A US entrepreneur has come up with a way to create foam clouds shaped like corporate logos that will float up to 20,000ft into the air.

The 4ft shapes, made from tiny soapy bubbles filled with helium, can travel for 30 miles before evaporating into thin air, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Francisco Guerra, whose company, Snowmasters Inc, makes machines that churn out fake snow for Hollywood films, is the man behind "Flogos".

He has developed a machine which can manipulate the bubbles into any shape and pump them into the sky at a rate of one every 15 seconds.

The concept has already attracted attention from The Walt Disney Co and Mr Guerra has been commissioned to send clouds shaped like Mickey Mouse into the sky above Disney World in Florida.

Mr Guerra said: "Flogos are a revolutionary way to market products, services and events. It's a shock factor when you look up and there's a logo over your head.

"They will fly for miles, they are durable so they last a while. The secret is our formulation and equipment. We're able to keep the cloud together for a long time."

A US violinist who left a four-million dollar Stradivarius violin in the back of a taxi was to give a free concert at one of New York's main airports on Tuesday to thank the cab driver who returned it.
  
Russian-born Philippe Quint left the 1723 "Ex-Keisewetter" violin by the legendary luthier Antonio Stradivari in Newark taxi driver Mohammed Khalil's cab last week after getting off a flight from Houston, Texas, his representative said.

Quint, 34, gave Khalil 100 dollars for the return of the rare instrument -- all he had in his wallet at the time -- but felt obliged to make a further gesture by offering to give a 30-minute concert for Newark's taxi drivers.

The violinist has also invited Khalil and his family to a concert he is giving in New York's Carnegie Hall in September.




Rio firm in trouble for slum tour with a twist

A Rio de Janeiro tour company could be in trouble for giving tourists too intimate a view of life in the city's notorious slums, including photo opportunities with drug gang leaders.
  
The Brazilian city's tourism chief said on Monday that the company, Private Tours, could be stripped of its license after a report in Sunday's Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that it had set up meetings between traffickers and tourists.

The paper sent a reporter disguised as a foreign tourist on the 4-hour, $55 (28 pound) tour of Rocinha, the city's largest slum, that included visits to the "bocas de fumo" where traffickers sell drugs to Rio residents.

It said the traffickers told the tourists stories about their time in prison, described the life of a Rio drug dealer, and would then pose for pictures with their guns -- as long as their faces were not photographed.
Rio tourism chief Rubem Medina said the firm could lose its license if the story was accurate.

"It's not necessary to do this kind of tour in Rio; there are a lot of wonderful attractions," he told Reuters.

Pedro Novak of the Private Tours firm acknowledged that he ran that kind of tour but that "I'm not the only one."

Several companies have for years offered tours of the city's more than 600 slums, offering tourists a controversial alternative to the city's beaches and an insight into the lives of the more than 1 million people who live there.

The slums, or favelas, are largely controlled by heavily armed drug gangs with names such as "Red Command" and "Friends of Friends" that fight each other for control of the lucrative cocaine market.




Drivers fined for slow-drive on scenic bridge

China opened the world's longest cross-sea bridge last week aiming to cut travel time between two major ports, but hundreds of drivers have been fined already for, unexpectedly, driving too slow to enjoy the view.
  
The 36-km (22.4 miles) structure spans Hangzhou Bay in the booming province of Zhejiang, designed to slash travel time between its port city of Ningbo and the financial hub Shanghai from four hours to two and a half.
But since its opening on May 1, police have fined more than 300 drivers, most for driving too slowly or illegal parking on the emergency lanes while enjoying the ocean view and taking photos, local media reported on Monday.

"I just wanted to drive a bit slowly and enjoy the sea breeze. Is that wrong?" Zhejiang's official news portal (www.zjol.com.cn) quoted an unnamed driver as complaining.

Long lines of cars carrying whole families eager to see the bridge and sea vista have caused serious traffic problems and led to a series of accidents, the news portal said.

Some drivers busted for illegal parking even posed in front of police cameras, hoping to turn police snapshots into souvenirs, it said.

"Traffic jams should be impossible under normal circumstances given the capacity of the bridge," the news portal said.

An Indian man is planning to take to the air by hanging from a helicopter suspended by only his ponytail.

Shailendra Roy made the pledge after pulling the famous Darjeeling toy train with his ponytail, reports the BBC.

One end of an iron chain was tied to his foot-long ponytail, and the other to the train engine and three coaches, weighing some 35 tonnes.

He says he keeps the hair strong by rubbing it with mustard oil and pulling cars and other heavy objects.

"I am planning to dangle myself from a helicopter," Mr Roy said after pulling the train for 10 metres.

The Darjeeling toy train line is so called because of the small size of the trains and the narrow gauge. It runs from the plains of West Bengal up the Himalayas to Darjeeling.

"It is a dream come true for me. I had planned to pull the train for at least 300 metres, but railway officials did not allow that," Mr Roy said.

A railway official said they stopped him moving the train further for safety reasons.

A 17-year-old girl gave birth secretly at home, then walked four blocks to a hospital with the baby still attached by its umbilical cord.
  
"I was just a little nervous" when the labor began, Xochitl Parra said Friday from St. Mary Medical Center as she cradled her 8-pound, 3-ounce son, Alejandro.

The boy was normal and "eating like a champ," said Dr. Jose Perez, director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The teenager said she was alone and taking a shower around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday to get ready for school. Then the contractions took over.

"I felt his head coming, so I sit down and pushed so he could come out," she said.

Parra did not call 911 because the home phone was disconnected, and she did not want to wake the neighbors because it was so early. Instead, she wrapped the baby, got dressed and went to the hospital on foot.
"I started walking and jogging to the hospital," she said.

The teen came into the hospital lobby and asked for help, Perez said.

"She still had the placenta and the baby was still attached, so of course everyone said, 'Don't move!'" he said.

Perez praised the girl for taking quick action.

"They could have bled to death; thank God that didn't happen," the doctor said. "She was very clever. She knew what to do. She wrapped the baby up and walked over here."

Parra, a sophomore at Long Beach Poly High, said she had kept her pregnancy a secret because she was afraid her mother would "kick me out of the house." Her mother has now accepted the situation and is going to help the teen care for the baby so she can continue attending school, Parra said.
Perez called the outcome "heartwarming."

"We hear so much negative with teenagers throwing their babies in the Dumpsters," he said. "This baby is fine, and hopefully there will be a happy ending with the extended family."



Man asks court to change his name to 'In God We Trust'

Steve Kreuscher wants a judge to allow him to legally change his name. He wants to be known as "In God We Trust."

Kreuscher (CROY'-shir) says the new name would symbolize the help God gave him through tough times.
The 57-year-old man also told the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald he's worried that atheists may succeed in removing the phrase "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency.

He recalls that the phrase "God Reigns" was removed from the Zion city seal in 1992 after courts deemed it unconstitutional. Zion was founded as a theocracy — by a sect that believed the Earth was flat.

The school bus driver and amateur artist in the northern Chicago suburb says he has filed a petition to change his name in Lake County Circuit Court.



Japan city suspends official for surfing porn at work

A city bureaucrat in western Japan was suspended from his job after officials discovered he visited porn websites at work almost every day, often spending hours gazing at nude photos, a city official said.
  
The 57-year-old man, who was working in the construction division of Kinokawa City in Wakayama, surfed porn sites from an office computer almost every day for eight months from June 2007, spending up to three hours a day on the websites, said Kazuhiko Ueyama, a Kinokawa City official.

Angered citizens called city hall all day on Friday, saying the suspension was not enough, he added.

The city only found out about his activities in February when it noticed that his computer had picked up the same virus repeatedly from the sites, Ueyama said.

"These were foreign 'adult sites' and they got through the security net" that the city had installed for its computers, he said.

"The man apologised each time we spoke to him, but we couldn't quite get him to explain to us why he did this," Ueyama added.

The bureaucrat was suspended from the office for three months and was demoted as of Thursday, Ueyama said.




Driver cleared of Riverdance charge

A motorist has won a four-year battle to clear his name after he was fined £30 for playing Riverdance too loud on his car stereo.

Markus Aitken, 33, of Rochdale, was given a ticket for "causing excessive noise" after pulling over in his Ford Mustang to ask the woman officer for directions.

He refused to pay the fine and and was then faced with a string of written demands and six visits from bailiffs, reports the Daily Telegraph.

By the time his case was eventually heard at Bury Magistrates' Court the debt had increased to £270.
Mr Aitken told District Judge Alan Berg: "It's not that I couldn't afford to pay the fine. It's a matter of principle."

When he began to explain, the judge interrupted, saying: "I'm going to cut you short. In view of what I've heard, I am going to wipe the debt out".

Afterwards Mr Aitken, a recovery driver, recalled: "I was absolutely stunned when the police officer asked me if I thought the music was a bit noisy.

"I told her 'No, not really'. Next thing she asked me to get out of the car and into her police vehicle. Then she promptly activated the door-locking mechanism while she told my details.

"I asked her whether she didn't like Riverdance, and the reaction I got made me think not".

A bride and groom arrested at their wedding reception after the bride trashed a set of conga drums in a spat with the band have pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
  
The bride, 41-year-old Fabiana Reyes, was also accused of breaking a speaker in a dispute over the music at the April 5 reception. She has been sentenced in Village Court to the six days she already spent in jail. She also paid the band $1,500 for the damage.

Her 42-year-old husband, Elmo Fernandez, and their 21-year-old daughter, Helen Fernandez, were accused of interfering with Reyes' arrest. They pleaded guilty Thursday and promised to stay out of trouble for a year. Both were stun-gunned by police during the fracas.

A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world's gay women.

Three islanders from Lesbos — home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women — have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name.

One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

"My sister can't say she is a Lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou. "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos," he said.

The three plaintiffs are seeking to have the group barred from using "lesbian" in its name and filed a lawsuit on April 10. The other two plaintiffs are women.

Also called Mytilene, after its capital, Lesbos is famed as the birthplace of Sappho. The island is a favored holiday destination for gay women, particularly the lyric poet's reputed home town of Eressos.

"This is not an aggressive act against gay women," Lambrou said. "Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want (the group) to remove the word lesbian from their title."

He said the plaintiffs targeted the group because it is the only officially registered gay group in Greece to use the word lesbian in its name. The case will be heard in an Athens court on June 10.

Sappho lived from the late 7th to the early 6th century B.C. and is considered one of the greatest poets of antiquity. Many of her poems, written in the first person and intended to be accompanied by music, contain passionate references to love for other women.

Lambrou said the word lesbian has only been linked with gay women in the past few decades. "But we have been Lesbians for thousands of years," said Lambrou, who publishes a small magazine on ancient Greek religion and technology that frequently criticizes the Christian Church.

Very little is known of Sappho's life. According to some ancient accounts, she was an aristocrat who married a rich merchant and had a daughter with him. One tradition says that she killed herself by jumping off a cliff over an unhappy love affair.

Lambrou says Sappho was not gay. "But even if we assume she was, how can 250,000 people of Lesbian descent — including women — be considered homosexual?"

Minouche Eliasin said that when the man with the 6-month-old baby in the car asked whether he could use her cell phone, she knew something was not right.

It wasn't just that Eliasin works at Showgirls Men's Club in Plant City, where babies are not allowed.

"It was the way he was acting," said Eliasin, 23, who works the door at the club. "He had his keys in his hand, and he seemed like he was intoxicated."

It was just before 8 p.m. Sunday. The man, she said, wanted to use the pay phone outside the club to call someone about dropping off the baby. But the pay phone wasn't working, so he came into the club and asked to use her cell phone.

Eliasin said her suspicion increased when she looked outside and noticed the baby was in the car, a blue Toyota, with the windows up.

"I asked, 'Where's the mom?' " Eliasin recalled during a telephone interview. The man, she said, was evasive.

As he went outside to use the cell phone, she said, she watched him to make sure he did not take off with it.

He came back inside the club, but the baby was still in the car. She told him to get the baby out of the car. It was sweaty and had a wet diaper, she said.

He asked her not to call the cops. She told him to go out to the car, get a change of clothes, a diaper and a bottle. When he returned, he once again asked her not to call authorities.

After about 10 minutes with the man, Eliasin said, she figured there was something very wrong and had her manager call the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. In the meantime, she said, she knew she had to keep him there.

She asked again about the mother. The man ignored her, she said, so she took off the baby's clothes. She asked him again, and he ignored her again, she said. A friend of hers gave the baby the bottle. "He was freaking out," she said. "I said, 'tell me what is going on.'" Finally the man broke down, repeatedly telling her his plan.

He wanted to leave the baby at the strip club, Eliasin said.

"He just kept saying, 'I need someone to watch the baby for a week or two,'" Eliasin said. "'I'll come back. You guys are so nice. Thanks, I appreciate it.' "

The man said he had taken the boy from his grandparents' house and people were looking for the child. He then asked whether he and the baby could stay with Eliasin "for a day or two."

About 10 minutes after her manager called, deputies showed up and arrested the man, 44-year-old Robert Hancock of 6427 Black Dairy Road in Seffner.

He was charged with neglect of a child, a felony, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor.

Hancock smelled of alcohol, his eyes were glassy and he was unsteady on his feet, deputies say. When deputies went out to his car, they found drug paraphernalia in the center console, according to a report. He was hit with an additional charge of possessing drug paraphernalia.

"The defendant showed a wanton disregard for the safety and welfare of this child by driving with the child while under the influence of alcohol and attempting to give his child to a complete stranger," states the report.

Hancock is being held at the Orient Road Jail. Bail was set at $3,000.

"I never saw a baby in here before," Eliasin said. "I am pregnant myself, and I knew something was wrong."



Newlyweds jailed after brawl at Pittsburgh-area hotel
 
A newlywed couple spent the night in separate jail cells — she in her wedding gown — after police said they brawled with each other, then members of another wedding party, at a suburban Pittsburgh hotel.

The fight started Saturday night after a reception when he knocked her to the floor with a karate kick in the seventh-floor hallway of a Holiday Inn — and escalated when she attacked two guests from another wedding party who came to her aid, police said.

The melee moved to an elevator and then to the lobby, where the couple threw metal planters at the two good Samaritans, causing minor injuries, police charged.

"It was pretty wild," Ross police Sgt. Dave Syska said.

Dentist David W. Wielechowski, 32, of Shaler, and Christa Vattimo, 25, had married a month earlier in the Bahamas but repeated their vows Saturday at a reception for 150 guests. They were checking into their room when the argument began, police said.

Police arrived to find the dentist lying on the lobby floor and his bride, seemingly highly intoxicated, screaming.

Authorities charged each with simple assault, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct, and the bride with an additional count of public intoxication. They face a May 7 preliminary hearing.

A district judge considered issuing a restraining order against Wielechowski, but his new bride declined the measure.

The couple declined comment upon their release Sunday morning.
She left with her father, still dressed in her white gown.
Wielechowski left alone, sporting a swollen eye, tuxedo pants, a bloody T-shirt and one shoe.




Iran takes new shot at Barbie, calling US doll 'destructive'
 
A top Iranian judiciary official warned Monday against the "destructive" cultural and social consequences of importing Barbie dolls and other Western toys.

In the latest salvo in a more than decade-old government campaign against Barbie, Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi said in an official letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi that the doll and other Western toys are a "danger" that need to be stopped.

"The irregular importation of such toys, which unfortunately arrive through unofficial sources and smuggling, is destructive culturally and a social danger," said the letter, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press.

Iranian markets have been inundated with smuggled Western toys in recent years partly due to a dramatic rise in purchasing power as a result of increased oil revenues.

While importing the toys is not necessarily illegal, it is discouraged by a government that seeks to protect Iranians from what it calls the negative effects of Western culture.

Najafabadi said the increasing visibility of Western dolls has alarmed authorities and they are considering intervening.

"The displays of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter ... as well as the irregular importation of unsanctioned computer games and movies are all warning bells to the officials in the cultural arena," his letter said.

Najafabadi said Iran is the world's third biggest importer of toys and warned that smuggled imports pose a threat to the "identity" of the new generation.

"Undoubtedly, the personality and identity of the new generation and our children, as a result of unrestricted importation of toys, has been put at risk and caused irreparable damages," he said.

Mattel Inc., the maker of Barbie, had no immediate comment on the Iranian letter.

Barbie is sold wearing swimsuits and miniskirts in a society where women must wear head scarves in public and men and women are not allowed to swim together.

In 1996, the head of a government-backed children's agency called Barbie a "Trojan horse" sneaking in Western influences such as makeup and revealing clothes.

Authorities launched a campaign of confiscating Barbies from toy shops in 2002, denouncing the un-Islamic sensibilities of the iconic American doll. But the campaign was eventually dropped.

A police officer was forced to resign on Wednesday for having sex with a prostitute at a building he had been sent to investigate to see if it was a brothel.

The police sergeant, who was not named, had "engaged in sexual activity with a sex worker" while on duty in east London in December 2005, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said. He was supposed to be finding out if the premises were being used for prostitution.

"The sergeant's behaviour was disgraceful. He has brought shame on himself and his former colleagues," said IPCC Commissioner Deborah Glass.

The sergeant, who had faced four disciplinary charges, was forced to quit after a misconduct hearing.




Pittsburgh subway station tile mural worth $15 million
 
A mural in a subway station is worth $15 million, more than the cash-strapped transit agency expected, raising questions about how it should be cared for once it is removed before the station is demolished.
"We did not expect it to be that much," Port Authority of Allegheny County spokeswoman Judi McNeil said Thursday. "We don't have the wherewithal to be a caretaker of such a valuable piece."

It would cost the agency more than $100,000 a year to insure the 60-foot-by-13-foot tile mural by Romare Bearden, McNeil said. Bearden was paid $90,000 for the mural, titled "Pittsburgh Recollections." It was installed in 1984.

The subway station that is home to the mural is being demolished as part of a $435 million plan to extend the subway. The authority didn't know what it was going to do with the mural but wanted to know its value before taking it down, McNeil said.

The Port Authority is looking for an arts organization to bear the cost of removing, restoring, relocating and maintaining the mural, McNeil said. If that fails, the agency will either look for an arts group willing to exhibit the mural or will auction it off, she said.

The transit agency also owns a work by Sol LeWitt, an American master of conceptual art, at another subway station. LeWitt's "Thirteen Geometric Figures," 203 feet long and 9 feet tall, was paid for by philanthropist Vira I. Heinz.

The Port Authority has not decided whether to have the LeWitt piece appraised, McNeil said.
The county this year implemented a 10 percent alcoholic drink tax and $2-per-day car rental tax to help pay its $30 million subsidy for the Port Authority.




S.F. couple charged in alleged plot to terrorize tenants

A landlord couple accused of cutting the supports under a renter's San Francisco apartment are facing felony charges in an alleged campaign to terrorize tenants into leaving.
  
Prosecutors say 33-year-old software engineer Kip Macy and 32-year-old real estate agent Nicole Macy told workers to cut the beams supporting the tenant's floor after he successfully fought eviction in court.

The couple also allegedly shut off his electricity, cut his phone line and had workers saw a hole in his living room floor from below.

Authorities arrested the pair Tuesday and charged them with felony stalking, burglary and conspiracy and other counts.

Burger King has announced plans to serve up the world’s most expensive cheeseburger – costing a staggering £85.

The pricey treat will be made from finest Japanese Kobe beef and topped with foie gras and a rare blue cheese, The Sun reports.

It will be available in specially selected branches from May, with Kensington and Chelsea tipped to be selling the pricey burger first.

Lucy Barrett, of Marketing Magazine, said: “The idea of a burger that no one buys is not as ludicrous as it seems.

"Burger King will use it to promote a gap in perception between it and McDonald’s. It could lead consumers to reassess the quality of the brand.”

Rival McDonald’s offers a budget cheeseburger for just 99p.



Adolf Hitler doll

A Ukrainian toy manufacturer is reportedly marketing an Adolf Hitler doll.

The 16in figure - complete with moveable arms - will first be available in the capital Kiev and come with a selection of outfits.

There will be "early days Adolf" - brownshirt and jodphurs - and "wartime Adolf" - his grey double breasted tunic, black trousers and simple Iron Cross medal.

The doll will have accessories like a miniature Blondi, Hitler's faithful Alsatian whose loyalty was repaid with a cyanide capsule in the Berlin bunker.

Most Nazi images are illegal in Ukraine, as are any positive depictions of the Nazi regime.
The Zerkalo Tizhden newspaper in Ukraine said a local toy manufacturer was behind the Hitler dolls project .



Horse ditches singer mid-musical

A Hungarian singer ended up in the orchestra pit after the horse he was sitting on bolted mid-performance.

Zoltan Bereczky's mount took off when he broke into song at a musical adaptation of Geza Gardonyi's The Stars of Eger at the national theatre in Szeged, Hungary.

Producers had been worried that the horse, needed for a spectacular scene involving a sword fight on horseback, would be spooked by the fireworks that go off during the scene.

But, after weeks of training and rehearsals, it was Bereczky's voice that upset the animal.

He said: "There was a fighting scene with fireworks and clashing swords and I was on horseback, and the horse was not bothered. But when I started singing - the horse suddenly took off."

Audience members said the horse reared onto its hind legs, starting neighing wildly and then galloped around the stage out of control before jumping off the stage.

Bereczky said: "It jumped straight into the orchestra pit with me on its back."

The orchestra managed to keep on playing and although Bereczky was thrown from the horse as it landed he scrambled back up on stage to carry on singing.

Three years since setting out as a professional tennis player, Robert Dee has finally recorded a victory after 54 consecutive defeats.

His trail of sorrow gave him the dubious honour of holding the worst record in professional tennis, losing each of the 108 sets he had contested since his first tournament in Mexico.

The 21-year-old's patience was rewarded on Saturday, however, when he defeated Arzhang Derakhshani of the United States 6-4 6-3 in qualifying for a Futures tournament in Reus, near Barcelona in Spain.
"I phoned my parents straight away. I told my mum I had lost again," Dee was quoted as saying in the London Evening Standard on Tuesday.

"Then I said 'put dad on' and I told him I had won. For me it was a little bit of a relief. I knew I could do it but there were times when I wondered."

His tennis odyssey has taken Dee around the globe to outposts in Colombia, Sudan, Senegal and Norway, always with the same outcome until this week.

Unfortunately his winning run stopped at one as he was beaten 6-3 6-1 by Artur Romanowski of Poland in the following round but the scent of success has given him fresh heart.

"Now I have my first win I just need to push on and get a second one," he said.

"This is only a small step on a very long journey. I am very determined. I never thought about giving up. I always knew I had more in me and I would always improve."

Dee's 54-match losing streak was the worst since Guatemalan player Diego Beltranena also lost that number between 1997 and 2005, although Beltranena at least managed to win a set.




Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.




Prince William lands copter in girlfriend's garden

Prince William landed a Royal Air Force helicopter in the garden of his girlfriend Kate Middleton's family home but the Defence Ministry defended his actions, saying he achieved essential training objectives.

The News of the World reported on Sunday that 25-year-old William, second in line to the British throne, asked Middleton's parents' permission to land at their home in Berkshire, southern England, because of a shortage of landing slots in the neighboring county Hampshire.

Aviation analyst and RAF-trained pilot Jon Lake told the weekly paper the April 3 flight was "ridiculous and inappropriate," but the ministry said the two-hour training mission was fully authorized as part of William's four-month RAF attachment.

"Battlefield helicopter crews routinely practice landing in fields and confined spaces away from their airfields as a vital part of their training for operations," it said in a statement.

"These highly honed skills are used daily in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan."
The ministry said helicopter bases continually sought permission from landowners to use their fields and there were only two fields permanently available in Hampshire.

"Opportunities to use alternatives are therefore regularly seized. The aircraft landed in the field, after taking all necessary safety precautions, and was on the ground for 20 seconds.

"No one got on or off the aircraft. This was very much a routine training sortie that achieved essential training objectives."

William, the fourth successive generation of the monarchy to become an RAF pilot, received his Royal Air Force wings from his father Prince Charles on April 11 in a ceremony watched by Middleton.

Known as Flying Officer William Wales, he is due to start an attachment to the Royal Navy in June.

William broke up with Middleton, his long-time girlfriend, in April last year but they now appear to be together again, sparking feverish speculation among royal watchers about his marriage plans.




Police arrest 2 in India for allegedly stealing sperm

A laboratory technician who allegedly tried to make a quick buck by stealing samples from the Indian sperm bank where he worked has been arrested after a doctor tipped off police, authorities said Tuesday.

The employee allegedly stole the sperm from a sperm bank in the western city of Aurangabad, and tried to sell 101 vials of it to a doctor in Mumbai for about $625, Aurangabad police chief Krishna Lal Bishnoi said.

The doctor declined and called police, who arrested the lab employee and a relative, Bishnoi told The Associated Press.

"The doctor contacted police because they (doctors) usually refer patients to infertility clinics for treatment. They are never approached with sperm vials on sale," Bishnoi said.

Infertility expert Dr. Aniruddha Malpani described the alleged theft as "bizarre" because vials that are not properly labeled would be "worse than useless."

"Anyone would have a hard time selling sperm vials. They must be stored in a liquid nitrogen container. It doesn't make any sense," Malpani said.

Flight attendants did everything they could to protect a passenger with a severe nut allergy - then served up muesli.

Fellow fliers were warned not to eat any nuts or even open a cereal bar for fear of triggering an anaphylactic reaction, reports Daily Telegraph.

But the crew ruined all their good work when they began handing out puddings topped with muesli. The label said: "May contain nuts."

A tannoy announcement told travellers flying from Geneva to Gatwick: "One passenger has a very severe nut allergy so could no one either eat nuts or even open a packet of nuts while on board."
Marcus Primhak, 34, of Cardiff, said: "We were flying back from a skiing holiday and were really hungry.

"First they asked us not to eat any nuts. Next they asked us can we not open a pack of nuts. We had some cereal bars but put them away.

"But when they served us the meal we had a look at the fruits of the forest yoghurt and saw it had all this muesli on top and the label said it contained nuts. We were too scared to eat it."

Airline Thomsonfly apologised for upsetting passengers and said the yoghurt had been incorrectly labelled. It did contain muesli but there were no nuts.




Priest blesses strip club

A Russian priest was left cursing after he was tricked into giving a sacred blessing to a strip bar.
Father Nickolai blessed the Studio 74 strip club in the city of Chelyabinsk after he was told it was a ballet school.

The Orthodox priest claims he had no idea it was a strip club and that he had been tricked by the owners - who told him it was a hall for training ballet dancers.

Mayor Peter Massa put out a citywide cat call when his Maine Coon disappeared. Massa had an automatic call sent to 8,500 voters on Wednesday asking for help finding Max.

Turns out he didn't have to look that far. Massa's wife, Val, says 14-year-old Max was found inside a wall of their house Thursday morning. He had been missing since Tuesday.

Val Massa says she doesn't know how the 20-pound cat got in the 5-inch hole under the stairs.

Max was dehydrated and hungry, but otherwise fine.

The Massas had also offered a $500 reward.




Oregon cop battles 12-foot python to save pet store owner

A pet store owner is calling a police sergeant a hero for saving her from the coils of a 12-foot Burmese python doing its best to turn her into a meal.

Teresa Rossiter had reached into a cage Thursday to show the huge snake to a customer when it bit her right hand and coiled around her left arm to throw her to the floor.

A friend who happened to be at the store kept the snake off her neck and body while police were called. And when Sgt. Ryan Nelson rushed into the store, he was ready to kill the snake with his knife.

But Rossiter asked him to spare the expensive python, so Nelson put on gloves and pried open the snake's mouth to free Rossiter's hand.

Two responders from the Eugene Fire Department helped unwrap the snake, which was eventually returned to its cage.

Rossiter called Nelson a hero.

"He was the bravest guy ever. He went way above and beyond the call of duty," she told The Oregonian.

Rossiter suffered dozens of puncture wounds, but she, the sergeant and the python were fine.




Boozy Russian man fails to notice knife in back

Russians have long used drink to take the edge off workplace stress: lately one man's senses were so dulled he failed to notice a knife stuck in his back by a colleague, newspapers reported Thursday.

The newspapers Komsomolskaya Pravda and Gazeta both reported the case of a factory electrician in the town of Vologda, north of Moscow, who was stabbed by the building's security guard as they were having a drunken argument.

Passing out at the factory, the man, Yury Lyalin, 53, awoke the next morning and attempted to resume his work duties, but was sent home by his superiors due to his inebriated state. No one noticed the 15-centimetre (six-inch) blade stuck between his shoulders.

Lyalin took a meandering course home -- at first missing his bus stop -- had a bite to eat, decided to lie down for a while and was only alerted to the knife in his spine when his wife woke him hours later, the newspapers reported.

The knife "went into soft tissue and by pure luck did not touch any vital organs," a doctor who treated Lyalin, Victor Belov, was quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying.

Lyalin was philosophical after the event: "We got drunk together. Things happen when you drink," he said.

The workmate faces likely prosecution for assault, Gazeta reported.




Obscenity charges dropped against underwear-less Italian

An Italian man obliged to go commando because of his wide girth was resting easier Saturday after a court dropped obscenity charges resulting from an highly embarrassing moment at the shops.

A flick of the wrist has landed an Austin lawyer in jail for contempt of court. A judge sentenced defense attorney Adam Reposa to 90 days in jail on Tuesday for making a lewd gesture and simulating masturbation while standing before a County Court-at-Law judge in March.

At a contempt hearing Monday, Judge Jan Breland said Reposa, 33, rolled his eyes and looked at her while motioning with his right hand. Reposa said the gesture came from near his hip and was aimed at a prosecutor while discussing plea negotiations in a drunken driving case.

Reposa's attorney asked for a sentence of one day in jail.

Visiting State Judge Paul Davis, however, said it was his "honor to uphold the integrity of the judicial process" and sentenced Reposa to 90 days. The attorney was led from the courtroom in handcuffs.

Davis said he teaches a course on courtroom decorum to new judges and said such cases are very rare. He also noted that Reposa had fluctuated between apologizing for offending Breland and justifying his behavior as a zealous attorney defending a client.

In a closing argument, First Assistant County Attorney Randy Leavitt said Reposa's gesture was just the latest in a string of offensive behavior, which included calling prosecutors vulgar names in court.




Tow truck driver takes car with sleeping 7-year-old inside

A tow truck driver unknowingly hauled away a car with a 7-year-old asleep inside before returning the vehicle minutes later and speeding away, police said.

The panicked parents of the missing boy watched the driver hurriedly unhook their car and take off as they met with authorities late Monday, according to a Dallas police report. A possible kidnapping investigation at the apartment complex had already begun.

Fidel Retana Jr., 23, was pulled over a short time later and arrested on child endangerment charges. But police said Tuesday they expect to drop the charges.
"It appeared that he did not intend to take the child," Dallas police Sgt. Brenda Nichols said.

David Traylor, Retana's attorney, said his client noticed the boy only when he stopped to ensure that the car was hooked up properly. The car had been parked in a fire lane while the boy's mother ran upstairs to her apartment.

Traylor said Retana left the second time in a hurry because he knew the parents were there and were probably angry.

"He tried to do everything he could to get the kid back quickly," Traylor said.
Authorities said the boy's mother was crying and vomiting outside when they arrived. The boy was still asleep when the car was returned.

"I hate the way towing people run the business," said Sergio Zuniga, the boy's father.




Stolen rhino horns could be deadly

Two 19th century rhino horns stolen from a South African museum could be deadly if sold as a popular aphrodisiac because they are drenched in poison, a museum official said on Monday.

The "priceless" horns were snatched from a display at the historic mammal gallery in Cape Town on Saturday evening, said Jatti Bredekamp, chief executive of Iziko Museums.
"Unknowingly, the thieves have exposed themselves to more than the danger of arrest and prosecution," Bredekamp said in a statement.

"Before the mid-twentieth century, taxidermy mounts were prepared by being soaked in arsenic and preserved from insect infestation through regular applications of DDT, both highly toxic poisons that retain their toxicity over time," he said.

Bredekamp said the horns were deliberately targeted in a carefully planned robbery, and might be destined for Asia, where ground rhino horns are a prized aphrodisiac.
"This could have unforeseen consequences," he said.

Rhino populations have fallen dramatically over the last few decades as poaching decimated the animals across Africa.

Bredekamp said museums worldwide were being targeted by organized crime to help supply lucrative markets with a wide range of artifacts. After a previous robbery attempt, South African museum officials removed several other specimens of rhino horn from public display, he said.




World's largest crisp packet collection goes on show

You might think they belong in the rubbish, but the world's largest collection of empty crisp packets went on show in a German museum this week.

The collection of 2,000 crisp packets -- recognised as the largest of its kind by the Guiness Book of Records -- have been put on display at the Hamaland museum in Vreden, northwest Germany
Entitled "Snap! Towards the cultural history of a snack," the exhibit showcases examples from Europe, the United States and Asia.

"Crisps are a snack whose history hasn't really been explored," said museum director Annette Menke said. "Their packaging over the years clearly shows trends in marketing strategy."

Although crisps were first invented in the United States in 1853 -- where they are known as chips -- they only arrived in Germany after World War II with the arrival of US troops.

The collection belongs to local resident Bernd Schikora.




Driver in mobile phone row with wife caught doing 200 kmh

Australian police say they caught a motorist travelling at more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) an hour through a city suburb while arguing with his wife on his mobile phone.

The 33-year-old driver was also driving without a licence and under the influence of alcohol as he sped through the Perth suburb in the early hours of Thursday morning, they said.

"The Holden SS ute (pick-up truck) was travelling at 203 kmh in a 100 kmh zone on Roe Highway," said police spokeswoman Dianne Simpson.

"The driver admitted he had been talking on his mobile phone."

Police told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the driver was still on the phone when he was stopped and appeared to be arguing with his wife.

Oregon man thinks his black Labrador is an impostor

Ken Griggs likes his new dog, but he preferred the old one. Then again, it might be the same dog. In a possible case of mistaken identity, Griggs said the black Labrador named Callie that he left at a Dundee kennel before spring break was not the same dog he picked up a week later.

"It's a sweet dog," Griggs said of the impostor living at his Lake Oswego house. "It's tough because now we've had the dog for 10-plus days, and the kids, especially the younger ones, start to get attached to the dog. I like it, but I want mine."
Allison Best, owner of the Tail Wag-Inn boarding kennel, said Griggs has the right dog. But Callie's vet examined the dog Griggs brought home and found evidence that it's not Callie.

"We know it's not Callie," veterinarian Andrea Frost told The Oregonian newspaper.
Griggs said he immediately noticed differences in the dog he picked up from the kennel. The family cat — normally friends with Callie — hissed at the dog. Callie would heel; this dog did not.

Griggs returned the dog to the kennel and Best examined whether Callie might have gotten mixed-up with any of the other black Labradors staying there that week.
Owners of the seven other black Labs all said they had the right dog.

However, the owner of Dixie, a dog Callie shared a kennel with, said her dog had undergone a "personality change," Best said. But after three or four conversations that day, the owner maintained she had the right dog.

Still, Best arranged for the owners and their dogs to meet March 31 for a possible exchange. The woman called saying she was late, Best said.

Meanwhile, Griggs had arrived with his family. A black Lab got excited when the Griggses approached, the kids declared it was Callie, and into the car the dog went.
It was the same dog the Griggs had just returned.

"It's uncanny how much it looks like my dog," Griggs said. "I'm sure it was happy to see us and recognized us from the day before and mistook us."
But still unsure, Griggs took the dog to his vet.

Callie had once surgery to her left elbow; this dog showed no trauma. Callie also had steel sutures after being spayed; this dog had none that showed up on the X-ray. The dog also seemed to have had a rapid weight loss.

Griggs has hired a lawyer, but Best says the case is closed.

"Mr. Griggs kind of lost his credibility with me the second time he came into the kennel with his family and reclaimed the same dog," she said. "If he can't recognize his dog, I don't feel I can be any help."

Travel writer says he made up parts of books

An author for the Lonely Planet travel guidebook series has claimed that he plagiarized and made up large sections of his books, an Australian newspaper reported on Sunday.

Author Thomas Kohnstamm told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper he had worked on more than a dozen books for Lonely Planet, including their titles on Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, South America, Venezuela and Chile.

The Lonely Planet guidebooks sell more than six million copies a year.

The Sunday Telegraph said Kohnstamm also claims in his new book "Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?" that he accepted free travel, contravening company policy.

He said in one case he had not even visited the country he wrote about.

"They didn't pay me enough to go to Colombia. I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating -- an intern at the Colombian consulate," the newspaper quoted Kohnstamm as saying.

Lonely Planet said it had reviewed Kohnstamm's guidebooks but had not found any inaccuracies in them, the Sunday Telegraph said.

German thief deposits loot with victim

Three days after stealing a rare collection of coins, a thief in Germany took them to the bank for safe keeping -- and delivered them into the hands of the man he had robbed.

"I don't think the thief was expecting that," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Dortmund on Tuesday.

Soon after the thief made the deposit, a bank worker handling the coins recognised them as the set worth some 50,000 euros (41,000 pounds) that had been stolen from his house.

Police tracked down the 36-year-old suspect and arrested him, securing a haul of other stolen goods in the process.

Programmer pops question on girlfriend's video game

Hiding a ring in a bouquet just wasn't enough when a computer programmer decided to pop the question. Bernie Peng reprogrammed Tammy Li's favorite video game, "Bejeweled," so a ring and a marriage proposal would show up on the screen when she reached a certain score.

Li reached the needed score — and said yes.

The word of the romantic feat last December filtered out after Peng, a financial software programmer, posted details on his blog. The reprogramming was a tricky task and took him a month.

"I thought it was pretty cool, in a nerdy way," Peng told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
The couple plan to marry over Labor Day weekend, and PopCap, the Seattle company that makes "Bejeweled," will fly the couple to Seattle as part of their honeymoon.
"Most video game companies would frown on people manipulating their games," said Garth Chouteau, a spokesman for PopCap.

"But it won him a woman. As a bunch of geeks we have to say, 'Bernie, hats off to you.'"

The company is also supplying copies of "Bejeweled" to hand out as favors to the wedding guests. In the hugely popular game, players score points by swapping gems to form vertical and horizontal chains.

A German farmer who married a woman he met on the internet has asked for the marriage to be annulled after finding out 'she' was a he.

Wolfgang Zober, 55, from Naumburg, said: "I don't meet many women as I am often out in the fields working all day, and so a friend suggested I try internet dating.

"I was delighted when I contacted Randy Victoria, 38, and was delighted when I met her and realised she was as lovely as her photographs.

"She even knew loads about farming - I didn't realise that was because she used to be a farmer herself.

"We only had a kiss and cuddle before we married. But on my wedding night she told me she had a penis - and that her real name was Ralf. I was devastated.

"The only true thing she did say was that she had two children, but she was the father - not the mother."




Man loses 17th-century violin on train

A retired shipping consultant said he lost an expensive 17th-century violin after forgetting it on a train. Rob Napier said he did not realize the instrument, made by master Venetian craftsman Matteo Goffriller in 1698, was still on the train's luggage rack until it began pulling out of the station.

"I think you can imagine the awful, kind of pit-in-your-stomach feeling," Napier, 67, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday. "My first instinct was: Can I jump on top of the train? But that was obviously stupid."

Napier said he was on his way home to Bedwyn, some 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of London, on Jan. 29 after retrieving the violin from an expert who had valued it at about 200,000 pounds (US$390,000; euro245,000). Napier called the train company, but by the time the train reached its final destination, the instrument was gone.

Napier said the violin belonged to his mother, who died in 2006. A professional violinist, she bought the Goffriller from a dealer in 1945. She said later she had wanted a fine instrument to match the quality of those played by her colleagues in the well-known Ebsworth String Quartet, an all-female group, Napier said.

A reward of up to 10,000 pounds (about US$20,000 euro12,000) was being offered for the instrument's recovery, he said.

A jail inmate who recently filed more than 60 lawsuits in a day will no longer be able to flood Lancaster County courts with lawsuits. All six Lancaster County District judges signed off on an order limiting Eric Lewis to six filings a year unless he can show he faces immediate harm.

Lewis, 36, has filed 149 cases since January 2007. Many of Lewis' filings ask for protection orders against people who work at the jail or oversee his custody.

The judges said most cases can be denied without hearings, but the filings can create significant work for court clerks.

In their order, the judges said Lewis "has flagrantly and repeatedly abused the judicial process."
There is precedent for such limits on court filings. Previously, three courts restricted the number of filings Billy Roy Tyler could submit while serving a seven- to 10-year prison term on drug charges.

In 1990, the Douglas County District Court said Tyler had filed 99 lawsuits in an eight-year period. The court limited him to filing just one a month unless he proved the likelihood of "immediate, extraordinary and irreparable harm."

In 1998, the Lancaster County District Court limited the number of suits Tyler could file after he initiated 88 actions in one year.

Nebraska's federal judges also limited Tyler in the number of actions he can file after he filed 113 lawsuits in U.S. District Court in 19 months.

Lewis won't be able to file any more lawsuits in Lancaster County this year because he has already exceeded the yearly limit.

Lewis is awaiting trial for second-degree murder.

Authorities say Lewis attacked and killed Dr. Louis Martin last July at a Lincoln psychiatric hospital. Martin was pushed into a wall and then fell to the floor. The 78-year-old died Aug. 2.
Lewis had been placed at the hospital after a Douglas County District judge found him incompetent to stand trial on sexual assault charges.




Romantic proposal leads to gazebo blaze

Lawrence Waterhouse III pulled out all the stops — and all the candles — when he proposed marriage to his girlfriend in the gazebo outside his suburban home.

"He had set it up very, very nicely," Chappaqua Fire Chief Andy Metz said Thursday. "He had candles in the trees, candles and dogwood petals along the path, a chandelier with votive candles."

The girlfriend apparently said yes to the romantic Wednesday night proposal, and the couple left town early Thursday for a trip out west, Metz said. Unfortunately, at least one of the candles apparently stayed lit.

"We got the call about 7:15 this morning, and when I got there five minutes later the gazebo was fully involved in flames," the chief said. "Luckily, nothing else burned."

Metz tracked down Waterhouse at a New York airport and told him about the fire, but advised him to continue with his trip.

"Nobody was hurt, so I told him to go ahead with his vacation," the chief said. "He gave me his brother's number, and the brother told me about the proposal."

The chief said the fire was "a unique event."
"We've had candle fires, of course, but I can't remember one at this level of romance."




"Priest stalker" of TV host O'Brien apologizes

A Boston priest apologized in a New York court on Tuesday for stalking U.S. television host Conan O'Brien and his family and accepted an order to stay away from the comedian's home and office for two years.

The Rev. David Ajemian, 48, a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was arrested in November 2007 during a taping of NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" at New York City's Rockefeller Plaza.
Wearing khakis and a wrinkled overcoat, Ajemian said in court on Tuesday that from September 2006 until his arrest he sent letters, postcards and packages to O'Brien's New York home and to the NBC studio.

In one letter to the comedian, written on parish stationary, Ajemian referred to himself as "your priest stalker" and suggested he could be a guest on O'Brien's show.

"I regret my behavior that caused concern of the people that I was trying to contact," he told reporters.

Ajemian pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct after prosecutors withdrew charges of aggravated harassment and stalking, misdemeanors that are punishable by up to 90 days in jail. The guilty plea allowed him to avoid a trial.

Ajemian would not comment on what had motivated him to contact the comedian.
He has been placed on leave by the Archdiocese of Boston, which was not immediately available for comment.




Free speech center makes annual "muzzle" awards

U.S. free-speech advocates on Tuesday gave their annual "muzzle" awards to violators including police who charged a woman for swearing at her overflowing toilet, and a motor vehicles department that deemed a "GETOSAMA" license plate offensive.

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression said police in Scranton, Pennsylvania had no right to issue a disorderly conduct citation to Dawn Herb, who "let loose a tirade of foul language" directed at her toilet. A neighbor who was an off-duty police officer made a complaint.

The charge was dismissed by a judge who concluded that Herb's words, though "offensive, vulgar and imprudent" to some, were nonetheless protected under the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, the Jefferson center said.

The center also gave an award to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles after it demanded the return of the plates reading "GETOSAMA" that had been issued to a retired police officer who wanted to express his desire to capture Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

The DMV argued they could be considered "lewd, lascivious, derogatory to a particular ethnic group, or patently offensive." It later offered to let him keep them to settle a lawsuit claiming violation of his First Amendment rights.

The center, linked to the University of Virginia, reserved special scorn for the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a press conference at which agency staffers posing as reporters pitched soft questions to officials in an effort to show FEMA had done well in tackling California wildfires.
"FEMA's incredible and unique attempt to substitute false or fabricated speech for free speech surely merits a 2008 Jefferson muzzle," the center said.

And it gave a "Lifetime Muzzle" to the Federal Communications Commission for years of applying what it said were inconsistent or arbitrary standards of indecency on the airwaves.

The center noted that the FCC had ruled in 2001 that "fleeting expletives" would not be deemed indecent but then three years later judged that both the 'f-word' and the 's-word' met its definitions of indecency.




Pair of Japanese mangoes fetches 2,000 dollars: auctioneer

A pair of Japanese mangoes known as "Eggs of the Sun" for their fiery colour and juicy flesh hatched a sweet deal for their owner on Thursday, fetching a record 2,000 dollars at auction.

The mangoes, produced in southern Miyazaki Prefecture, were sold for 200,000 yen in the season's first auction here, an official at fruit wholesaler Tokyo Seika said. The buyer's identity was not disclosed.

The price far surpassed the previous Japanese record of 38,000 yen bid last year for a similar pair.

Products from the Miyazaki region have become popular following frequent appearances on television by comedian turned local governor Hideo Higashikokubaru, who has actively promoted local specialities.

Visitors to Japan are frequently surprised by the high price of fruit, which is often given as a seasonal gift. Last year, a pair of melons fetched a record two million yen (19,800 dollars) at auction.




Naked German seniors star in post-9/11 Verdi opera

The ruins of the World Trade Center and naked senior citizens wearing Mickey Mouse masks will share a stage Saturday, when a German theatre's sell-out reinterpretation of a Verdi opera opens.

The Erfurt Theatre's production of "A Masked Ball" will feature 35 naked seniors wearing masks of the Disney character throughout the performance.

"It's a very beautiful, poetic scene," Guy Montavon, the theatre's general manager, told AFP. Sixty local senior citizens applied for one of the on-stage roles, Montavon said.

The 1859 opera is no stranger to controversy. Giuseppe Verdi wrote it about the 1792 assassination of Swedish king Gustavus III, who was shot while attending a masked ball.

Nineteenth century censors demanded that Verdi move the opera's setting from Europe to colonial America so as not to depict the assassination of a European monarch.

The United States remains the setting for Austrian director Johann Kresnik's re-imagined opera, but this version is set in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"The concept is a little critical about America, the world of America with very rich people, very poor people, with war and the excesses of American society today," Montavon said.

An Erfurt politician has called for a boycott of the production but local theater goers have not heeded his call. Theatre manager Montavon told AFP the Saturday premiere and four other performances had already sold out.




Cops: Mom took newborn on break-in

A 19-year-old Green Township mother is in the Hamilton County jail after Cincinnati police charged her with taking her newborn child along while she broke into a candy store.
Christine Ruther and three others are accused of breaking into Peter Minges & Son candy store, 138 W. Court St., downtown, shortly before 1 a.m. and swiping about $500 in candy, police said.
The group was arrested a few blocks away at Fourth and Race streets when police caught up with them by following a trail of candy and candy wrappers.
 
Police said Ruther had her 7-week-old daughter with her. Ruther told police she and her baby accompanied three people to the break-in and watched. She also told officers they used the baby stroller to transport the candy.

Ruther was charged with child endangering and breaking and entering. Also charged with breaking and entering were Terrance Ware, 18, of Northside; Rebecca Gamble, 18, of Blue Ash; and Dwight Reed, 22, of Walnut Hills.
Leslie Betts, manager of the 103-year-old family candy distributing business, said the quartet stole every kind of candy imaginable: “Reece cups, Skittles, Twizzlers, you name it.”

She said she learned of the break-in when Cincinnati police called her at home about 1:30 a.m.

“You’ve been broken into,” she said they told her. “We’re guarding the Swedish fish. Hurry. Come down. We can’t leave the store. It’s wide open.”

Cincinnati police also called Ruther’s mother, Amy Ruther, and asked her to come pick up the baby at District 1 police headquarters in the West End, Amy Ruther said in a phone interview.

She said she was shocked and upset over her daughter’s arrest – and that she would have the baby, Madison, with her.

“She has some problems and we have been trying to help her for a long time through doctors,” Amy Ruther said of her daughter. “When someone is that age you can’t force them to do anything. People shouldn’t make fun of the situation when they don’t know the facts. She is a good person.”

She said Christine and the baby live with her and her husband but they haven’t been able to reach Christine this week.

Amy Ruther said she doesn’t think the break-in was planned because the baby was with her daughter.

“I love that baby. She is a beautiful baby,” she said of her granddaughter. “That’s one thing: Christy did really take good care of that baby until now. Until she did this stupid thing. She’s got problems, like I said, and I never thought she would do this.”

Brian Gregg, spokesman for Hamilton County Department of Job & Family Services, said the agency, which oversees children services and foster care, was investigating and will determine who the most appropriate caregiver for the baby is and where she will be safe.

If she is not found to be safe with her mother, the first option would be to place her with a relative.

“Children always do better when they are in the care of someone in their family,” he said.




Farmer used live missile as anvil

Romanian firefighters were shocked after a farmer was spotted using an unexploded missile as an anvil.

The 122mm calibre missile, discovered by the man in his garden in Puieni village, Giurgiu county,a few months ago, had been used for sharpening hoes and scythes.

Explosive specialists said the missile was still active and endangered not only the farmer's family but also his neighbours.

A spokesman for the firefighters said: "We've had many problems because of these unexploded bombs which have been in the ground since the Second World War but this is really crazy.

"How can you hit a bomb with the hammer? It could have exploded any time."
The missile was destroyed in a controlled explosion by an army bomb squad.




Student flashes Taj Mahal

A Dutch student has provoked an international incident by posting on YouTube a clip of him flashing his penis at the Taj Mahal.

The director of his school, the Euro College in Rotterdam, has formally apologised to the Indian Ambassador to Holland.

And the school is also considering legal action against the student for damaging their proud reputation, reports GVA.

The young man is seen on the clip giggling as he takes his penis out of his trousers. The camera then pans around to show the famous backdrop.

The student was suspended immediately when teachers found out about the incident which happened during a school trip to India.




Parents Fight Over Which Gang Toddler Should Join

A couple fighting about which gang their 4-year-old toddler should join caused a public disturbance that resulted in the father's arrest, Commerce City police said Thursday.

On Saturday, Joseph Manzanares stormed into the Hollywood Video store where his girlfriend worked, threatened to kill her and knocked over several video displays and even a computer, Commerce City police Sgt. Joe Sandoval said.

After he ran out of the store, police were called and the 19-year-old was arrested at his home.

His girlfriend told police that they had been arguing about the upbringing of their son and which gang he should belong to. The teen mother, who is black, is a member of the Crips. Manzanares is Hispanic and belongs to the Westside Ballers gang, the woman said.

"They have different ideas on how the baby should be raised. Basically, she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would 'claim,'" Sandoval said.

Manzanares was charged with disorderly conduct, harassment, and domestic violence. He was transported to the Adams County Detention Facility.

On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to a year of probation. The misdemeanor harassment charge was dropped.




Indonesian masseuses told to padlock pants

A bid by a local government in Indonesia's East Java province to curb prostitution by asking masseuses to wear a padlock on their pants was an insult, a newspaper quoted the minister for women's empowerment as saying.

The recently implemented policy in the tourist area of Batu was misguided, State Minister for Women's Empowerment Meuthia Hatta told the Jakarta Post on Thursday.
"It is not the right way to prevent promiscuity. It insults women as if they are the ones in the wrong," Hatta said.

The paper showed a photograph of a masseuse with a padlock on the waist band of her trousers and said the local administration's move was aimed at curbing prostitution and maintaining Batu's image as a popular tourist destination.

The best way to curb prostitution in massage parlours was to improve security systems including installing CCTV, Hatta said.

Batu, 75 km (46 miles) south of Indonesia's second-biggest city, Surabaya, is a popular tourist destination for its cool climate, hot springs and mountain scenery.

Indonesia has a flourishing sex industry and massage parlours are frequently a front for prostitution. But there has been a vigorous debate over morality in recent years, exposing deep divisions in the Southeast Asian Muslim-majority nation.

Last month, Indonesia passed a bill to restrict access to pornographic and violent sites on the Internet, while parliament has yet to pass a controversial pornography bill that aims to shield the young from pornographic material and lewd acts.

Earlier draft versions contained provisions that could jail people for kissing in public and criminalise many forms of art or traditional culture that hinge on sensuality, sparking criticism it could curb freedoms and hurt Indonesia's tolerant traditions.




Men accused of stealing swimming pool

Two Massachusetts men are accused of stealing a swimming pool from a Granby backyard. Timothy Morin, 37, and David Hawley, 18, both of Westfield, were charged Friday with trespassing, larceny, conspiracy, and possession of burglary tools.

Granby police say they found parts from the disassembled aboveground pool in the rear seat of the men's car, about a mile away from the yard where the pool had stood.

Police say the men told them they took the pool for scrap metal and felt they were doing the owners a favor by getting rid of it for them.

Police also recovered from the car: seven automotive batteries, a coil of copper pipe, wire with a copper core, an aluminum pneumatic manifold with brass fittings, bolt cutters, metal shears and a hammer.



Drivers flood station for 35 cent gas

Traffic was backed up and police were called to control the crowd after a Wilmington gas station accidentally set the pump price at 35 cents a gallon.

The Wilmington Star-News reported Friday that hundreds of drivers flooded a BP station for the cheap gas after the price dropped around 9 a.m. Thursday.

Station employee Shane Weller said the price for premium gasoline was supposed to be $3.35 a gallon. He complained that customers paid the cheaper price all day without saying a word.

It was all the extra traffic that led station employees to the mistake around 6 p.m. They found it after calling their district manager, looking for permission to changing the price as a way of stemming the flow of customers.



Yanks unearth Sox jersey at new stadium

Gays in Denmark get own cemetery space

Homosexuals have been designated an area in a Copenhagen cemetery for those who want to be buried among people who shared their sexual orientation, one of the project initiators said on Tuesday.

"We founded an association called Regnbuen (Rainbow) and our goal is that gays and lesbians can be buried next to each other," Ivan Larsen told AFP.

The association has rented spots that can hold up to a total of 45 urns at Assistens cemetery. Each space costs 2,500 kroner (335 euros, 526 dollars).

The cemetery already hosts figures as diverse as the Danish fairytale author Hans Christian Andersen and the philosopher Soeren Kierkegaard.

The area the group has booked is separated from the rest of the cemetery by a large triangle of pebbles on the ground, with a massive rock placed on one of the angles.

"The triangle is our old symbol, but it is also a sign of suffering," Larsen said, recalling that the Nazis forced homosexuals to wear a pink triangle.

The rainbow flag, a universal symbol for homosexuals representing diversity, will be placed on the rock, he added.

"We don't want to isolate ourselves but we also feel a need to be together. We see this as a family grave, one that will be taken care of by our family," said Larsen.

Lunt villagers sick of graffiti

A campaign has been launched in the historic village of Lunt to change its name because vandals keep defacing road signs.

The not-so-witty pranksters constantly change the village's name to an extremely rude swear word, reports the Daily Telegraph.

However, the proposal is dividing villagers in the Merseyside community who say they should not have to give up a name that has been around since the 13th century.

Martyn Ball, a retired police officer and prospective Conservative councillor, is urging residents to support the move because he is fed up with the graffiti which greets visitors to the village.

He said: "We are all painfully aware of the repeated times our village sign is defaced by mindless yobs who change the L to a C.

"Drive in every day and you see a very offensive word."

Dr Ball has suggested Launt as an alternative name, which he says would be pronounced the same. However, others in the village say the vandals should not be allowed to ruin their heritage.

Steward Dobson, 84, a parish councillor, said: "This village is very, very old and people don't want the name changed."

David Roughley, whose family has farmed in Lunt since 1851, added: "At the end of the day we live in Lunt and we don't want to change because of a few yobs. It is the vandals who should change, not the village."

Papua New Guinea store owner steam cleans thieves

A dry-cleaning shop owner in Papua New Guinea has found a unique way of encouraging thieves to clean up their behaviour: giving them a steam cleaning.

Police in the northeast coastal town of Lae said a 20-year-old man suffered burns and scalding to his abdomen, chest and back after the owner turned a steam cleaner on him after he was caught stealing pants worth 14 kina (2.80 pounds).

"The owner has done this to many people already," police spokesman Nema Mondiai told Australian Associated Press on Wednesday.

Police seemed unconcerned about the radical punishment and released the thief after being assured he had learned his lesson.

Papua New Guinea, a mountainous country of about 6 million people, has significant crime problems and 85 percent of its population live off subsistence farming.

A new report by Australian academics on Wednesday, based on surveys of 153 PNG firms, found break-ins, burglary, armed hold-ups and robbery, as well as employee theft, were the most frequent crimes faced by local businesses.




Vienna cardinal regrets erotic Last Supper art

Vienna's Roman Catholic cardinal said on Wednesday that he regrets the exhibition of a homoerotic version of Christ's Last Supper in a museum linked to his diocese.

The controversial work was exhibited in Vienna's Cathedral Museum as part of a retrospective honouring Austria's renowned artist Alfred Hrdlicka, who recently turned 80.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, archbishop of Vienna, said he had backed the exhibition without knowing the detailed contents.

"I obviously would not have agreed to have blasphemous or pornographic works exhibited. I therefore explicitly regret that a work of this kind was exhibited without my knowledge," the cardinal said in a statement.

The cardinal told the museum to take down the picture, "a homosexual orgy" of the Apostles as Hrdlicka describes it, just over a week after the display opened, after some visitors complained and it provoked a fierce uproar on Catholic websites.

Protest has continued over the picture 'Leonardo's Last Supper, restored by Pier Paolo Pasolini' which showed cavorting Apostles lounging on the dining table and masturbating each other. It was supposed to be a highlight of the display.

"In some of (the pictures) he oversteps the essential threshold of respect for the sacred," the cardinal said, adding that the museum does not identify with all of the works.

But he also defended Hrdlicka as one of Austria's most notable living artists who deserved such a retrospective.

"Hrdlicka...probably more than any other living artist, has devoted himself to the suffering and downtrodden human being and has appealed for "compassion" with the "Passion," he said.

The museum has said it did not set out to offend people but has defended Hrdlicka's work and the decision to display the controversial versions of biblical imagery.

Schoenborn, a former student of Pope Benedict who edited the Catholic Church's official catechism in the 1990s, maintains that art inspired by the Bible should be celebrated.

"I still hold the opinion that we must welcome the fact that artists who do not share our faith, or are still searching for belief, occupy themselves so intensively with biblical subjects," he said.




Man who yelled at phone user acquitted

A retired police officer who screamed obscenities at a train passenger who was talking on a cell phone and who hit the hand of another passenger who intervened was acquitted Tuesday of misdemeanor charges stemming from the confrontation.

John Clifford, who is also a lawyer, was found not guilty after a two-day nonjury trial at which he acted as his own attorney. He had been charged with misdemeanor counts of attempted assault, disorderly conduct, harassment and attempted petit larceny and had faced up to a year in jail if convicted.

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Larry Stephen issued his verdict immediately after closing arguments: "I see no crimes having been committed beyond a reasonable doubt. The case is dismissed and sealed."

The 6-foot-4 Clifford acknowledged during trial that he was aggressive and overbearing when he approached Long Island Rail Road commuters he considered rude for talking too loudly on cell phones and for other behavior.

During trial, Clifford, 60, admitted cursing at Nicholas Bender, "a 19-year-old nitwit waking up one girlfriend after another," and slapping the hand of Lydia Klein after she slapped his when he reached for a business card she was handing Bender on the train from Long Beach to Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station on March 28, 2007.

Clifford, who retired as a police sergeant after 10 years on the job, said Tuesday he had been arrested eight times after being accused of throwing coffee, spewing expletives and getting in the faces of people whom he considered loud and rude on the commuter line. This was the only case that wasn't dismissed.

"It took a lawyer and an old ex-police sergeant to stand up to it (public rudeness)," Clifford, of Long Beach, said as he left court. He said that unless lawmakers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority do something, the lack of public civility will persist.

Asked what he regretted about his behavior, Clifford replied, "Nothing."

He added, "I don't want anybody to think they can't have a private conversation (around me), but keep it private."

The LIRR issued a statement saying it was "disappointed" but accepted the judgment of the court.

"Some of our customers feel as if they have been abused by Mr. Clifford's behavior," the statement said. "We will not tolerate aggressive behavior by Mr. Clifford if he seeks to impose his own standards of conduct on others. We will not hesitate in the future to call on police if necessary to protect the safety of our customer and employees."

Meanwhile, Clifford, a lawyer since 1984, has filed five lawsuits against passengers and against the MTA, which runs the region's mass transit system, for issues arising from his reactions to rudeness.

Clifford, formerly a security staffer for HBO, was fired after being arrested several times in connection with his LIRR confrontations. He said he plans now to "hang out my shingle again" and practice law.

Dodgy China salon's haircuts no snip at $1,700

A Chinese hair salon has been shut down and fined 500,000 yuan (36,000 pounds) for holding two customers hostage and charging wildly excessive fees for haircuts, a newspaper reported on Monday.

College students Zhang Yi and Yuan Sha Sha went for a haircut at Baolou International Beauty Salon in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, expecting to pay the 38 yuan (2.72 pounds) advertised on the window.

But when the barbers were done, they produced a joint bill for 12,000 yuan (855 pounds), enough to make anyone's hair curl, the Beijing News reported.

"After borrowing from 16 people, the two were only able to come up with 9,800 yuan and it wasn't until after 10 pm were they allowed to leave the hair salon," it reported.

It was not the first time that the shop tried to cheat consumers. One was slapped with a bill for 4,776 yuan when she came in for a haircut last September. In December, another customer opted for a 68 yuan haircut, but was asked to pay 5,670 yuan.

The shop was eventually shut down with nearly 100 local residents applauding outside, the newspaper said.

'Simpsons' yanked for 'Baywatch Hawaii'

D'oh! A Venezuelan TV channel has yanked "The Simpsons" off the air because it may be inappropriate for children. Taking its place: "Baywatch Hawaii."

Televen TV station spokeswoman Elba Guillen said Monday that the decision to hand over the daily 11 a.m. time slot came after the National Telecommunications Commission received complaints from viewers.

"It had to be taken off," Guillen said. "They consider it to be a series that isn't appropriate for that time because it isn't appropriate for children."

The regulatory agency didn't specify which elements of the program were deemed offensive, but said showing the animated cartoon series at that hour could violate national regulations prohibiting "messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents."
Guillen said it is up to Televen's management whether "The Simpsons" may be shown at another time of day.

"Baywatch," which features bikini-clad bombshells and musclebound hunks working as lifeguards on the Hawaiian coast, has been running in the 11 a.m. slot since Friday.

The station has not received any complaints about that show, General Manager German Perez Nahim told the Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias in its Friday editions. Perez was out of the office Monday and could not be reached for comment.

"We are hoping it will continue to have a good rating, because 'The Simpsons' worked very well — so much so that it had the highest levels of viewership for that morning timetable in the history of the channel," Perez said.

Witchdoctor killings condemned

Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete has condemned witchdoctors who kill albinos and harvest their body parts in the hope it will bring prosperity.

He said 19 albinos had been murdered since March 2007, and another two were missing presumed dead in the east African country.

"Sometimes, word spreads around that body parts of people with certain physical attributes like bald people or albinos contribute greatly to attaining quick prosperity," Kikwete said in a monthly state of the nation speech late on Wednesday.

"These killings are shameful and distressing to our society," he added.

Albinos are often accused in Tanzania of being witches themselves.

There are an estimated 270,000 people who suffer from the condition which stops them producing pigment in their skin, hair and eyes in the country of 39 million.

Kikwete blamed charlatan witchdoctors, many masquerading as traditional healers, for extracting body parts such as genitals, tongues and breasts.

"Many of the witchcraft killings happen because of a false belief that by using other peoples' body parts they can succeed in business or in activities like mining or fishing," Kikwete said.

Most killings took place in the Victoria region and were committed by gangs for hire, he said.

Postal workers attacked by wild turkeys

Rather than rain or snow, or even dogs, postal workers in a West Side neighborhood near Owen Conservation Park are being pestered by wild turkeys this spring. Mara Wilhite, manager of the Hilldale Station Post Office, said she expected to deal with all manner of issues when she went to work for the U.S. Post Office. But that was not one of them.

"Just when you thought you'd heard it all," she said.

About five to 10 of the birds have been pecking at the postal workers as they make their rounds, and some of the birds have attacked the letter carriers with the sharp spurs on their legs. One of the birds went through the open door of a mail truck and scratched the driver.

Wilhite sought help in the matter from Eric Lobner, regional wildlife program supervisor for the state Department of Natural Resources.

Lobner said the behavior is clearly tied to the breeding season, which started recently and runs through about mid-May.

Color plays an important role in turkey breeding, he said, with the color of the male's head during mating season changes from gaudy blue to white to red. Lobner speculated that perhaps the turkeys are attracted to the red, white and blue postal trucks.

Postal workers were armed with water pistols. But Lober said that, while the squirts of water worked for a while, the turkeys now seem accustomed to it.

Some workers have been using long sticks to fend off the birds, he said, adding that he will meet with Wilhite next week to discuss other possible solutions.

Part of the problem, Lobner said, is that residents around Owen Conservation Park around the Parkwood Hills neighborhood may be feeding the turkeys, which makes the birds less afraid of humans. He said pamphlets have been circulated in the neighborhood to discourage people from feeding the birds.