverbanks Zoo in South Carolina.

Muramasa

07-18-2007, 02:17 PM

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Schoolgirl loses "virginity ring" battle

Tue Jul 17, 8:39 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A teen-ager whose teachers had stopped her wearing a "purity ring" at school to symbolize her commitment to virginity lost a High Court fight against the ban Monday.

Lydia Playfoot, 16, says her silver ring is an expression of her faith and had argued in court that it should be exempt from school regulations banning the wearing of jewelry.

"I am very disappointed by the decision this morning by the High Court not to allow me to wear my purity ring to school as an expression of my Christian faith not to have sex outside marriage," Playfoot said in a statement.

"I believe that the judge's decision will mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organizations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practicing their faith."

Playfoot's legal challenge was the latest in a series of disputes in British schools in recent years over the right of pupils to wear religious symbols or clothing, such as crucifixes and veils.

Last year, the Law Lords rejected Shabina Begum's appeal for permission to wear a Muslim gown at her school in Luton. That case echoed a debate in France over the banning of Muslim headscarves in state schools.

Playfoot's parents are key members of the British arm of the American chastity campaign group the Silver Ring Thing, a religious group which urges abstinence among young people.

Those who sign up wear a ring on the third finger of the left hand. It is inscribed with "Thess. 4:3-4," a reference to a Biblical passage from Thessalonians which reads: "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin."

During the case, Playfoot's lawyers argued that the ban by her school in Horsham, West Sussex, breached her human rights to "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" which are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Lawyers for the school denied discrimination and said the purity ring breached its rules on wearing jewelry.

They said allowances were made for Muslim and Sikh pupils only for items integral to their religious beliefs and that, for the same reason, crucifixes were also allowed. But it argued that the purity ring was not an integral part of the Christian faith.

Playfoot said in her statement she would consult her legal team to consider whether to appeal.

Muramasa

07-18-2007, 02:17 PM

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Controversial Nepal "goddess" returns from U.S. tour

By Gopal Sharma Wed Jul 18, 10:34 AM ET

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A Nepali girl worshipped as a "living goddess", but who may be stripped of her religious title after travelling to the United States, returned to Nepal on Wednesday seemingly unaware of the controversy.

Ten-year-old Sajani Shakya was installed at the age of 2 as the Kumari or "goddess" of the ancient town of Bhaktapur, near the capital Kathmandu, where she was revered by Hindus and Buddhists alike in deeply religious Nepal.

But a recent trip to the United States to promote a British-made documentary exploring Nepal's traditions and its modern development upset local religious leaders who said it was against practice to travel without permission.

However an official of a trust that manages the Kumari's temple in Bhaktapur said on Wednesday a final decision had not been reached on whether she would remain a goddess.

Shakya was greeted at Kathmandu airport by dozens of family members, friends and followers who beat drums and blew brass trumpets to welcome her.

She appeared relaxed and unaware of the controversy.

Her parents, who did not travel with her, presented her Buddhist prayer scarves and marigold garlands and said they were unaware of any ban on the child's foreign travel.

"If we knew it we would not have sent her," her mother, Rukmini Shakya, said.

"We have not been told about her removal either. She has to remain Kumari until a new one is found to replace her."

The British makers of the documentary apologised for the controversy that had been caused.

"She is a normal child and a living goddess. She has both lives," film director Ishbel Whitaker said.

Shakya visited the Capitol, met with Nepalis living in the U.S. and toured a school and met American children.

"It was a lovely opportunity for her," said Whitaker. "It was a great experience when American children told Sajani about their lives and she told them about her life."

During the 39-day trip, Shakya had to maintain what Whitaker said was "food purity" -- a diet of boiled rice, lentils, goat meat and pumpkins.

The Kumari of Bhaktapur is one of several such goddesses in the temple-studded Kathmandu valley, home to 1.5 million people.

Living goddesses are chosen from the Buddhist Shakya family -- the same caste which Lord Buddha himself came from -- and must adhere to certain standards such as being kept in a dark room without crying or not having any blemishes on their skin.

Once selected, the young girls are required to live in temples, blessing devotees until they reach puberty when they return to normal life and are replaced with a new one.

In return, the goddesses get allowances and a monthly pension after retirement.

But some human rights activists say the tradition constitutes child abuse. The Himalayan nation's Supreme Court last year asked the government if the practice violated human rights. Authorities say cultural experts are studying the issue.

Muramasa

07-18-2007, 02:18 PM

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Harry Potter's Israel launch pits wizard vs rabbis

Wed Jul 18, 1:22 PM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Harry Potter, the world's most famous boy wizard, has fallen foul of Israel's rabbis.

Plans to launch the last instalment in the best-selling children's book series in Israel over the Jewish Sabbath have drawn threats of legal action by a religious government minister.

Israeli stores have pledged to go ahead with the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" at 2 a.m. on Saturday (Midnight British time on Friday), noting that it will be part of a global media event for a book expected to be the fastest-selling in history.

"We will hold the launch as planned because we are contractually bound to do so. The book will go on sale here at the same time as in other places around the world," Alona Zamir, a spokeswoman for the Steimatzky book chain, said on Wednesday.

The Sabbath runs from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, during which pious Jews shun business dealings. While most Israelis are secular, the country's shops generally close over the Sabbath out of convenience, a sense of tradition, or to avoid paying mandatory fines and overtime to staff.

Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai, whose ultra-Orthodox party Shas is an important member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's coalition government, said he would dispatch inspectors to report on stores that take part in the book launch.

"It is forbidden, according to Jewish values and Jewish culture, that a thing like this should take place at 2 a.m. on Saturday. Let them do it on another day," he told Israel Radio.

"We will certainly issue fines and prosecution orders, but I hope it won't come to that," Yishai added.

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is the seventh and last adventure for the boy wizard created by author J.K. Rowling. Many religious Jews have tried to prevent their children from reading the books, citing its "pagan" content.

Muramasa

07-18-2007, 02:19 PM

Lot 403--painting offered for song goes for bomb

By Jeremy Lovell Wed Jul 18, 1:22 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - It entered the auction as an 18th century painting by an unknown artist worth a few hundred pounds, but emerged as a suspected early work by Renaissance master Titian possibly worth several million.

Lot 403 in the sale by small family auctioneer Gilding's of Market Harborough in central England has become the buzz of the art world since it sold for 205,000 pounds ($420,000) amid fierce bidding on July 10.

"I have not seen the painting in the flesh, but I have seen a digital image of it and it looks like an early Titian to me from around 1512 or 1515," said Old Master dealer and art expert Simon Dickinson.

"The way the shirt and the face are painted -- it is just the way he would have painted them," he told Reuters on Wednesday.

The oil-on-canvas picture is a very dark waist-length three-quarter profile picture of a bearded man.

"The value will depend on the condition," Dickinson said. "If it is in good condition it could be worth five million pounds or more. If it is in a poor state it might only be 800,000 to one million.

"I have no idea who has got it. I have called everyone I know and have drawn a blank," he added.

Auctioneer Mark Gilding said the painting, which entered the sale described as "18th Century Continental School, Half-length portrait of Aesthete" priced at 300-500 pounds, had been acquired by someone in the London art trade.

He refused to give any details.

It was offered for sale by a local woman who bought it as part of a house clearance sale in 1974 and had it hanging on her wall for the past 33 years, oblivious of its possible worth.

Asked how she felt about the dramatic turn of events, Gilding replied: "She is very happy with the result."

Dickinson observed that if the picture does indeed turn into a true Titian the woman might be justified in feeling a little put out.

But he added: "This just shows what is possible. I have no doubt there will be other undiscovered master works out there. It is just a matter of striking it lucky."

Muramasa

07-18-2007, 02:19 PM

Fire crew tests skills _ on wrong house

Wed Jul 18, 8:11 AM ET

BRAINTREE, Mass. - It looked like a textbook training exercise, but there was something amiss.

Firefighters drove to a vacant house on Tuesday, cut holes in the roof and walls, and broke windows to test their tools and their proficiency.

The problem? It was the wrong house.

They were supposed to be two blocks away at a house slated for demolition.

The owners of the damaged home now want the town pay for the mistake, but they're trying to keep a sense of humor about it.

"Accidents happen," said Jeffrey Luu, who owns the house with his brother, Clayton. "Luckily, nobody got hurt," added Clayton Luu.

The home had been vacant since an electrical fire last year left a scorch mark up one side. The knee-high grass had not been cut in several weeks. The owners were planning a renovation of the house — just not this much of one.

The fire department is conducting an internal investigation, Deputy Chief John Donahue said in a statement, but officials otherwise remained tightlipped and red-faced about the incident.

Meanwhile, the house where the firefighters were supposed to train was demolished later Tuesday as scheduled.

Muramasa

07-18-2007, 02:20 PM

German zoo faces charges for selling animals as food

2 hours, 54 minutes ago

BERLIN (Reuters) - A mayor in eastern Germany has filed charges against workers at his local zoo for shooting animals and selling them as meat.

A spokeswoman for the mayor's office said deer were among the animals killed and sold by workers at Erfurt Zoo without permission over a number of years.

"The case is now with the state prosecutors," said the spokeswoman, declining to give further details.

The German Animal Protection League demanded a review of controls at the zoo and at all other institutions with animals in the state of Thuringia.

"We are worried this is only the tip of the iceberg," said Wolfgang Apel, president of the League, who also said the case raised serious questions about the zoo's management.

Die Zeit newspaper quoted an anonymous zoo employee as saying the number of animals had been declining and: "It is high time something is done about it."

Erfurt Zoo, home to lions, elephants and giraffes as well as horses, donkeys, sheep and goats, declined to comment.

Animal rights campaigners and federal authorities have previously complained about the zoo's imports of wild elephants from South Africa.

Muramasa

07-18-2007, 02:20 PM

Larvae take up residence on man's head

Tue Jul 17, 11:35 PM ET

CARBONDALE, Colo. - Doctors thought the strange, bleeding bumps on Aaron Dallas' head might be from gnat bites or shingles. Then the bumps started moving.

A doctor found five active bot fly larvae living beneath the skin atop Dallas' head.

"I'd put my hand back there and feel them moving. I thought it was blood coursing through my head," Dallas told the (Glenwood Springs) Post Independent.

"I could hear them. I actually thought I was going crazy."

Dallas said he likely received the larval infestation while on a trip to Belize this summer. Bot fly infections are not uncommon in parts of Central and South America.

Adult bot flies are hairy and look like bees, without bristles. The larvae, which are about one-third the size of a penny, were living in a pit 2- to 3- millimeters wide. They were removed Thursday.

"It was weird and traumatic," said Dallas, of Carbondale. "I would get this pain that would drop me to my knees."

After a specialist told him he might have shingles, Dallas tried different creams and salves. But the pain only got worse.

"When I saw him again, it was pretty obvious something else was going on," said Dr. Kimball Spence, who could see the spots moving on Dallas' head. "There's an open pit. You see a little activity, not necessarily the larvae, but a fluctuation of the fluid in the pit."

Dallas' wife, Midge Dallas, teased him about it.

"I told him, 'I will love you through your maggots,'" she told the newspaper.

But Dallas saw little to laugh about.

"It's much funnier to everyone else," he said. "It makes my stomach turn over. It was cruel."

Muramasa

07-19-2007, 02:56 PM

Woman dodges big surprise in bee-hind

29 minutes ago

BANGOR, Pa. - A woman was dragging a lounge chair into the shade of a tree when a sudden buzzing told her it was already occupied — by thousands of bees. "They were swarming like crazy and I ran into the house," Sheila Sabatine said.

Though the bees hummed busily about, Sabatine was not stung, nor was her husband, Larry Sabatine, who also inspected the football-sized swarm before the two called Bethlehem beekeeper Joe Kuka.

Kuka said swarming bees generally are not aggressive, though he added, "I'm sure if she would have sat down in that chaise lounge she would have got up in a hurry."

Kuka said there were about 10,000 bees in the 3-pound swarm under the chair. He said he was glad the Sabatines did not spray the bees, since colonies are already being diminished by disease. Kuka took the bees home, where he keeps 40 hives.

Sheila Sabatine said she will keep the chair in the yard, but with new vigilance. "I'm going to check it every time I sit down," she said.

Muramasa

07-19-2007, 03:04 PM

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Vermont town bans public nudity after brash displays

By Zach Howard Thu Jul 19, 9:43 AM ET

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont (Reuters) - A Vermont town that is gaining national attention for brash displays of nudity -- from teens in the buff to naked elderly people -- awoke on Wednesday to an emergency ban on nakedness in most public places.

Officials in Brattleboro voted 3 to 2 on Tuesday night for a temporary 30-day ordinance prohibiting people from going about in the nude.

Public nudity made headlines last summer when the weather grew hot and a couple of dozen teens took to holding hula hoop contests, riding bikes and parading past stores wearing only their birthday suits. The disrobing has resumed this summer.

But many locals say it has gone too far. Some cite a case in which a senior citizen from Arizona strolled through the center of town wearing only a waist pack and sandals.

"We've received quite a number of complaints on this," Assistant Town Manager Barbara Sondag said. "This was brought up last summer ... and kind of died down. Then a couple of incidents again this summer have got the issue to resurface."

Vermont has a live-and-let-live tradition, allowing skinny-dipping and nude sunbathing. Brattleboro, the first permanent English settlement in the state in 1724, is home to a community of writers, artists and musicians as well as transplanted entrepreneurs from Boston and New York.

Although skinny-dipping and nude sunbathing will stay legal in the state, doing the "full monty" in the middle of this town has now become taboo. A violation can cost $100.

The topic is hotly debated at Harold & Son's Barbershop, where Heather Birmingham, 30, cuts and colors hair.

"(Nudity) does rub some people the wrong way," she said.

"Some people say 'to each his own'. But some of the older people say 'be respectful'."

She disagrees with the ban. "This whole town is about peace and about being your own person. So if it is, then why isn't nudity accepted?"

Caleb Morris, 15, said he wasn't surprised by the town's tough response because outsiders could find the nudity offensive, but he added that Vermont has always been unique.

"It's a lot more free-spirited than some other states. We don't have a lot of laws banning things here."

The ban covers nudity in the main part of town and near schools and churches and is part of a broader anti-nudity proposal that is likely to be decided next month. Breast feeding in public will still be allowed.

Muramasa

07-19-2007, 03:05 PM

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Police red-faced as Porsche stolen-twice

Wed Jul 18, 10:16 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian police were left red-faced after a man who abandoned the theft of a $280,000 Porsche for lack of fuel attempted the crime a second time and drove the sportscar out of a police station, local media said.

The suspect had first attempted the theft on Monday at a luxury car showroom in northern Penang state, local papers said. Dressed smartly in a suit and tie, he asked for the car keys and promptly sped off, smashing through the glass windows.

The car was later found abandoned a short distance away, its fuel tank empty.

The New Straits Times said the man kept the keys and returned with a canister of petrol to a local police station where the car had been towed. He drove off with the Porsche, ditching it later after he discovered roadblocks had been set up to stop him.

Police were hunting for the suspect, the paper said.

Muramasa

07-19-2007, 03:06 PM

TV gangster on anti-smoking lobby's hitlist

Wed Jul 18, 10:18 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese television actor, who forced himself to take up smoking to give his Shanghai gangster a more "convincing personality," has sparked a blaze of criticism for smoking too much on screen, state media said Wednesday.

China is the world's largest cigarette producer and Chinese are the world's most enthusiastic smokers, with a growing market of about 320 million making it a magnet for multinationals and focus of international health concern.

Viewers had complained that though actor Huang Xiaoming looked cool as Big Brother Xu Wenqiang in the new series "The Bund," a cigarette hanging from his lips, he was sending out all the wrong messages, the China Daily said.

"Almost all the scenes show the actors smoking. Xu (the hero) even smokes while fighting and flirting... there is no drama without smoke," Wanglinwang, a viewer, was quoted as saying in his blog.

"...I quit smoking many years ago and the smell of tobacco makes me sick. But I am a fan of the TV series and now I want to smoke again like Xu Wenqiang."

The Think Tank Research Center for Health Development had submitted a formal complaint to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television criticizing the series, the China Daily said.

China has banned smoking on public transport, but it is still allowed in many public places, such as restaurants, and it is not uncommon to see people smoking in hospitals.

The country needs to rein in smoking or the habit could end up killing 2.2 million Chinese a year by 2020, the World Health Organization said in May.

Chinese cigarettes are also among the cheapest in the world and a packet can cost as little as $0.08.

Muramasa

07-19-2007, 03:06 PM

Nigerian pupils browse porn on donated laptops

Thu Jul 19, 1:55 PM ET

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian schoolchildren who received laptops from a U.S. aid organisation have used them to explore pornographic sites on the Internet, the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported on Thursday.

NAN said its reporter had seen pornographic images stored on several of the children's laptops.

"Efforts to promote learning with laptops in a primary school in Abuja have gone awry as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials," NAN said.

A representative of the One Laptop Per Child aid group was quoted as saying that the computers, part of a pilot scheme, would now be fitted with filters.

Muramasa

07-19-2007, 03:07 PM

Reporter held for fake cardboard-in-buns story

Thu Jul 19, 9:42 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing police have detained a television reporter for fabricating an investigative story about steamed buns stuffed with cardboard at a time when China's food safety is under intense international scrutiny.

A report directed by Beijing TV and played on state-run national broadcaster China Central Television last Thursday said an unlicensed snack vendor in eastern Beijing was selling steamed dumplings stuffed with cardboard soaked in caustic soda and seasoned with pork flavoring.

Beijing authorities said investigations had found that an employee surnamed Zi had fabricated the report to garner "higher audience ratings," the China Daily said Thursday.

"Zi had provided all the cardboard and asked the vendor to soak it. It's all cheating," the paper quoted a government notice as saying.

A city-wide inspection of steamed bun vendors in the wake of the report had found no such cases, the paper said.

Beijing TV had apologized for failing to check the report's authenticity and said it would make efforts to improve staff ethics, the paper added.

China is reeling from a series of tainted food and drug scandals that have sparked criticism at home and abroad.

The deaths of patients in Panama from mislabeled drug ingredients from China, deadly toxins in pet food exported to the United States and food laced with hazardous antibiotics and chemicals have raised fears about the safety of China's surging exports.

Wednesday, Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to improve food safety in a meeting with a visiting Japanese House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono, Kyodo news agency reported.

Muramasa

07-23-2007, 10:33 AM

Hurry Potter: speed-reading critics rush reviews

By Mike Collett-White Sat Jul 21, 11:58 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Spare a thought for the reviewers of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

The seventh and final book in the boy wizard series was released at one minute past midnight, British time, on Saturday, and in the age of instant reaction and online blogs, newspapers wanted an opinion in time for editions the same morning.

The British version is 608 pages long, meaning critics were forced to race through the pages to meet their deadlines as newspapers received no advance review copies.

Several relied on versions leaked on the Internet or hard copies appearing mysteriously pre-publication, and even those who made it into Saturday's papers knew they had lost the race.

When the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun ran reviews on Thursday, author J.K. Rowling was furious. Readers of the latter could argue that it heavily hinted at the answer to the most burning question of all -- does Harry die at the end?

Mainstream media broadly avoided spoilers on Saturday, although the Daily Telegraph's online review featured a separate link to a plot synopsis containing many big secrets.

But most critics agreed that the hype surrounding the blockbuster book was justified.

Britain's bestselling daily Sun tabloid employed speed-reading champion Anne Jones to write its review. She took just 47 minutes and one second to read the U.S. version, but still had time to conclude:

"Without being too critical, the plot does seem to be a bit complicated, but I would not change a word. 'Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows' is a real page-turner."

ENDS WITH A BANG

Kate Muir, reviewer for the Times of London, also admitted to speed-reading the book, but was impressed nonetheless.

"This chest-crusher of a book ends the Harry Potter series with a bang," she said. "The plot hatched over 17 years of writing clicks into place, loose ends interlocking, all as complex as a magical lock at Hogwarts Castle."

Muir, like others, peppered her review with references to older literary traditions, including Arthurian and Greek myth, and remarked that evil Voldemort's methods were reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust.

Her main complaint was that some passages were a "bit of a snooze unless you are a Potter-junkie".

Mary Carole McCauley of the Baltimore Sun, one of two reviewers to draw Rowling's ire two days before publication, argued that the plot was probably too complicated, despite praising many other aspects of the book.

"That's 10 distinctly different magical objects, all with their own significance," she wrote. "Trying to keep them all straight is not unlike searching for the golden snitch in a hotly contested game of Quidditch."

The New York Times was glowing in its praise.

"Ms. Rowling has fitted together the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of this long undertaking with Dickensian ingenuity and ardor," it said in its pre-publication review.

Muramasa

07-23-2007, 10:34 AM

College application causes bomb scare

Sat Jul 21, 3:07 PM ET

CHARLESTON, Ill. - Here's a tip for aspiring college students: Make sure your applications don't warrant a visit from the bomb squad.

Emergency crews evacuated an Eastern Illinois University building Friday, after a campus postal carrier discovered a disheveled-looking package heading for the college's admissions office.

"There was no return address, it was poorly written, poorly addressed to the university, there were misspellings," school spokeswoman Vicki Woodard said Saturday. "There was some tape over it. Just the overall appearance was rather strange."

The stuffed-and-stained envelope was strange enough that police alerted the bomb squad.

Explosives investigators X-rayed the package and blocked off a nearby street before they discovered the envelope contained only an application to the 12,500-student school.

Woodard said the application came from somewhere in northern Illinois, but wouldn't comment on whether the bomb scare would affect the prospective student's chances of admission.

"I'm sure it'll be processed like any other application at this point," she said.

Muramasa

07-23-2007, 10:35 AM

Mysterious blonde appears nude in German shop

2 hours, 34 minutes ago

BERLIN (Reuters) - A mysterious blonde paid a visit to a petrol station shop in the small eastern German town of Doemitz on Sunday -- wearing nothing but a pair of golden stilettos and a thin gold bracelet.

The tall, slender woman strolled into the shop in the town of Doemitz on the warm afternoon and bought cigarettes, petrol station employee Ines Swoboda told Reuters on Monday.

"I wasn't surprised because she's come in naked before -- she's a very nice woman," Swoboda said, adding none of the other customers was bothered. The woman could have faced charges of creating a public disturbance if anyone had complained.

A quick-witted customer did, however, snap pictures of the woman believed to be about 30 years old as she walked back to a waiting Ferrari and climbed into the passenger seat. Several of those photos appeared in the German media on Monday.

Muramasa

07-23-2007, 10:35 AM

Do fish suffer from exposure to Uriah Heep?

Fri Jul 20, 11:03 AM ET

HELSINKI (Reuters) - A Finnish researcher is to study fish in an aquarium while a rock group performs nearby, to see if the sound causes any ill-effects or distress.

Bands including aging rockers Uriah Heep will perform on Friday night to about 3,000 fans in a tent just a couple of dozen metres away from the aquarium.

"I will be looking for any abnormal behavior or activity," said researcher Mikko Erkinaro.

The 500,000-liter tank is home to salmon, trout, pike and perch and other species common in Finland's brackish coastal waters.

"It could be quite nasty to arrange such an aquarium and a performance venue (so close)," Erkinaro said, "especially when the (band) is a bit old-fashioned."

Muramasa

07-23-2007, 10:37 AM

Bikini-clad women mow lawns in Memphis

Sun Jul 22, 2:24 PM ET

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - One lawn care company is showing a little skin to boost business.

The women of Tiger Time Lawn Care offer to mow customers' lawns dressed in bikinis — a service that attracts more attention to the ladies than the lawns.

"Oh yeah, they honk and yell. They can do everything you can imagine," said employee Blair Beckman, 21.

Beckman said the extra attention is expected, but she looks on the bright side.

"You get the attention but you also get a tan, which I need," Beckman said.

Owner Lee Cathey said the bikini service makes mowing the lawn a lot more interesting, although the fee is slightly higher.

"The yards definitely get more attention when there's a bikini on the lawn," Cathey said. Some customers sit in lawn chairs and have a beer while watching, he said.

The three-month-old company is looking for a way to expand the service through the end of summer.

"In the fall we'll go pick up leaves in the bikinis if need be," Cathey said.

Cathey said there hasn't been any interest in a male version of the bikini lawn cut.

Muramasa

07-23-2007, 10:38 AM

Family searches feces of cash-eating dog

Thu Jul 19, 10:11 PM ET

MENOMONIE, Wis. - Debbie Hulleman's dog Pepper has been known to gnaw on lipstick, munch on shampoo bottles and chew on toothpaste. But Pepper got Hulleman into a real mess after gobbling nearly $750.

"This is probably the worst," Hulleman said Thursday, recalling how she poked through vomit and dog piles left in the yard to recover the cash.

Hulleman had asked her mother in Oakdale, Minn., to take care of Pepper and Zach, the family's other dog last month while she and husband went on vacation.

Pepper, an 8-year-old black Labrador-German shorthair, got into a purse belonging to her mother's friend and chewed the cash from an envelope.

Hulleman's mother recovered some of the money that Pepper spit out, thinking she had it all. But when Hulleman returned from the trip and went to clean up her dogs' mess outside, she noticed a $50 bill hanging from one pile.

The chore of sorting through dog feces netted about $400, the 50-year-old dog lover said. Between that and other bills that Pepper had either vomited or simply chewed on, the family recovered $647.

"We have a $100 bill that can't be recovered because you need three-fourths of a bill and it is only half of a bill," Hulleman said.

The family swapped the soiled money for fresh currency at a bank.

"It wasn't that bad. I soaked it and strained it and rinsed it. I just kept rinsing it and rinsing it. I had rubber gloves on of course," Hulleman said.

"Everyone said, 'I can't believe you did that.' Well, for $400, yeah, I would do that," she said.

Muramasa

07-23-2007, 10:38 AM

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Burj Dubai becomes tallest building on earth

Sat Jul 21, 11:58 AM ET

DUBAI (Reuters) - Burj Dubai, a tower under construction in the United Arab Emirates' trade hub, became the tallest building in the world on Saturday, measuring 512.1 metres (1,680 ft), its developer said.

"Burj Dubai is now taller than Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which at 508 metres has held the tallest-building-in-the-world title since it opened in 2004," Emaar Properties, which is developing the Dubai tower, said in a statement.

"Burj Dubai has now reached 141 storeys, more storeys than any other building in the world."

The developer wants the tower, set to be completed next year, to be the world's tallest building according to all four criteria listed by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which measures buildings to the structural top, the highest occupied floor, the top of the roof and the tip of the spire or flagpole.

Emaar did not say how tall the finished building will be.

Once completed, Burj Dubai will have consumed 330,000 cubic metres of concrete, 39,000 tonnes of steel and 142,000 square metres of glass, Emaar said. It will have 56 lifts travelling at 1.75 to 10 metres per second.

The tower will be the centrepiece of a $20 billion (9.7 billion pound) development that will include residential, commercial and retail property.

Dubai, the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub, has embarked on a series of mega-projects in recent years, developing three palm-shaped islands off its coast and a cluster of man-made islands shaped like a map of the world.

Muramasa

08-03-2007, 09:25 AM

But Mom! The other 61-year-olds get an allowance!

Thu Aug 2, 10:46 AM ET

ROME (Reuters) - A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son's house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late.

Tired of her son's misbehavior, the retiree in the central Sicilian city of Caltagirone turned to the police to "convince this blockhead" to behave properly, La Sicilia, one of Sicily's leading newspapers, reported on Thursday.

The son responded by saying his mother did not give him a big enough weekly allowance and did not know how to cook.

"My son does not respect me, he doesn't tell me where he's going in the evenings and returns home late," the woman was quoted as saying. "He is never happy with the food I make and always complains. This can't go on."

Police helped the squabbling duo make up and the two returned home together, with the son's house keys and daily allowance restored.

Most Italian men still live at home late into their 30s, enjoying their "mamma's" cooking, washing and ironing.

Muramasa

08-03-2007, 09:25 AM

At least the jail food will be free...

Thu Aug 2, 10:44 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin court has sentenced a man known as "Schnitzel Stephan" to 18 months in jail for cheating 64 restaurants in the past year when he was already on probation for previous unpaid eating binges.

The heavyset man of 160 kg (350 lb), with a thin grey beard, would routinely order lamb chops, steak or Viennese schnitzel along with several beers. When the bill came, he either ran for the door or told the waiter he had no money.

Iris Berger, a spokeswoman for the Berlin Justice Department, said Thursday the 43-year-old unemployed truck driver had been convicted on 64 counts of fraud. The total damage to restaurants was 3,000 euros ($4,100).

Muramasa

08-03-2007, 09:26 AM

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Gallery says Dutch master is fake

Fri Aug 3, 1:21 AM ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A painting long thought to be the work of Dutch master Vincent van Gogh has been proven a fake after a series of tests by art experts in Amsterdam, Australian gallery officials said on Friday.

The painting, titled "Head of a Man", has been in the possession of the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia's second largest city of Melbourne since 1940 and was estimated to have been worth A$25 million (10.5 million pounds) if authentic.

Gallery officials on Friday said while they were disappointed at the finding, experts at the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam found the work was painted during the artist's lifetime, although it had stylistic differences to van Gogh's work.

"The reattribution of paintings is part of the daily life in any major gallery with a large and complex collection," National Gallery of Victoria director Gerard Vaughan said on Friday.

Doubts were raised about the painting's authenticity a year ago when critics viewed it at an exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland, prompting its owners to send the work to the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam for further examination. The painting, portrait of an unknown man, was first brought to Australia by the late newspaper publisher Keith Murdoch in 1939 as part of a travelling exhibition.

Vaughan said the painting was purchased as a van Gogh, and had been accepted as a van Gogh for more than a decade before it was purchased.

Muramasa

08-03-2007, 09:26 AM

Taxi company keeps human heart on ice

Thu Aug 2, 1:46 PM ET

IOWA CITY, Iowa - A taxi cab company had a heart. Yellow Cab of Iowa City had to keep a human heart, en route to a tissue processing company in Atlanta, at its dispatch office after an airline refused to keep it overnight at the Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids.

Officials from Aeropoint Delivery Solutions of Marietta, Ga., told the cab company that ice in the packaging would keep the heart intact, according to Yellow Cab general manager Sean Genell.

"It's always interesting down here," Genell said. "We see a lot of strange stuff, but for us, it was a box, it was a delivery."

Pam Hinman, an airport spokeswoman, said the heart did go out Tuesday morning as scheduled on Comair.

But she said it wasn't initially accepted because the airline "does not have the appropriate facilities to store it" and it also doesn't "want to accept liability for a heart or any other package."

Muramasa

08-03-2007, 09:27 AM

Vegas auto dealer told to furl U.S. flag

Thu Aug 2, 3:48 PM ET

LAS VEGAS - An auto dealer vowed Thursday to fight a city order to take down the 109-foot pole from which he flies an American flag about the size of a competition volleyball court.

The City Council voted Wednesday to order the Towbin Hummer dealership to take down the flag after officials said the pole was too high and neighbors complained the flag flapped too loudly.

"The American flag stays," dealership owner Dan Towbin declared. "I'm not convinced that people are complaining because of noise. This is about vindictiveness and power."

Towbin says the 30-foot-by-60-foot flag fits with his oversized dealership selling oversized cars, but rejects opponents' claims that it's an advertising tool.

"All I can tell you is we never sold a vehicle based on a flag," he said.

The council action followed a similar decision in May. Towbin sued the city, and a state judge last month sent the issue back to the council, ruling that he should have been allowed to have an attorney represent him before the body.

Towbin's lawyer, David Chesnoff, said Thursday that case remains pending.

"We're going to do whatever we can to keep the American flag flying," he said.

City regulations limit poles to 40 feet, but the council grants case-by-case exceptions.

Towbin got permission for a 100-foot pole in 2006, and the city has approved eight other flagpoles of that height or higher. Assistant City Attorney Bill Henry, however, said Towbin acknowledged last year that the council could revisit the decision if it bothered neighbors.

"We think it's arbitrary that they decide who gets it and who doesn't," Towbin said Thursday, adding that noise meters he put at a neighboring house didn't support complaints about loud flapping.

"If I was convinced I was truly disturbing people, I would have taken it down a long time ago," he said.

Muramasa

08-03-2007, 09:27 AM

Nissan gets testy with drunk drivers

By Dan Sloan Fri Aug 3, 3:06 AM ET

OPPAMA, Japan (Reuters) - Beer-breaths beware. A new concept car with breathalyser-like detection systems may provide even greater traction for Japanese efforts to keep impaired drivers off the road.

Nissan's alcohol-detection sensors check odour, sweat and driver awareness, issuing a voice alert from the navigation system and locking up the ignition if necessary.

Odour sensors on the driver and passenger seats read alcohol levels, while a detector in the gear-shift knob measures the perspiration of the driver's palm when starting the car.

Other carmakers with detection systems include Sweden's Volvo , which has developed technology in which drivers blow into a measuring unit in the seat belt before an engine can start.

But Nissan's car includes a mounted camera that monitors alertness by eye scan, ringing bells and issuing a voice message in Japanese or English if a driver should pull over and rest.

The car technology is still in development, but general manager Kazuhiro Doi says the combination of detection systems will ultimately keep an eye on who's behind the wheel.

"We've placed odour detectors and a sweat sensor on the gear shift, but for example if the gear-shift sensor was bypassed by a passenger using it instead of the driver, the facial recognition system would be used," said Doi.

Also keeping a short leash on drivers, car seat belts tighten if drowsiness is detected, while an on-road monitor checks if a car is keeping its lane properly.

Japan's No. 3 carmaker has no specific timetable for marketing, but aims to yoke all technology to cut the number of fatalities involving its vehicles to half 1995 levels by 2015.

Nissan's Doi says they still have to distil exactly what impairment means: "If you drink one beer, it's going to register, so we need to study what's the appropriate level for the system to activate."

EvuseIX

08-03-2007, 10:13 AM

You have too much time on your hands, Jay, :2funny:

Muramasa

08-06-2007, 09:34 AM

Fatter corpses cause hazard for mortuaries

Mon Aug 6, 9:10 AM ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) - More than two-thirds of Australians living outside major cities are overweight or obese, and extremely obese corpses are creating a safety hazard at mortuaries, according to two studies released Sunday.

Nearly three quarters of men and 64 percent of women were overweight in a study of people in rural areas. Just 30 percent of those studied recorded a healthy weight, said research published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

"Urgent action is required at the highest level to change unhealthy lifestyle habits by improving diet, increasing physical activity and making our environments supportive of these objectives," wrote the lead researcher, Professor Edward Janus.

The figures were much higher than for the general population, where statistics show about 3.2 million of Australia's 21 million people are obese.

Meanwhile, pathologists are calling for new "heavy-duty" autopsy facilities to cope with obese corpses that are difficult to move and dangerously heavy for standard-size trolleys and lifting hoists.

The bodies presented "major logistical problems" and "significant occupational health and safety issues," according to a separate study, which found the number of obese and morbidly obese bodies had doubled in the past 20 years.

Specially designed mortuaries would soon be required if the nation failed to curb its fat epidemic, providing "larger storage and dissection rooms, and more robust equipment," said Professor Roger Byard, a pathologist at the University of Adelaide.

"Failure to provide these might compromise the post-mortem evaluation of markedly obese individuals, in addition to potentially jeopardizing the health of mortuary staff."

In the past year, there have also been requests for larger crematorium furnaces, bigger grave plots as well as super-sized ambulances, wheelchairs and hospital beds.

Muramasa

08-06-2007, 09:38 AM

German has pencil in head removed after 55 years

Mon Aug 6, 5:21 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 59-year-old German woman has had most of a pencil removed from inside her head after suffering nearly her whole life with the headaches and nosebleeds it caused, Bild newspaper reported on Monday.

Margret Wegner fell over carrying the pencil in her hand when she was four.

"The pencil went right through my skin -- and disappeared into my head," Wegner told the newspaper.

It narrowly missed vital parts of her brain.

At the time no one dared operate, but now technology has improved sufficiently for doctors to be able to remove it.

The majority of the pencil, some 8 cm (3.1 inches) long, was taken out in an operation at a private Berlin clinic, but the 2 cm tip had grown in so firmly that it was impossible to remove.

Muramasa

08-06-2007, 09:38 AM

Study: mahjong can lead to seizures

Sat Aug 4, 10:55 AM ET

HONG KONG - Playing the popular Chinese tile game mahjong can lead to seizures, Hong Kong researchers say, calling the phenomenon "mahjong epilepsy."

In a study published in the Hong Kong Medical Journal's August edition, researchers from the Queen Mary Hospital reviewed 23 cases of mahjong players in Taiwan and Hong Kong who suffered seizures. They concluded that mahjong-induced epilepsy is a specific condition — not the result of the stress or exhaustion associated with the game.

Most of the 23 patients never suffered seizures other than when playing mahjong and the seizures occurred as early as one hour into their games, the researchers said. One patient stopped having seizures after quitting mahjong but relapsed after taking up the game again, according to the study.

The researchers called mahjong a "cognitively demanding game."

"It involves substantial higher mental processing and outputs: memory, concentration, calculations, reasoning, strategies, sequential thinking and planning," they said.

Muramasa

08-07-2007, 02:12 PM

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No more crispy duck served at toilets

Mon Aug 6, 9:06 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Food stalls attached to Beijing's public toilets will be removed in good time for next year's Olympics, state media said Saturday.

Complaints over toilets with poor sanitation and toilet operators turning them into commercial operations led to the ban, which comes into force in October.

"It is not proper to sell soft drinks or snacks right at the toilets," the Beijing News said, citing sources within the Beijing Municipal Administration Commission.

"The city authorities also plan to publish a toilet guide, provide toilet information over the telephone and the Internet and erect more road signs to help toilet users."

Billboards near toilets will also be banned, Xinhua news agency said.

Notoriously polluted Beijing is cleaning up its act before it hosts the Olympics. It has also announced crackdowns on spitting and smelly taxis.

Muramasa

08-07-2007, 02:13 PM

Chicken and rice ends thief's toilet trauma

Mon Aug 6, 9:07 AM ET

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Dozens of bananas failed to do the trick but an Indian thief has finally produced a gold necklace he had snatched and then swallowed after police fed him a hearty meal of chicken, rice and local bread.

Sheikh Mohsin, 35, grabbed the 45,000-rupee ($1,115) necklace from a woman in the eastern city of Kolkata Friday and popped it into his mouth when cornered by police.

Officers then fed him 40 bananas over a few hours believing they would act as a purgative, and sat back and waited for results.

Mohsin passed an uncomfortable night in jail, but not the piece of jewelry.

Police said Sunday he was then given more substantial fare.

"Now he wants to go free and doesn't want to even hear about bananas any more," senior officer Gyanwant Singh told Reuters.

A tired and rueful Mohsin was, however, staring at 3 years in jail if convicted, Singh added.

"Bananas were good enough for another thief who had swallowed an ornament a few months ago, but Mohsin was definitely a tough cookie," said one clearly impressed police constable.

Muramasa

08-07-2007, 02:14 PM

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Giant Lego man found in Dutch sea

Tue Aug 7, 11:57 AM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso.

"We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy."

A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England."

The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.

Muramasa

08-07-2007, 02:14 PM

Model waits 3 months for phone line

Tue Aug 7, 10:18 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A fashion model who features in a high-profile advertising campaign for Deutsche Telekom has threatened to seek another provider after waiting three months for the company to install a new phone line at her flat.

The 27-year-old model, known as Dora, can be seen smiling brightly in posters across Germany for Telekom's new high speed connection service. But she told Bild newspaper on Tuesday she was fed up with waiting for her Berlin home to be connected.

"I'll give them another week but that's it. After that, I'm going to switch to another provider," the model said.

A Deutsche Telekom spokesman could not be reached for comment. But Bild quoted a Telekom official saying they would be in touch with Dora right away.

Muramasa

08-13-2007, 12:31 PM

Missing nude swimmer found under NY pier

Sun Aug 12, 11:42 PM ET

LONG BEACH, N.Y. - A man who decided to go for a late night swim in the buff was found hours later by rescue crews, hiding under a pier not far from where he jumped in the water, authorities said Sunday.

Neal Mello, 37, of Brooklyn, was found around 5:30 a.m., and appeared to be in good physical condition but was "without the benefit of a swimsuit," the Coast Guard said in a release.

"Mr. Mello's modesty may have been harmed, but he could have done himself worse by not swallowing his pride and showing himself to rescuers when he did," Lt. Douglas Miller said.

Mello had stripped off his clothes and went in the water around 9:20 p.m. Saturday, the U.S. Coast Guard said. When he was still gone at 10 p.m., a friend called for help, and rescuers were dispatched.

The search extended about 5 miles offshore and involved boats and a helicopter.

Mello's clothes, wallet and cell phone were found on the shore near where he entered the water in Long Beach, a city that boasts an expanse of oceanfront within 30 miles of Manhattan.

Muramasa

08-13-2007, 12:31 PM

Man tries to take crocs, snakes on plane

Sun Aug 12, 6:39 AM ET

CAIRO, Egypt - It was very nearly a real-life version of "Snakes on a Plane." A man was stopped at Cairo's airport just moments before he boarded a Saudi Arabia-bound plane with carry-on bags filled with live snakes, as well as a few baby crocodiles and chameleons.

Security officials became suspicious of the 22-year-old Saudi man's bags when the X-ray machine at the departure gate gave odd readings. Police said they opened the bags and found a large number of reptiles, including at least one cobra, squirming to escape.

The animals were confiscated and turned over to the Cairo Zoo and the man was allowed to board his flight home.

Transporting live reptiles out of the country is illegal in Egypt, but the passenger said he was unaware of the ban and that the snakes, crocodiles and chameleons were needed by a Saudi university for scientific experiments, police said.

In May, another Saudi man was caught at the Cairo airport carrying 700 live snakes in his carry-on luggage. He told authorities that snakes were often kept in Saudi Arabia by storekeepers in glass jars or used as pets.

Muramasa

08-13-2007, 12:44 PM

Montenegro shark scare has no teeth

Fri Aug 10, 12:33 PM ET

PODGORICA (Reuters) - Reports of sharks off the Adriatic beaches of Montenegro have had little effect on bathers and tourists, local authorities said on Friday.

The sighting of a shark 10 days ago in the waters off the port of Bar at first prompted the local lifeguard to order all swimmers and divers out of the water, but they soon went back.

"The appearance of a shark should be accepted as normal. It's as natural as seeing a bear in the woods," said Captain Krsto Rakocevic, head of maritime security.

The scare enlivened the tabloid pages in Montenegro and Serbia but was short-lived. The coast of the newly independent republic continues attract record tourist numbers, many from neighboring Serbia, Montenegro's partner for nearly 90 years until they split last year.

The Bar shark sighting spawned copy-cat discoveries a few days later. Local fishermen said the creature spotted by water-scooter riders off the southern resort of Ulcinj was a harmless thresher shark, native to the waters.

The thresher and the blue shark are common in the Adriatic, prized by game fishermen but rarely spotted inshore. At least one Serbian tabloid last week displayed photographs of a huge Great White shark.

Muramasa

08-13-2007, 12:45 PM

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Police arrest coach of India's marathon boy

Mon Aug 13, 10:43 AM ET

BHUBANESWAR (Reuters) - Indian police arrested a sports coach on Monday on suspicion of torturing a five-year-old boy who became a national celebrity for running the equivalent of nearly two marathons.

Last year, Budhia Singh entered the Limca Book of Records, India's own version of the famous Guinness publication, after running 65 km (40 miles) without rest in seven hours and two minutes under the stewardship of Biranchi Das, his coach.

Rights groups at the time said making money by encouraging a child to run long distances was abuse and exploitation, and harmful to the boy's health.

On Sunday, Singh accused his coach of beating him and withholding food, and said he would give up running.

On Monday, police said they had arrested Das and charged him with criminal intimidation.

Das says Singh's family are making up charges as a result of a few petty rows -- Das said he recently expelled Singh's sister from a judo school he runs because she was misbehaving, and that he refused to build Singh's mother a new house.

But Singh showed reporters on Sunday scars he said were left by the coach's mistreatment.

"He hung me upside down from a ceiling fan," he told reporters, smiling and fidgeting. "He locked me in a room for two days without food."

Das denies the charges and says the scars are old, the result of his tough early childhood in a slum in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar.

Singh is once again living with his mother in the city slum.

Muramasa

08-13-2007, 12:46 PM

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World's oldest person dies in Japan at 114

Mon Aug 13, 10:27 AM ET

FUKUOKA, Japan (Reuters) - Yone Minagawa, recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person at the age of 114, died on Monday evening, Kyodo news agency reported informed sources as saying.

She apparently died of old age, Kyodo said.

It said Minagawa, born on January 4, 1893, from Fukuchi town in Fukuoka prefecture, southwestern Japan, became the world's oldest person on January 28 this year after American woman Emma Faust Tillman died that day at the age of 114.

In May, Fukuchi town asked Guinness World Records through the Internet to award Minagawa a certificate, Kyodo said.

Muramasa

08-13-2007, 12:47 PM

Pa. teacher resigns after porn star date

Sat Aug 11, 10:01 PM ET

MONESSEN, Pa. - A high school art teacher who went on a date with a porn star after winning a satellite radio contest has resigned.

Jaison Biagini traveled to St. Petersburg, Fla., last month after winning the date on the Sirius satellite radio show "Bubba the Love Sponge."

The school board voted Tuesday to accept his resignation.

Biagini, who taught art for 14 years at Monessen High School, said he entered the contest because he wanted to win the free trip and visit the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg. He described the date as being "all fake and staged."

Biagini, who uses a wheelchair, was interviewed on the radio show after returning home, and told the Valley Independent in Monessen that he was ridiculed for his disability.

Muramasa

08-30-2008, 12:28 PM

Why it's so hard to swat a fly

Fri Aug 29, 12:50 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The brains of flies are wired to avoid the swatter, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

At the mere hint of a threat, the insects adjust their preflight stance to flee in the opposite direction, ensuring a clean getaway, they said in a finding that helps explain why flies so easily evade swipes from their human foes.

"These movements are made very rapidly, within about 200 milliseconds, but within that time the animal determines where the threat is coming from and activates an appropriate set of movements to position its legs and wings," Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement.

"This illustrates how rapidly the fly's brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response," said Dickinson, whose research appears in the journal Current Biology.

Dickinson's team studied this process in fruit flies using high-speed digital imaging equipment and a fancy fly swatter.

In response to a threat from the front, the fly moves its middle legs forward, leans back and raises its back legs for a backward takeoff. If the threat is from the side, the fly leans the other way before takeoff.

The findings offer new insight into the fly nervous system, and lends a few clues on how to outsmart a fly.

"It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position," Dickinson said. Instead, aim for the escape route.

Dickinson, a bioengineer, has devoted his life's work to the study of insect flight. He has built a tiny robotic fly called Robofly and a 3-D visual flight simulator called Fly-O-Vision.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, editing by Will Dunham and Xavier Briand)

Muramasa

08-30-2008, 12:29 PM

Disposable diaper breaks fall, saves child's life

By STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 28, 11:09 PM ET

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A disposable diaper has saved the life of an 18-month-old boy, breaking his fall from a third-floor apartment window, officials said Thursday.

Caua Felipe Massaneiro survived a 30-foot (10-meter) fall because his diaper snagged on a security spike embedded in the concrete wall around his apartment building in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife.

The boy dangled from the spike for a moment, then "the diaper opened and the baby fell to the ground, but at a much slower speed," a police officer said. "The diaper obviously lessened the impact of the fall and saved the baby's life."

"It was a miracle," said the officer who declined to be identified because she was not authorized to speak to the press. "He could also have been killed by one of the spikes."

The child was treated for minor fractures at the Hospital Memorial Sao Jose, where spokesman Gilberto Tenorio said he was in stable condition.

Police have opened an investigation to determine how the toddler fell out the window and "if parental negligence was one of the causes," the police officer said.

The Folha de S. Paulo newspaper quoted Caua's father, 23-year-old Alexandre Cesar Massaneiro as saying that his son climbed onto a sofa underneath the window he fell from - "something he had never done before."

"It wasn't the diaper that saved him," Massaneiro told the newspaper. "It was God."

Muramasa

08-30-2008, 12:29 PM

Museum defies pope over crucified frog

By Philip Pullella Thu Aug 28, 12:38 PM ET

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian museum Thursday defied Pope Benedict and refused to remove a modern art sculpture portraying a crucified green frog holding a beer mug and an egg that the Vatican had condemned as blasphemous.

The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano decided by a majority vote that the frog was a work of art and would stay in place for the remainder of an exhibition.

The wooden sculpture by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger depicts a frog about 1 meter 30 cm (4 feet) high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another.

Called "Zuerst die Fuesse," (Feet First), it wears a green loin cloth and is nailed through the hands and the feet in the manner of Jesus Christ. Its green tongue hangs out of its mouth.

Kippenberger's works have been shown at the Tate Modern and the Saatchi Gallery in London and at the Venice Biennale, and retrospectives are planned in Los Angeles and New York.

Museum officials in the northern bi-lingual Alto Adige region near the Austrian border said the artist, who died in 1997, considered it a self-portrait illustrating human angst.

Pope Benedict, who is German himself and was recently on holiday not far from Bolzano, obviously did not agree.

The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope's name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture. Pahl released parts of the letter, which said the work "wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God's love."

Pahl, whose province is heavily Catholic, was so outraged by the sculpture of the pop-eyed amphibian that he went on a hunger strike to demand its removal and had to be taken to hospital during the summer.

"Surely this is not a work of art but a blasphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," Pahl told Reuters by telephone.

"This decision to keep the statue there is is totally unacceptable. It is a grave offence to our Catholic population," he said.

Art experts defended the work.

"Art must always be free and the artist should not have any restrictions on freedom of expression," Claudio Strinati, a superintendent for Rome's state museums, told an Italian newspaper Thursday.

(Editing by Robert Hart)

Muramasa

08-30-2008, 12:29 PM

Rat meat in demand as inflation bites

Wed Aug 27, 3:36 PM ET

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.

With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel ($1.28) from 1,200 riel last year.

Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.

Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch them.

"Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to the markets, but they keep some for their family," Ly Marong, an agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on the border with Vietnam.

"Not only are our poor eating it, but there is also demand from Vietnamese living on the border with us."

He estimated that Cambodia supplied more than a tonne of live rats a day to Vietnam.

Rats are also eaten widely in Thailand, while a state government in eastern India this month encouraged its people to eat rats in an effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.

($1 = 3,900 riel)

(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Alan Raybould and Paul Tait)

Muramasa

08-30-2008, 12:30 PM

India's "Hari Puttar" caught in Harry Potter spell

Wed Aug 27, 9:04 AM ET

MUMBAI, India (Reuters) - Hollywood's Warner Bros., which owns the rights to the Harry Potter movies, is suing an Indian production company whose new film is called "Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors," the studio said on Wednesday.

The studio had started proceedings against the makers of "Hari Puttar" over similarities to the international film and literary phenomenon, said Warner Bros. spokeswoman Deborah Lincoln.

"We confirm that we have recently commenced proceedings against parties involved in the production and distribution of a movie entitled 'Hari Puttar'," Lincoln told Reuters in an e-mail.

"Warner Bros. values and protects intellectual property rights," she said.

The producers of "Hari Puttar" said they had registered the title more than two years ago and the film bore no resemblance to the "Harry Potter" franchise.

"All I can say is that the title is not at all similar to Harry Potter and nor is our story line," said Munish Purii, chief operating officer of the film's producers, Mirchi Movies.

Purii said the Delhi High Court began hearing the case on Monday.

"Hari Puttar", slated to open in cinemas on September 12, is the story of a young boy fighting two criminals who are trying to steal a secret formula devised by the boy's scientist father.

In October last year, an Indian court allowed a community group in the eastern state of West Bengal to create a replica of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, rejecting a petition from author J.K. Rowling for copyright breach.

Rowling, creator of the boy wizard Harry Potter and Warner Bros., which controls the rights to the series in India, had sought 2 million rupees (27,116 pounds) in compensation from the group, which had erected the structure for a Hindu festival.

Warner Bros. is a unit of Time Warner Inc.

(Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar, Editing by Alistair Scrutton)

Muramasa

08-30-2008, 12:31 PM

Remember your loved one - as a diamond

By Sam Cage Fri Aug 29, 12:52 PM ET

CHUR, Switzerland (Reuters) - Diamonds really are forever. Algordanza, a small company based in the mountainous southeast of Switzerland, uses the ashes of dead people to make diamonds as a permanent memento for their nearest and dearest.

And with prices starting at less than 5,000 euros ($7,488), the jewels are not solely the preserve of the jetset.

"Some people find it helpful to go to the cemetery and grieve, and they leave their grief in the cemetery," said Algordanza Chairman Veit Brimer. "There are some people who, for whatever reason, do not want to have this farewell.

"Astonishingly these are mainly Christian people. They say: 'Why should I say goodbye? I'll see my husband in 15 years in heaven anyway,'" Brimer said in his office overlooking the town of Chur and its surrounding steep mountains.

The technology for making artificial diamonds was first pioneered by General Electric in the 1950s, and mirrors nature by subjecting carbon to huge pressure and temperature.

Algordanza -- which means "remembrance" in the local language Romansch, spoken in some parts of the Swiss canton of Grisons -- is one of a handful of companies offering artificial diamonds that have sprung up as the technology has improved.

U.S.-based LifeGem and Britain's Phoenix Diamonds, for example, also offer diamonds made from hair, which contains more carbon than ashes meaning a gem can be created from the hair of a living person, or from someone who has been buried rather than cremated. LifeGem even offers diamonds made from dead pets.

"Some people find it is a great honor and remembrance," said Laura Simanton at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). "The technology is certainly getting better."

MAN-MADE GEMS

Synthetic diamonds have become so common that GIA now grades their quality, so buyers can assess what they are getting compared with a natural diamond.

John Cordova, vice president of California-based engagement ring store Robbins Bros said synthetic diamonds are "in general a little less expensive" than natural ones, but it depends on each individual stone.

GIA engraves the word "synthetic" and its report number on all artificial diamonds it grades.

Algordanza's Brimer first saw a business opportunity in "remembrance" diamonds after meeting a Russian chemist, who explained how gems could be created in a laboratory.

Initially Brimer, who used to work in information technology, and his partner Rinaldo Willy thought their clientele would mainly be young, but they have been surprised that "actually our customers come from all walks of life."

Bobby Thurman -- of Nelson Funeral Service in Arkansas, which offers diamonds to both burial and cremation clients -- decided to have LifeGem make a diamond from combined samples of his own and his family's hair.

"My family will cherish this diamond for generations, and I expect other families will want to do the same," Thurman said.

IN THE PUB FOREVER

Algordanza does 40 percent of its business in Japan, its largest market, where cremation is more common because land is so scarce.

Many clients from Europe travel to Chur to accompany the deceased on their final journey and meet the people who will turn the ashes into a diamond.

Often the gem is mounted in jewelry, which the bereaved then wear to maintain close contact with their loved one. But some customers have different plans.

One widow, Brimer said, carried around her husband's diamond in her handbag. Others have them mounted on the deceased's table in the local pub.

Brimer says remembrance diamonds do not appeal to everyone, and is astonished at Algordanza's success -- it does not give sales figures, but said the first quarter of 2008 -- the latest details publicly available -- was its most successful three-month period yet.

In its first year, 2004, the company sold one diamond. These days it is creating about 60 a month, which Brimer attributes to word-of-mouth recommendations and media coverage, as Algordanza does not advertise.

Each one takes between three weeks and three months to create, said chemist Nesimi Oner in one of Algordanza's laboratories.

Because only 2 percent of a corpse's ashes are carbon, which then has to be purified, the largest size diamond offered by Algordanza is 1 carat, which costs 13,328 euros.

"The chemistry is easy," Oner said. "The interesting thing for me is how you can produce larger diamonds."

(Editing by Sara Ledwith)

Muramasa

08-30-2008, 12:31 PM

Dutch say Pisa no longer Europe's most leaning tower

Thu Aug 28, 9:50 AM ET

BEDUM, Netherlands (Reuters) - The Tower of Pisa is being challenged by a lesser-known 12th-century building in the northern Dutch town of Bedum as Europe's most steeply leaning tower.

Retired geometrician Jacob van Dijk said measurements this week on Bedum's 36-metre church tower of Walfridus revealed it is now leaning more than its Italian rival, which lost part of its tilt following restoration works.

At a height of 55.86 meters, Pisa's tower leans about 4 metres, while Bedum's tower leans 2.61 metres on its height of 35.7 metres. If both towers were the same height, Bedum would have a greater tilt of 6 cm, Van Dijk argues.

"In Italy they're happy with the result, but here in Bedum we are much more happy, because the tower of Pisa is now leaning less than the tower of Bedum," said Van Dijk.

(Reporting by Aaron Gray-Block and Svebor Kranjc, Editing by Dina Kyriakidou)

Muramasa

08-30-2008, 12:32 PM

"Grease to Greece" racers cross Europe on cooking oil

By Daniel Flynn Wed Aug 27, 3:05 PM ET

ATHENS (Reuters) - Fuelled only by used cooking fat, eight teams completed a 2,500-mile car rally from London to Athens on Wednesday in a bid to promote awareness of cheap and environmentally-friendly bio-fuels.

The "Grease to Greece" race, the brainchild of 34-year-old Londoner Andy Pag, took the teams on a 10-day mission across Europe in which they begged oil to fuel their cars from restaurants, motorway cafes and fast-food joints along the way.

"There is no reason why Joe Public cannot do this, save themselves a bit of money and help the environment because they are not using fossil fuels," Pag said.

The race ended on Wednesday with a ceremony at the British Embassy in Athens where Ambassador Simon Gass presented a Golden Lard award to the team which had earned the most "Grease Marks" for collecting fuel.

Unlike expensive conventional rallies such as the Paris-Dakar, Pag paid only 500 British pounds for his second-hand Peugeot 405 and spent nothing on fuel since leaving London -- saving the equivalent of what he paid for the car.

An experienced eco-traveller, Pag drove to the desert town of Timbuktu in Mali last year using a truck powered by waste chocolate. His next scheme is a round-the-world trip next year using aviation fuel made from recycled plastic bags.

Racers received a warm welcome from most restauranteurs.

"Whenever people have had oil they have been really, really willing to give it. It's a waste product for them so we are taking away their rubbish," Pag told Reuters.

The competitors in the race included a policeman, several engineers, farmers, a film editor, and an accountant.

Farmers Coleen and Mario Chadwick drove to Athens in their unconverted Range Rover, using used cooking oil sieved through kitchen equipment. They plan to keep driving on cooking oil from their local primary school once they return to England.

Pag's red Peugeot was converted to run on cooking oil using an kit produced by Britain's Regenatec.

"Demand for this technology is rocketing," said Adrian Hensen, whose company sells bio-fuel equipment. "With petrol prices so high, lots of people are looking for ways to reduce their fuel bills and this is a fantastic way to do it."

(Additional reporting by Deborah Kyvrikosaios)

Saint

10-13-2008, 09:21 PM

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) - South Sudan's president shut down a police investigation Wednesday that saw scores of young women arrested for "disturbing the peace" by wearing tight trousers.
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The women were arrested over the past week by police who said they suspected them of belonging to youth gangs known for drinking, fighting and public nudity.

But government officials, including the south's gender minister, said they were angry at the way the women had been targeted and treated after arrest.

President Salva Kiir had ordered a "serious investigation" into the police crackdown, said a government minister.

Kiir also ordered the immediate release of any woman arrested under the operation in the south's capital Juba, and said there were questions over its legality, Southern Minister for Presidential Affairs Luka Biong added in a statement.

Police arrested more than 35 women Sunday night alone, angering bystanders by the way they pushed them into two trucks.

The deputy police commissioner of Juba County, Raiman Lege, said they were disturbing the peace by wearing trousers that were too tight. The group was freed Monday without charge after appearing in court.

Sudan's semi-autonomous south generally has a much more relaxed approach to women's dress than the country's Muslim north, with which it fought a two-decade war that was ended by a 2005 peace deal.