FORT MITCHELL, Ky. – A northern Kentucky man wearing only a thong and carrying a knife allegedly videotaped himself attempting a burglary, then left the tape behind, police said. That evidence ultimately led to his arrest, Fort Mitchell Police Chief Steve Hensley said.

Rodney McMillen, 36, of Covington was charged over the weekend with first-degree burglary.

“This is a very, very bizarre case, to say the least,” Hensley said.

McMillen allegedly broke into a woman’s apartment about 3 a.m. EDT on Sept. 20, clad in only thong underwear and carrying a knife, Hensley said. The woman fended off the attacker, who left the apartment and fled into a stand of trees near the apartment complex, Hensley said.

Investigating officers found a video camera the burglar left in the apartment, Hensley said, and found video of McMillen’s family on the end of the tape, Hensley said.

Investigators were able to identify some of them and tracked down McMillen at his mother’s house in Norwood, Ohio, Hensley said.

McMillen was lodged in the Hamilton County Justice Center in Cincinnati on $50,000 bond, awaiting extradition to Kentucky.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Touted as a celebration of sport, culture and national unity, the Ethnic Minority Games held in southwestern China descended into a farce of cross-dressing cheating and mob violence, state media reported.

Athletes representing China’s 55 ethnic minorities assembled in southwestern Yunnan province last week to compete in blow-pipe darts, horse-riding events and other traditional sports.

But blind pursuit of victory lead to some unorthodox tactics, Xinhua news agency reported.

Results of the women’s dragon-boat racing event were reviewed after athletes complained of “big women with Adam’s apples”, Xinhua said. Referees subsequently found that several of the competitors were actually men wearing wigs.

A dispute between a team from the games’ host city, Zhaotong, and another from Wenshan city in Yunnan province over the result of a wrestling final turned into a brawl, Xinhua said.

The Wenshan team was eventually chased away by a local gang

with blades and sticks called in by the Zhaotong team, Xinhua said.

“I’ve never seen violence and ugliness like that,” a reporter at the games told Xinhua.

The nationality games have been held eight times in Yunnan province, where 25 of the country’s 56 ethnic minorities live.

“The tenet of the games is to develop the minorities’ characteristic sports, build up their health and increase national unity,” Ren Muzhen, the chief organiser, told Xinhua.

Coaches blamed the unruly scenes on the pressures of having career advancement linked to results.

“Coaches and local officials still concentrate on medals and results in this games,” a coach told Xinhua.

“They have to think about every means to get better results.”

BANGKOK, Thailand – Thailand’s military coup leaders may be losing their sense of humor. Five days after instructing soldiers to keep smiling, the ruling council decided Wednesday that there is a limit to how much fun soldiers should have.

They ruled that sexy dancers were forbidden near tanks and tourists were no longer permitted to handle weapons when posing for photographs with troops still deployed in Bangkok.

The military toppled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup Sept. 19. As soon as the danger of violence subsided the troops mingled freely with residents and foreigners and their tanks became an instant tourist attraction. Hundreds had photos snapped of themselves posing with the soldiers.

At first the ruling generals turned a blind eye when a troupe of go-go dancers with naked midriffs and sexy camouflaged pants performed in front of the tanks to be followed the next day by dancers in traditional attire.

But on Wednesday, Deputy Supreme Commander Gen. Boonsang Niempradit said the go-go dancing was “not appropriate.”

“We have to maintain the seriousness of the coup,” said Lt. Gen. Palangoon Klaharn, a military spokesman. “The police should ensure that provocative performances are kept at a distance from soldiers while they are on duty.”

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A plucky Australian schoolboy who asked a former Miss Universe to his school dance, only to be rebuffed, has finally had his dream date over lunch.

Daniel Dibley, 17, needed a partner for the school dance in the Australian country town of Bathurst, west of Sydney, and he decided to aim high.

He wrote to Australia’s best-known beauty queen, Jennifer Hawkins, to ask her to the dance, and was stunned when the 2004 Miss Universe accepted.

But in a decision that would break a schoolboy’s heart, Hawkins later pulled out of the date because the overwhelming publicity had overshadowed plans for the end-of-year dance, which is for students in their final year of high school.

Instead, the Seven television network said Hawkins visited Dibley’s Bathurst High School on Tuesday for a private lunch date with Daniel, and to speak to the school assembly, where she apologized for all the fuss.

“I didn’t want you guys to think I didn’t want to come to Bathurst, or I didn’t want come to the formal (dance),” Hawkins, now a television presenter, told the school assembly.

“I did. It just became too big. I just wanted a low-key thing.”

LONDON (Reuters) – The 17th century punishment for sex crimes was public humiliation and 1930s Britons pretended to be drunk so they could get away with sex on the beach.

Historical attitudes to sex in Britain will be laid bare for all to see this week in archives which reveal a nation rich in sexual experience and enthusiasm.

The historical documents, to be given a public outing by the Centre for Archive Studies at Liverpool University, include the nation’s first ever sex survey, conducted 57 years ago but deemed too shocking for publication at the time.

The survey shows many of the nation’s men had homosexual experiences, many were frequent visitors to prostitutes and many wives pursued sex outside marriage.

The archives also have details of public displays of sexual behaviour in the 1930s on the west coast’s famous Blackpool Beach as well as in cinemas and dance halls, and show how many Britons threw sexual caution to the wind during World War Two.

According to archivists, who will debate the papers on Saturday, Britons “tended to pretend they were drunk or playing a joke” in order to get away with sexual behaviour in public.

Caroline Williams, of the Centre for Archive Studies, says the documents show that attitudes have broadened over the years.

Dorothy Sheridan, a fellow archivist from the University of Sussex, has looked at decades of extracts from personal diaries, letters and autobiographical accounts of experiences in which people describe the most intimate aspects of their lives.

“Materials in our archive range from holiday makers enjoying themselves on the beach at Blackpool to the experiences of the Second World War when many people, fearing they may not survive the war, were more sexually active,” she said.

Despite the taboos of the time, the 1949 sex survey, originally meant for national newspapers but never published due to its content, found one in five men had homosexual experiences and a quarter admitted to having sex with prostitutes. One in five women confessed to extra-marital affairs.

Alan Crosby, a historian at Liverpool University, said the archives also show how attitudes to sex crimes have changed.

“Sexual offences in the past were recognised as serious crimes, just as they are today,” he said, but the punishment system was very different.

Documents detail how a man convicted of a sex crime in a northern town in 1630 was punished by being paraded through the streets and humiliated in front of fellow citizens.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A former handyman from North Providence who won more than $400,000 in a lawsuit over a malfunctioning penile implant may not get the money after a judge dismissed his claim.

Superior Court Judge Edward C. Clifton on Monday granted a request by the implant manufacturer’s insurer to dismiss Charles “Chick” Lennon’s claim, which his lawyers say will amount to $1 million with interest included.

The implant has caused Lennon to have an erection for 10 years.

The medical device maker’s insurance company, National Union Fire Insurance Company, argued that since the device’s now-defunct manufacturer, Dacomed Corp., can’t be held liable for the device, it can’t, either.

Lennon’s lawyers responded on Wednesday, saying that the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed the award and made it clear the insurer has to pay it.

Lennon received the steel and plastic implant in 1996, about two years before the impotence drug Viagra went on the market. The Dura-II is designed to allow impotent men to position the penis upward for sex, then lower it.

But Lennon, 68, said he can’t position his penis downward because the device is faulty, causing him pain and embarrassment.

“I’m suffering with it right now,” he told The Providence Journal during a recent interview. “It never stops. It’s like a constant headache.”

In 2004, a jury awarded him $750,000. Clifton called that excessive and reduced it to $400,000. In June, the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed that award.

Dacomed had maintained that nothing was wrong with the implant. It filed for bankruptcy after the lawsuit was filed.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – A police sting took an odd turn when an officer pretending to be a john met a suspected prostitute pretending to be an officer.

Police spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan said here’s what happened Thursday:

A male undercover officer driving in a neighborhood known for prostitution was flagged down by a woman. The woman got in his car and they went to a nearby parking lot to negotiate a price for sex.

She asked the officer if he was a cop and he said no.

“That’s OK, because I am,” the woman said as she pulled out handcuffs and a two-way radio. She barked into the radio: “Move in!”

The officer, concerned the woman was armed and looking to rob him, forced her from the car. Moments later, officers who had been monitoring the situation arrived and grabbed Greene and her radio.

A male officer pretending to be female used the radio to find out who was on the other end. That person was waiting in a car in a nearby alley.

Police charged Lisa Greene, 31, with first-degree criminal impersonation, prostitution and fifth-degree conspiracy. Elena Irwin, 20, was charged with fifth-degree conspiracy and possession of a hypodermic needle.

“We believe these people were going to rob people or extort money,” Connellan said.

He did not know if they had successfully used the scam in the past.

HELSINKI (Reuters) – A fee of 25,500 euros ($32,000) is way too much for a woman to charge a man for fondling her bosom, a Finnish district court ruled.

The court jailed a couple in their twenties for more than a year for charging a 74-year-old who suffers from dementia a total of 25,500 euros to enjoy the woman’s breasts on 10 occasions.

“Based on general life experience alone, it is indisputably clear that a 25,500 euro charge is disproportionate to the compensation in question,” Judge Hasse Hakki, who heard the case, told Reuters Friday.

But he said the court in Kokkola, about 300 miles north of Helsinki, would not decide “the proper financial value of the compensation.”

The retiree filed charges against the couple, who were convicted of extortionate overcharging, even though he told the court he paid the price willingly at the time.

LONDON (Reuters) – A large number of Britons would be prepared to give up sex if it meant they would live to be 100, according to a survey on Friday.

The Mori research found that 40 percent would pass on the passion for longevity, although far more women (48 percent) were willing to make the sacrifice than men (31 percent).

However nearly all (94 percent) would not give up their friends or family in order to reach their century while a half thought scientists should keep trying to prolong people’s lifespans.

Private health care provider BUPA commissioned the survey as part of a debate on the implications of an ageing population.

“Britain is facing an ageing time bomb with major challenges presented by retirement, the desire to live longer and the increasing burden of caring for older people,” said Andrew Vallance-Owen, BUPA’s medical director.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Masked thieves armed with a chisel stole the penis of a wooden Maori figurine, or tiki, at the entrance of a public library in northern New Zealand, police said.

Security cameras captured pictures of three masked men using the chisel to remove the tiki’s penis early on Sunday morning. The figurine is one of two indigenous Maori designs that stand on “pou” or posts astride the entrance to the library in Whangarei.

Carver Kerry Strongman said the theft had damaged the “mana” or pride of the city.

Strongman said he would begin work immediately on a carving that would restore the tiki to its original state.

Police said they were at a loss to explain the theft, particularly as a nearby statue of Tangaroa, the Maori god of the sea, was better endowed.

TEXARKANA, Ark. – Police went to a home after receiving a report that he had entered it illegally and later found their suspect running nude through a pasture.

Tim Smith, 19, of Texarkana was charged with residential burglary, third-degree assault, fleeing, disorderly conduct and refusal to submit to arrest. No bond was set and he was being held for a mental evaluation.

Police spokesman Officer Chris Rankin said Smith entered a home Wednesday through an unlocked door and was confronted by a woman in the home, Linda Smith, who is not related to Tim Smith.

“He knocked on my bedroom door, and when I opened it he told me he was sent here to have sex with me,” Ms. Smith said. “I told him I didn’t think so and that he needed to leave.”

At the time, Smith was wearing blue jeans, a gray T-shirt, tennis shoes and a cap.

As the woman and her daughter started calling police, the man stripped naked in the living room and fled after stealing a pair of shoes.

When officers arrived, they found Smith running naked through a nearby pasture.

“He started to chase some of the horses and grab at their tails,” Ms. Smith.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India plans to recruit one young man and woman from every large village in the country to over the next five years teach their peers about safe sex and HIV, a health official said on Wednesday.

The army of young people would be part of India’s frontline as it tries to slow the spread of the deadly virus, which already infects an estimated 5.7 million Indians, the world’s largest caseload, according to the United Nations.

“They could be weavers, or agricultural laborers or just be hanging around the village market place,” said Sujatha Rao, director general of India’s National Aids Control Organization.

“But the point is the distribution of condoms, and messages on radio and TV only go so far. We need to sit down with young people and make them talk,” she told a conference on sexual equality.

Those taking part in the scheme, who will be in their early 20s, will be asked to help dispel macho notions that men should try and have unprotected sex with as many women as they can, notions that health workers say are common.

Rao hopes to bring 20,000 out of India’s 640,000 villages, those with more than 5,000 inhabitants, into the scheme.

MONROE, N.Y. – School officials apologized after an X-rated font was used on a third-grade spelling packet handed out to parents. The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet.

Officials with the Monroe-Woodbury School District in Orange County apologized last week after parents at Pine Tree Elementary School were given the spelling packet at an open house.

Administrators said the teacher did not use the font intentionally.

Monroe is about 45 miles northwest of New York City.

MCKEESPORT, Pa. – A woman pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in connection with a bizarre incident in February that resulted in a fake penis being microwaved at a convenience store.

Leslye Creighton, 41, of Wilkinsburg, entered the plea Wednesday, and authorities dropped the same charge against Vincent Bostic, 31, of Pittsburgh, who has agreed to help pay $425 to replace the store’s microwave, police and the couple’s defense attorney said.

Police in McKeesport, about 10 miles east of Pittsburgh, said the Feb. 23 incident began when Bostic filled a fake penis with his urine that they said Creighton planned to use to pass a drug test to get a job.

The two stopped at a GetGo! convenience store and, after wrapping the device in a paper towel, asked a store clerk to heat it up in a microwave, police said. Authorities said they believe Creighton wanted the device heated so the urine inside would be at body temperature during the drug test.

The clerk, however, believing the lifelike device to be a severed penis, called police.

Defense attorney William Difenderfer said Creighton faces a maximum punishment of $300 and 90 days in jail when she is sentenced Nov. 15 by McKeesport District Judge Doug Reed. Difenderfer called it “a humorous, but weird, case.”

LAGOS (AFP) – Viagra may heat up one’s sex drive, but chocolate can make it sizzle.

So said Dr. Dora Akunyili, the director of Nigeria’s Federal Agency for Food and Medicine, in advising Nigerians on Monday to forego the little, libido-boosting blue pills in favor of a measured dose of cocoa.

To back up her claims — made during a meeting with the vice-governor of one of Nigeria’s states — the good doctor cited a recently published study extolling the libidinal qualities of cocoa beans.

The report, produced by Nigeria’s national committee for the development of cocoa, may be a bit skimpy on double-blind scientific tests, but it does refer to the marketing campaign of a British trade association making similar claims.

Baptized “Feeding Your Imagination”, the campaign will soon launch a product line of six energy chocolate bars containing essential oils said to enhance one’s mood, and especially one’s sexual appetite.

Costing about six US dollars (5 euros) per 100 grams, the bars are fetchingly named Sexy, Beautiful, Dreamy, Fantastic, Sensual and Lovely, according to the website foodnavigator.com.

Britons already lead the European Union in chocolate consumption, eating nearly 10 kilos on average per year, and Britian is thus considered a promising market for sex candy.

For Akunyili, chocolate is the obvious lover’s choice. Viagra, she said, can have unwelcome side effects, but chocolate is all good: it is the best anti-oxidant known and — beyond its sexual virtues — can help prevent heart attacks, hypertension and diabetes.

The vice governor, who also happens to head a committee for the promotion of chocolate, is even more enthusiastic about cocoa’s curative powers, claiming it can “cure breast cancer, get rid of chronic coughs, and enhance brain power”.

Akunyili did caution, however, that any new products containing chocolate will be thoroughly tested before going to market.

DALLAS – A former city official who is under investigation in an FBI corruption probe was arrested for public intoxication after claiming he was robbed by naked and scantily clad attackers at a male strip club, authorities said.

Police arrested D’Angelo Lee early Sunday outside Club Knubian Fantaciez, a dance club that becomes an all-nude male revue after midnight. Police said he told them he was attacked by three men, one naked and another in only a towel.

Lee told police the men threw him out of the club, broke his glasses and stole his wallet, though he later found the wallet. Club employees told police they removed Lee, who said he was there picking up women, because he was causing a disturbance. Lee later called the incident “just stupid, just really frivolous” and said he was only trying to get his wallet back.

Lee resigned from the City Plan Commission last year after being targeted in the FBI’s corruption investigation into Dallas City Hall. Lee has been accused of voting on zoning cases where he was a paid consultant and not reporting gifts.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) – They are calling it the “crossed legs” strike.

Fretting over crime and violence, girlfriends and wives of gang members in the Colombian city of Pereira have called a ban on sex to persuade their menfolk to give up the gun.

After meeting with the mayor’s office to discuss a disarmament program, a group of women decided to deny their partners their conjugal rights and recorded a song for local radio to urge others to follow their example.

“We met with the wives and girlfriends of gang members and they were worried some were not handing over their guns and that is where they came up with the idea of a vigil or a sex strike,” mayor’s office representative Julio Cesar Gomez said.

“The message they are giving them is disarm or if not then they will decide how, when, where and at what time,” he told Reuters by telephone.

Gomez said the city, in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, reported 480 killings last year.

Crime and violence have dropped in Colombia since 2002 when President Alvaro Uribe was first elected promising to crackdown on left-wing rebels fighting a four-decade insurgency and the illegal militia groups who formed to counter them.

But cocaine-trafficking gangs and armed groups still roam parts of Colombia and murder and kidnappings remain a problem despite the fall in crime statistics.

MADRID (Reuters) – The world’s first ban on overly thin models at a top-level fashion show in Madrid has caused outrage among modeling agencies and raised the prospect of restrictions at other venues.

Madrid’s fashion week has turned away underweight models after protests that girls and young women were trying to copy their rail-thin looks and developing eating disorders.

Organizers say they want to project an image of beauty and health, rather than a waif-like, or heroin chic look.

But Cathy Gould, of New York’s Elite modeling agency, said the fashion industry was being used as a scapegoat for illnesses like anorexia and bulimia.

“I think its outrageous, I understand they want to set this tone of healthy beautiful women, but what about discrimination against the model and what about the freedom of the designer,” said Gould, Elite’s North America director, adding that the move could harm careers of naturally “gazelle-like” models.

Madrid’s regional government, which sponsors the show and imposed restrictions, said it did not blame designers and models for anorexia. It said the fashion industry had a responsibility to portray healthy body images.

“Fashion is a mirror and many teenagers imitate what they see on the catwalk,” said regional official Concha Guerra.

The mayor of Milan, Italy, Letizia Moratti, told an Italian newspaper this week she would seek a similar ban for her city’s show unless it could find a solution to “sick” looking models.

QUALITY, NOT SIZE

The Madrid show is using the body mass index or BMI — based on weight and height — to measure models. It has turned away 30 percent of women who took part in the previous event. Medics will be on hand at the September 18-22 show to check models.

“The restrictions could be quite a shock to the fashion world at the beginning, but I’m sure it’s important as far as health is concerned,” said Leonor Perez Pita, director of Madrid’s show, also known as the Pasarela Cibeles.

A spokeswoman for the Association of Fashion Designers of Spain, which represents those at Madrid fashion week, said the group supported restrictions and its concern was the quality of collections, not the size of models.

Eating disorder activists said many Spanish model agencies and designers oppose the ban and they had doubts whether the new rules would be followed.

“If they don’t go along with it the next step is to seek legislation, just like with tobacco,” said Carmen Gonzalez of Spain’s Association in Defense of Attention for Anorexia and Bulimia, which has campaigned for restrictions since the 1990s.

HANOI (Reuters) – A Vietnamese man who once appeared on national television to demonstrate his ability to resist electric shocks has been electrocuted while repairing a generator, an official said on Tuesday.

Nguyen Van Hung, aged in his early 40s, was killed in Tay Ninh province near the Cambodian border while repairing the generator without first cutting the power supply, a local official said.

“When alive, he used to demonstrate at our office how he would insert two fingers into the electrical plughole without problems,” the official said.

Hung, nicknamed “Hung Electric”, had appeared on television’s “Strange Stories of Vietnam”.

LEVITTOWN, Pa. – Police in Bucks County have charged 12 women after an investigation into prostitutes who allegedly have been advertising on the Web.

After police received a tip in August about alleged prostitutes advertising on the site, investigators called cell phone numbers in local listings that advertised “GFEs” — girlfriend experiences — asking for payment in “ro$e$” or “125 donations.”

The undercover investigators agreed to meet the women at motels, and almost all 12 were arrested within two minutes, he said.

Several of the women who were arrested had brought along their boyfriends, and five men were arrested on drug charges, police said.

Similar sting operations have led to prostitution charges against women in states including Maryland, New York, Oregon and New Hampshire.

SYDNEY – A saloon-style striptease at an Australian government-sponsored conference on global warming left some scientists and government officials hot and bothered.

The show was cut short and organizers issued an apology after some delegates at the Australia and New Zealand Climate Forum’s dinner in Canberra walked out during what was intended as a lighthearted break from the weighty business of rising temperatures.

Rebecca Gale, who led the team of dancers from Miss Kitka’s House of Burlesque, said the performance was in reasonably good taste and she didn’t understand what the fuss was about.

Gale said she appeared during dinner wearing a heavy corset, black fishnet stockings and at least a dozen balloons, which she invited delegates to pop as she danced to Peggy Lee’s 1958 hit “Fever.”

“The most that any of the girls get down to is vintage lingerie, which is corsetry and stockings,” Gale told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Friday. “It’s not like we were doing full nudity and simulating sexual acts or anything like that.”

“There wasn’t even a midriff on display,” she said.

But some in the audience objected to the Wednesday night show in Australia’s old Parliament House, and the dance troupe was asked to stop about 10 minutes into a 45-minute routine, Gale said.

The Australian National University, which organized the conference, issued a statement the next day apologizing for any offense caused.

When Environment Minister Ian Campbell learned of the show, he canceled his department’s sponsorship, and the Agriculture Department followed suit.

LONDON – The famously large underpants worn by film character Bridget Jones are to be auctioned off to raise cash for some of London’s most famous green spaces.

The large, white underwear was worn by Renee Zellweger in her role in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and prompted the comment, “Hello, mummy!” from Hugh Grant, who played her suitor, Daniel Cleaver.

The underwear, signed by Grant, will be auctioned off at a charity dinner next week for Britain’s Royal Parks Foundation, it was announced Friday.

Organizers hope the dinner will raise $185,000 for the Royal Parks, which provided the setting for scenes in the second film in the series, “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.” One scene in the movie took place in a fountain at Kensington Gardens; another was shot at Regent’s Park.

The Royal Parks are some of London’s most popular, and also include Hyde Park, St. James’s Park and Green Park.

MUMBAI (Reuters) – A prize-winning bikini competition contestant who claimed to represent Pakistan, sparking some outrage in the Muslim country, says she wanted to project the nation as a modern one.

Officials in Pakistan, which does not hold beauty pageants, said Thursday they were investigating how Texas-based Mariyah Moten, 22, entered a “Miss Bikini” pageant in China last month as a Pakistani contestant.

Pakistan-born Moten, who holds an American passport, won a “Best in Media” title for being the most photographed and interviewed contestant, media reports said.

“I have broken all the barriers, and in the coming years there will be other Pakistani contestants who will carry this title,” Moten, described by Pakistani media as the country’s first bikini queen, told the Times of India newspaper.

“My intention was to project Pakistan in a very modern way.”

Moten was born and brought up in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Her family moved to the United States eight years ago and she is now based in Houston.

Pakistani authorities said they might take up the issue with China, and might also withdraw from Moten privileges offered to people of Pakistani descent such as visa-free travel to Pakistan.

Moten, who said she might consider a career in the Pakistani film industry, was undeterred by the criticism.

“The hardliners are basically people who impose their thoughts on others, and we are not affected by people like them.

“It is actually very amusing how they are always so ready to react,” the daily quoted her as saying.

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – Mother Nature, not an ordinance, will draw the covers over public nudity in Brattleboro.

The town’s Select Board decided Tuesday to take no action on an anti-nudity ordinance that was introduced in response to a clothing-optional movement launched by local teenagers this summer.

“Winter is coming. If spring comes and we still have a problem, we’ll take another look at it,” said Select Board Chairman Steve Steidle.

Vermont has no state law against public nudity, though at least eight communities have banned it locally.

Brattleboro, however, has long had a live-and-let-live culture. Its 12,000 residents have seen clothing-optional swimming holes, streakers, and even an event known as “Breast Fest,” with women parading topless.

But the public nature of the latest movement — naked teens smack in the heart of downtown — raised eyebrows.

The stripping apparently started in early summer when a young woman sat naked on a park bench, said Police Chief John Martin. Then another woman took her shirt off downtown, a music festival inspired nude hula hoopers in a downtown parking lot, and in August a half dozen young people bared their bodies in a parking lot encircled by the backs of bookstores, coffee shops and restaurants.

One of the nudists, 19-year-old Adhi Palar, told the town board the issue was freedom.

“Our acting in nudity is an act of celebration of this history and traditional values as a place where you’re allowed to be nude,” he said. “I find that important, and I find that proud.”

Not everyone agreed.

“I just think it’s anarchy, because they won,” said resident Theresa Toney, whose complaint about the public nudity prompted the debate. “It’s inappropriate behavior for downtown. It has nothing to do with the weather. There’s good behavior and there’s bad behavior and that’s bad behavior.”

Town Manager Jerry Remillard said the town’s image was tarnished by the uproar.

“We have been the brunt of phone calls from all over the world,” Remillard said. “The media made this into nothing less than a circus.”

CAIRNS, Australia – Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the “Crocodile Hunter,” was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.

Irwin was at Batt Reef, off the remote coast of northeastern Queensland state, shooting a segment for a series called “Ocean’s Deadliest” when he swam too close to one of the animals, which have a poisonous barb on their tails, his friend and colleague John Stainton said.

“He came on top of the stingray and the stingray’s barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart,” said Stainton, who was on board Irwin’s boat at the time.

Crew members aboard the boat, Croc One, called emergency services in the nearest city, Cairns, and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to nearby Low Isle to meet a rescue helicopter. Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead when they arrived a short time later, Stainton said.

Irwin was famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchword “Crikey!” in his television program “Crocodile Hunter.” First broadcast in Australia in 1992, the program was picked up by the Discovery network, catapulting Irwin to international celebrity.

He rode his image into a feature film, 2002′s “The Crocodile Hunters: Collision Course” and developed the wildlife park that his parents opened, Australia Zoo, into a major tourist attraction.

“The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet,” Stainton told reporters in Cairns. “He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, ‘Crocs Rule!’”

Prime Minister John Howard, who hand-picked Irwin to attend a gala barbecue to honor President Bush when he visited in 2003, said he was “shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin’s sudden, untimely and freakish death.”

“It’s a huge loss to Australia,” Howard told reporters. “He was a wonderful character. He was a passionate environmentalist. He brought joy and entertainment and excitement to millions of people.”

Irwin, who made a trademark of hovering dangerously close to untethered crocodiles and leaping on their backs, spoke in rapid-fire bursts with a thick Australian accent and was almost never seen without his uniform of khaki shorts and shirt and heavy boots.

Wild animal expert Jack Hanna, who frequently appears on TV with his subjects, offered praise for Irwin.

“Steve was one of these guys, we thought of him as invincible,” Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo and Aquarium, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Monday.

“The guy was incredible. His knowledge was incredible,” Hanna said. “Some people that are doing this stuff are actors and that type of thing, but Steve was truly a zoologist, so to speak, a person who knew what he was doing. Yes, he did things a lot of people wouldn’t do. I think he knew what he was doing.”

Irwin’s ebullience was infectious and Australian officials sought him out for photo opportunities and to promote Australia internationally.

His public image was dented, however, in 2004 when he caused an uproar by holding his infant son in one arm while feeding large crocodiles inside a zoo pen. Irwin claimed at the time there was no danger to the child, and authorities declined to charge Irwin with violating safety regulations.

Later that year, he was accused of getting too close to penguins, a seal and humpback whales in Antarctica while making a documentary. Irwin denied any wrongdoing, and an Australian Environment Department investigation recommended no action be taken against him.

Stingrays have a serrated, toxin-loaded barb, or spine, on the top of their tail. The barb, which can be up to 10 inches long, flexes if a ray is frightened. Stings usually occur to people when they step on or swim too close to a ray and can be excruciatingly painful but are rarely fatal, said University of Queensland marine neuroscientist Shaun Collin.

Collin said he suspected Irwin died because the barb pierced under his ribcage and directly into his heart.

“It was extraordinarily bad luck. It’s not easy to get spined by a stingray and to be killed by one is very rare,” Collin said.

News of Irwin’s death spread quickly, and tributes flowed from all quarters of society.

At Australia Zoo at Beerwah, south Queensland, floral tributes were dropped at the entrance, where a huge fake crocodile gapes. Drivers honked their horns as they passed.

“Steve, from all God’s creatures, thank you. Rest in peace,” was written on a card with a bouquet of native flowers.

“We’re all very shocked. I don’t know what the zoo will do without him. He’s done so much for us, the environment and it’s a big loss,” said Paula Kelly, a local resident and volunteer at the zoo, after dropping off a wreath at the gate.

Stainton said Irwin’s American-born wife Terri, from Eugene, Ore., had been informed of his death, and had told their daughter Bindi Sue, 8, and son Bob, who will turn 3 in December.

The couple met when she went on vacation in Australia in 1991 and visited Irwin’s Australia Zoo; they were married six months later. Sometimes referred to as the “Crocodile Huntress,” she costarred on her husband’s television show and in his 2002 movie.

PARIS (Reuters) – Challenging one of the great taboos of French politics, a new book has laid bare the love life of the country’s amorous leaders.

Sexus Politicus, published on Thursday, reveals decades of philandering, adultery and seduction at the heart of the French state, with politicians of all colours apparently sharing the same passion for extra-marital sex.

According to the book, President Jacques Chirac and his predecessors Francois Mitterrand and Valery Giscard D’Estaing have juggled the fate of France, their families and a bevy of lovers with great ease, helped partly by an acquiescent media.

While there is little in the 390-page book that will surprise France’s chattering classes, it nonetheless rips up the long-standing rule that what politicians do between the sheets should remain strictly off the record.

“All these politicians present themselves as clean-living individuals, but at the same time almost all French male politicians are compulsive womanisers,” said Christophe Dubois, who co-authored the book with Christophe Deloire.

“This is an area that no one has explored before. It was a taboo. We’ve broken this taboo with the complicity of the politicians,” he told Reuters, explaining how many of the book’s targets willingly discussed their amorous exploits.

Sexus Politicus revisits old tales of how Mitterrand, an infamous ladies’ man, slept with the same women as some close aides, his driver and, on one occasion, Chirac.

The current French president also comes across as a veritable Casanova, disappearing on midnight rendez-vous and using state funds to take a mistress on foreign trips.

“Do you know where my husband is tonight?” the book quotes Chirac’s long-suffering wife Bernadette as asking his chauffeur on the night Princess Diana died in a Paris road accident.

GALLIC SHRUG

“There was a type of competition between Chirac and Mitterrand to see who could have more lovers. I don’t know who took the podium but it was a close thing,” said Dubois.

One ex-minister is spotted at a swingers club, one discarded mistress tries to commit suicide, another is cruelly dumped by a politician expected to contest the 2007 presidential election.

Allegations of such bedroom antics would shred political careers in many other countries, but in France, the elite are to some extent shielded by libel laws that hinder reporters from prying into private lives.

The book’s authors say they double checked its contents with those involved or have written proof, such as court documents.

If history is anything to go by, France’s politicians have little to fear about the revelations, given the traditional Gallic indifference to sex scandals, with the French not only forgiving dalliances at the top, but also expecting them.

One French president, Felix Faure, died in the arms of his lover, Napoleon’s affair with Josephine was legendary, and when Mitterrand revealed shortly before his death that he had an illegitimate daughter, the general reaction was “so what?”

“There is a French tradition of politicians who equate the conquest of power with the conquest of lovers. Sexual prowess seems to go with political success,” said Dubois.

However, all that may change if Socialist presidential front runner Segolene Royal should win the 2007 election. Royal may have to live by very different rules.

“What is tolerated for men would never be tolerated for women politicians. They would immediately be discredited if they went around having affairs,” said Dubois.

LAS VEGAS – The Clark County School District kicked off the first day of school Wednesday with scant resources. But it got a major donation from the scantily clad.

The same day the nation’s fifth largest school district began the year with some 400 teaching vacancies, the nonprofit corporation that supports it, the Public Education Foundation, accepted a $2,500 donation from a strip club, Scores Las Vegas.

“Thank you for your donation of $2,500, received on August 30, 2006,” said a letter from foundation president Judi Steele to Scores’ marketing director, Shai Cohen. “Thank you again for your willingness to support our community and invest in our children … our future.”

Scores raised the funds at an Aug. 23 back-to-school event called “Detention” that featured strippers dressed as teachers, schoolgirls and librarians.

“It’s back to school time and you know what that means. Detention for everyone who has been bad!” one advertisement read.

The performers peeled off clothes and offered lap dances to customers, Cohen said. Patrons also left more than $1,000 donations in a jar that the club said would go to the Clark County School District. Scores matched the donations roughly dollar for dollar, he said.

“In this town, money is money, regardless,” Cohen said. “We’re a respectable business. We pay taxes like everybody else. We have a business license. It’s for a good cause.”

“Education is very important,” he said.

The foundation’s director of development, Deb Hegna, said the donation was gratefully accepted.

“From any licensed, legitimate business, we’re certainly happy to accept donations,” she said, adding the gentleman’s club told them it had raised the funds at a charity event.

The money was earmarked for the foundation’s exchange program, which provides new or gently used materials, supplies and computers to Clark County teachers for free or little cost.

The district, a sprawling area covering 8,000 square miles in southern Nevada with more than 300,000 students expected this year, is the fastest growing in the nation, said school district spokesman Steve Lombard.

The district has had difficulty hiring teachers to keep pace with growth, especially with the high cost of housing in southern Nevada, he said. The state ranks 46th in the nation in per-pupil spending, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report.

The district’s associate superintendent, Karlene Lee, said the district was not informed about and did not condone the flier used to promote the strip event.

Lee had no comment on the fundraising activities of the foundation, a separate entity which raises about $5 million a year.

“The donation was made to the foundation and for the inner workings of how that functions, you can contact the foundation again.”

SEOUL (Reuters) – A South Korean sex trade show promised foreign women in steamy underwear, striptease acts and sex seminars but had to cancel the performances after losing its lingerie models to immigration laws, organizers said on Thursday.

The 2006 Seoul Sex Education Expo, dubbed Sexpo, opened on Thursday, however, with plenty of sex toys, lotions and audiovisual material.

“Immigration officials warned us if the models performed without having obtained the appropriate visa, they could be subject to deportation,” a Sexpo official said.

An immigration official said models from places such as Australia were planning to enter the country on tourist visas, but they needed performance visas.

The event, which runs through Sunday, had been heavily advertised.
Several male visitors were angry about seeing so many inflatable plastic women on display and no real ones.

“I came here for a show and all I have is this leaflet about sex toys. What’s going on here?” said one man in his mid-60s who asked not to be identified.

Sexpo has been held in other parts of Asia but civic groups in South Korea had pressed authorities to close the show on the grounds that it was offensive.

South Korea, however, already has a large and vibrant sex industry.