Yard sale shopper clobbers another with a cornbread pan

California - Yard sale etiquette apparently went out the window in Sonora after a 70-year-old man hit another man over the head with a cornbread pan while the two were trying to get access to the sale items. Jon Joslin, 70, was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon. The victim, Joseph Brown, 64, suffered a head laceration but refused medical treatment at the scene, according to Sgt. Jeff Wilson, spokesman for the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Department. ---...More

San Quentin Death Row inmate wins ruling, then hangs himself

San Quentin State Prison - George Smithey, a 70-year-old inmate who was sentenced to death in 1989 for murdering a woman after breaking into her home in Calaveras County hanged himself in his cell at San Quentin State Prison over the weekend, less than a week after a judge commuted his sentence to life without parole because of mental retardation. ---...More

Politician raffles breast implants for campaign cash

Venezuela - A Venezuelan politician is holding an unusual raffle to raise campaign cash. The grand prize: breast implants. For a little under $6 a ticket, donors get the chance to win the pricey operation free of charge. Breast enlargement is widely popular in image-conscious Venezuela. In recent years as many as 30,000 women have had the operation annually....More

Eighteen die while mushroom picking

Italy - Eighteen people died while mushroom picking in Italy in little more than a week - but not from inadvertently eating poisonous fungi. The victims were killed by falling into rocky crevasses and gorges or from similar physical mishaps while undertaking the popular pastime...More

Man accused of rape fires himself as his lawyer

Iowa - Jack Leonard Hays held on to his right to act as his own defense attorney in court while facing sexual assault and burglary charges - until the final hours before his trial. Hays - who is accused of raping an acquaintance - abruptly fired himself as his own counsel during a court appearance. For months, he had attempted to mount his own defense with only a paralegal certificate earned online and work in a prison law library as his legal experience..More

Police bust Paris "booby" trap gang (Reuters)

Reuters - French police have arrested two teenage girls they say stole hundreds of euros from unsuspecting cash machine customers after distracting them by flashing their breasts.---...More

Comic character's McDonald's binge sparks Gallic outcry (Reuters)

Reuters - A new McDonald's ad featuring Gallic champion Asterix enjoying a burger and fries has sparked outrage among French comic purists who see it as an insult to their national heritage.---...More

3rd trip to Texas death chamber for grieving dad

Huntsville, Texas - Randy Ertman knows the road to the Texas death chamber too well. He’s set to make the trip again, to witness for the third time the execution of one of the gang members responsible for the rape and murder of his teenage daughter and her schoolmate. This time, it will be the lethal injection on of Peter Anthony Cantu, the leader of the five young men who were sentenced to die for the June 1993 murders of 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena. It’s not lost on him that Cantu has lived in prison longer than Jennifer and Elizabeth were alive.---...More

Skateboarding priest becomes YouTube hit (Reuters)

Reuters - A Hungarian Roman Catholic priest has become a YouTube hit with his distinctive method of spreading the word on wheels.
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Women find men in red more appealing?

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Men wanting to catch the eye of women should dress in red, a color which new research shows makes them more alluring to the opposite sex.
Women in the United States, England, Germany and China said they found men pictured wearing red, or framed in red, more sexually attractive than in other colors, the research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed....More

Kama Sutra Ancient sex guide published as audio book

LONDON (Reuters) – Too shy to read the Kama Sutra on the train during rush hour? Just take out your headphones.
The ancient sex guide dating back 1,600 years has been published as an audio book for the first time in its long history in what its British-based publisher described as a "perfect meeting of ancient history and modernity."
"Now there's no need to feel embarrassed by reading a copy of this wonderful and important book in public -- simply download it on to your mp3 player and liven up your commute to work," said Simon Petherick, managing director of Beautiful Books...More

Jet Blue flight attendant freaks out!

New York - A frustrated JetBlue flight attendant allegedly fled his plane via emergency shoot — beer in hand — after getting into a fight with a passenger and then cursing out the entire cabin over a loudspeaker. One of the passengers apparently got out of his seat to grab a bag from an overhead compartment and they got into an argument. ---...More

Stupid News-Hanging flower baskets branded a safety hazard

UK - Linda Martin, 68, had hung the floral displays around the centre of Wilton, Wiltshire, in an attempt to brighten up the area. But she was told they must be removed as they breached health and safety rules. Officials were concerned that shoppers could bump their heads as they passed under them. The ruling followed an earlier dictat which banned the grandmother from placing floral displays on the ground in case pedestrians tripped over them.---...More

Sex job ads banned at employment offices

Such a ban had previously been in place at the taxpayer-funded employment exchanges but that changed seven years ago when Ann Summers, a sex toys and suggestive lingerie retailer, successfully argued ---...More

Stupid News-EPA to Crack Down on Farm Dust

OKLAHOMA CITY - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations. “We respect efforts for a clean and healthy environment, but not at the expense of common sense. These identified levels will be extremely burdensome for farmers and livestock producers to attain. Whether it’s livestock kicking up dust, soybeans being combined on a dry day in the fall, or driving a car down the gravel road, dust is a naturally occurring event.”---...More