LORAIN, Ohio – A former Roman Catholic school principal accused of kissing three male students’ feet has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of sexual imposition.

Robert Holloway, the former principal at St. Anthony of Padua School in Lorain, entered the plea Monday. He also pleaded not guilty to charges of unauthorized use of public property.

Police Sgt. Mark Carpentiere said foot fetish material was found on two school computers seized from Holloway’s office, despite the educator’s claims he did not have a foot fetish.

Holloway, 50, resigned as principal in the spring after the 14-year-old students and their parents reported the foot-kissing to police.

The principal told authorities that the kissing was pay-up for a bet over a student-teacher volleyball game. He paid each student $15 and kissed their feet 50 times in the school’s library and gym.

Holloway’s attorney, Carmen Roberto, would not allow his client to speak to reporters after the hearing.

BOSTON – A former strip club waitress was sentenced Wednesday to five years of supervised release after she pleaded guilty to mailing threatening letters and flammable material, including condoms filled with a potentially explosive mixture, court documents said.

The documents said Kimberly Lynn Dasilva, 49, of Hull, mailed the condoms to a television station, strip clubs where she had worked and other places, saying she was tired of being mistreated by men. In May, she pleaded guilty to mailing threatening communications and a violation of injurious articles as nonmailable.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole sentenced Dasilva to the supervised release with conditions, including not contacting victims, receiving mental health counseling and treatment, performing 500 hours of community service and refraining from alcohol.

None of the condoms exploded. Dasilva told investigators she did not think they would explode.

LOS ANGELES – Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock each filed divorce papers Monday seeking to end their marriage of less than four months. Anderson’s representative would not comment on the reason or any particulars of the divorce. Anderson and Rock, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, each cited “irreconcilable differences” in their divorce filings in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

“Yes, it’s true,” Anderson wrote in a brief statement on her Web site. “Unfortunately impossible.”

A message left with Ritchie’s attorney wasn’t immediately returned.

The relationship between Anderson, 39, and Ritchie, 35, has been a turbulent one since they became engaged in 2002. They broke up the following year, but later reunited and held several wedding ceremonies over the summer.

They were wed in late July near St. Tropez, France, and again at a courthouse in Beverly Hills on Aug. 3. They also tied the knot in an Aug. 17 ceremony in Nashville, Tenn.

The pair filed separate divorce petitions, about an hour apart, early Monday. Anderson reported their separation date as Nov. 21; Ritchie said it was Nov. 26.

First word of the split was reported by “The Insider” syndicated news magazine.

Anderson’s spokeswoman, Tracy Nguyen, confirmed earlier this month that the actress had suffered a miscarriage.

The actress has two sons, Brandon, 10, and Dylan, 8, from her marriage to rocker
Tommy Lee. Ritchie, a Michigan native who owns a condo in Nashville, has a 13-year-old son, Bob Jr.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – A young South African has been fined by a local court for playing hooky from work and trying to cover it with a fake gynaecologist’s certificate attesting he was pregnant and needed a week off.

A magistrate’s court in Vereeniging, near Johannesburg, fined 27-year-old Charles Sibindana 1,000 rand (140 dollars/107 euros) for the brazen forgery, the SAPA news agency reported Monday.

Sibindana stole a medical certificate from a health centre used by his pregnant girlfriend but was apparently unaware that only women consulted gynaecologists.

Magistrate Bruno Van Eeden jokingly warned Sibindana “not to walk around faking sick letters from gynaecologists.”

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. – Now comes another reason to stay put in the La-Z-Boy: A man sitting in his easy chair was shot in the head by his wife, but the sturdy recliner absorbed most of the bullet’s force and left him virtually unscathed.

The couple had been arguing at home on Sunday evening, said Contra Costa County sheriff’s Lt. Charles Skuce. Then Jan Kamp stood behind her seated husband and fired a gun at the back of his head, Skuce said.

Because she fired through the recliner, the bullet only slightly wounded Norman Kamp, 57, Skuce said.

Norman stood up from his chair, followed his wife into the kitchen and declared, “You shot me,” according to authorities.

Jan Kamp fired a second shot at her husband, but missed, Skuce said. He retreated to a neighbor’s house in the unincorporated Pacheco area of the county, where he called 911.

After talking to deputies, Norman Kamp was treated at a hospital and released.

Jan Kamp, 58, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and booked at County Jail in Martinez.

TORONTO (Reuters) – A Canadian police search for marijuana grow operations mushroomed as officers discovered 22 units in a Toronto high rise were being used to cultivate the illegal drug, four times more than expected.

“It was quite shocking to us that there would be (22) in one particular apartment building,” Toronto police Det. Sgt. David Malcolm told a news conference on Friday.

Police found over 6,000 marijuana plants worth an estimated street value of over C$6.0 million ($5.31 million) scattered throughout the 22 apartments in the north Toronto building.

Media reports said police were originally alerted to the marijuana operations last April when a fire broke out in one of the units. Malcolm declined to specify what tipped off police.

Armed with search warrants for just five apartments in the 13-storey high rise, police discovered they had just scratched the surface.

“This is a huge public safety issue to other tenants in this building based on the use of electricity, and the threat of fire,” Campbell said.

“The damage to some of those units is extensive, not to mention the chemicals being poured down the drain system.”

Three men have been charged with various offenses including possession and production of marijuana and police say they expect to make more arrests.

In 2004, police raided an abandoned brewery near the Ontario city of Barrie which had 30,000 marijuana plants in what was called the biggest growing operation in Canadian history.

Police said the operation was the size of a football field, a street value of C$30 million ($26.55 million).

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Every two months, dozens of couples meet in a pub in Singapore, have drinks, mingle, and then decide whether they want to sleep with one another.

In Sydney or Seattle nobody would bat an eyelid, but the couples are part of a thriving underground swinging scene that is an anomaly for a country where oral sex is illegal and Playboy magazine is banned.

There are more than 10 swingers clubs in Singapore, most of them private, some of them online. With more than 6,000 members, the Web-based United SG Swingers is one of the biggest.

“There are a lot more people that are open to the idea. It’s so widespread now,” said a 42-year-old Singaporean company executive who only wanted to be identified as Jack.

“Swinging is all about sex. It’s satisfying the urge to have casual sex and doing it with somebody you’re comfortable with,” said Jack, who has been swinging for 10 years.

For all their enthusiasm, few swingers tell family and friends about their lifestyle, although the practice is not illegal in Singapore.

“In Singapore, most people will perceive us as perverts,” said a 39-year-old publisher who has been swinging for five years. “Look at our government policies, they say: ‘Let’s open up.’ But our policies have always remained very conservative.”

Wealthy Singapore, which has consistently ranked near the bottom in a global survey of sexually active nations, has been struggling to shake off its reputation for prudishness.

On Friday, it opened Sexpo 2006, the country’s second sex exhibition, featuring an array of toys and seminars.

SINGAPORE SWING

At United SG Swingers, people share erotic photographs, exchange personal ads and correspond about the next gathering. It is a close-knit community in which couples recommend good sex partners and criticise those who aren’t.

A police spokesman confirmed that swinging is not illegal as long as it is done behind closed doors, is consensual and no money changes hands.

This year, the organisers of United SG Swingers started holding “on premise” parties, where couples can engage in group sex in houses and hotel rooms across Singapore.

At these parties, the bedrooms have a strict clothes-off rule and the “hard swingers” can engage in partner swapping. The “soft swingers” are couples who stand around and watch, or have sex with their own partners in full view of others.

Couples who swing say that seeing their own partners in action keeps their passion burning.

“It’s like looking at cake and wanting to eat it,” said the main organiser of United SG Swingers, 37-year-old IT specialist Josh, as his 32-year-old wife nodded in agreement.

But some swingers disapprove of these parties, saying they can degenerate into orgies.

“You can’t establish pure friendships when there’s a large group,” said Ishak. “Genuine swingers would want to establish trust — you can’t trust a person just by meeting them one time and then think they can do it with your wife.”

A 34-year-old Australian who attends swinging parties told Reuters that Singapore’s scene is just evolving.

“It’s very innocuous here, it’s not like other countries,” he said. “Compared to Australia and Europe, it’s more discreet and less lively. Singaporeans are pretty reserved in a lot of ways.”

PHILADELPHIA – A man who mailed a bomb to a doctor because he was angry about how his penis enlargement surgery turned out was sentenced Tuesday to four years and 10 months in prison.

Blake Steidler, 25, of Reamstown, put the bomb in the mail on Feb. 11, 2005, in North Bloomfield, Ohio, addressed to the doctor in Chicago. After returning home, he called 911 and told police what he had done. The bomb was retrieved from the mail and destroyed; no one was injured.

Steidler pleaded guilty in April to use of a weapon of mass destruction and other charges. Defense lawyer Luis A. Ortiz said at the time of the plea that his client was mentally ill.

In addition to the prison term, Steidler was sentenced to five years supervised release, and a $2,000 fine.

BANGKOK (Reuters) – A Thai Buddhist monk cut off his penis with a machete because he had an erection during meditation and declined to have it reattached, saying he had renounced all earthly cares, a doctor and a newspaper said on Wednesday.

The 35-year-old monk, whose name was withheld for privacy reasons, allowed medical staff at Maharaj hospital, 780 km (480 miles) south of Bangkok to dress his wound, but refused reattachment, hospital chief Prawing Euanontouch said.

“We cleaned up the wound, gave him some stitches, but he declined to have it reattached because he said had abandoned everything,” Prawing told Reuters by telephone.

Prawing declined to comment on the monk’s erection, which Bangkok-based Kom Chad Luk tabloid reported on its Web site.

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) – The mayor of a small Brazilian town has begun handing out free Viagra, spicing up the sex lives of dozens of elderly men and their partners.

“Since we started the free distribution of sexual stimulants, our elderly population changed. They’re much happier,” said Joao de Souza Luz, the mayor of Novo Santo Antonio, a small town in the central state of Mato Grosso.

Souza Luz said 68 men over the age of 60 had already signed up for the program, which was approved by the town’s legislature and has been dubbed “Happy Penis,” or “Pinto Alegre” in Portuguese.

But the program has also had the unforeseen consequence of encouraging some extra-marital affairs, Souza Luz said.

“Some of the old men aren’t seeking out their wives. They’ve got romances on the side,” he said.

To discourage such illicit canoodling, Souza Luz said the city had decided to begin distributing the Viagra pills to the wives of the men who signed up for the program.

“That way, when the women are in the mood, they can give the pills to their husbands,” he said.

MANCHESTER, N.J. – A police officer who claimed he was conducting his own prostitution sting and strip search ended up being the one arrested. Authorities arrested James Michael Jackson, a police officer with the state Department of Human Services, and charged him with sexual assault and sexual misconduct for the so-called sting.

According to authorities, Jackson, 34, of Toms River, arranged through a service for a woman to meet him Wednesday at a local hotel in Manchester.

When she arrived, Jackson, carrying a badge and gun, told her she was under arrest. He made her take off her clothes and consent to a body cavity search before letting her go, said Ocean County Assistant Prosecutor Martin Anton.

The prosecutor said Jackson overstepped his bounds as a law enforcement official when he placed the female prostitute under arrest and performed a strip search.

As a police officer, Jackson had authority to make arrests, but not through an undercover operation of his own, Anton said.

“And a male to strip-search a female is just not done,” he added.

The woman reported the incident to authorities the next day, after she talked to law enforcement officers she knew who said Jackson’s behavior was illegal.

Jackson had been a police officer with Human Services for about six years. The department has about 75 officers working in various institutions and psychiatric hospitals or, in Jackson’s case, with children’s services case officers.

Jackson was assigned to the Division of Youth and Family Services’ Monmouth South office in Asbury Park.

Ed Rogan, a spokesman for the state Department of Human Services, expected that Jackson would be suspended by Monday, with proceedings leading to his termination starting soon after.

Jackson, who is free on $50,000 bail, faces five to 10 years in prison if convicted.

SAN FRANCISCO – Two peace activists have planned a massive anti-war demonstration for the first day of winter.

But they don’t want you marching in the streets. They’d much rather you just stay home.

The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace.

“The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it,” Reffell said Sunday. “Your mind is like a blank. It’s like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change.”

The couple are no strangers to sex and social activism. Sheehan, no relation to anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, brought together nearly 50 women in 2002 who stripped naked and spelled out the word “Peace.”

The stunt spawned a mini-movement called Baring Witness that led to similar unclothed demonstrations worldwide.

The couple have studied evolutionary psychology and believe that war is mainly an outgrowth of men trying to impress potential mates, a case of “my missile is bigger than your missile,” as Reffell put it.

By promoting what they hope to be a synchronized global orgasm, they hope to get people to channel their sexual energy into something more positive.

The couple said interest appears strong, with 26,000 hits a day to their Web site, http://www.globalorgasm.org.

“The dream is to have everyone in the world (take part),” Reffell said. “And if that means laying down your gun for a few minutes, then hey, all the better.”

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Miss Israel has been given permission not to carry her assault rifle during service in the Israeli army because she says it bruises her legs.

Reigning beauty queen Yael Nezri, a private who recently completed basic training, said the bruises were making it difficult for her to model in photo shoots.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Nezri, 18, had been granted an exemption by her commanders during her two-year army stint.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A plan to roll and smoke the world’s largest joint was cancelled at short notice in Amsterdam when the organizers realized they could be breaking the law.

“We have now read the small print and realize there could be problems,” Thijs Verheij, one of the organizers, was quoted as saying by ANP news agency after consulting Dutch drugs laws.

The group had wanted to roll a five-foot-long pure-weed joint, stuffed with more than a pound of marijuana and containing no tobacco, and smoke it in a bar.

It had initially thought the attempt would be legal if 100 people each brought along the five grams of the drug tolerated by Dutch authorities for personal use.

“Unfortunately it looks like this will not be possible,” Verheij said. The attempt had been planned for Wednesday.

A police spokesman said: “We would definitely have investigated this. If you make a single joint with half a kilo of cannabis in it, it would cross the line.”

Verheij said the group had hoped to beat a record set with a joint containing 100 grams of marijuana.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian authorities want to stop the daytime airing of a television advertisement promoting flavoured condoms saying it is obscene and in bad taste, a newspaper reported Friday.

The advert promotes DKT’s “XXX” strawberry, chocolate and banana flavoured condoms with the catchline “What is your flavor of the night?.”

But the Advertising Standards Council of India and the Censor Board have asked the government to bar the ad from being broadcast during the day, especially during the popular Champions Trophy international cricket tournament.

“This campaign is obscene,” Sharmila Tagore, chairwoman of the Censor Board was quoted as saying in the Times of India. “Maybe DKT is targeting raunchy teenagers. But the ads are definitely not meant for children.”

Tagore, who is also an anti-AIDS activist, said she did not want to ban the advert totally, but recommended it be aired after 11 p.m. or in cinemas with an “A certification” instead of during the day when children were watching television.

An A certification on a film or advert indicates that it is meant for adult viewing only.

A senior DKT official told the newspaper the flavored condoms were not meant to promote oral sex, but to encourage couples who do not like the smell of latex.

Conservative attitudes to sex and contraception and a lack of awareness is common, especially in rural India.

Experts say this has not only left children and women vulnerable to abuse but has also exacerbated the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country, which now has the highest number of cases in the world.

According to the United Nations, 5.7 million Indians are living with the virus. But activists say the true figure may be far higher as social stigma forces many of those infected to keep their status a secret.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese sociologists said that the country should promote bolder attitudes toward sex, but that wife-swapping was off the agenda, state media reported Monday.

Chinese attitudes toward sex have relaxed in recent decades, triggering a boom in extramarital relationships which the Communist Party has blamed on bourgeois mores imported from the West.

“Wife-swapping should not be promoted to the public as it will lead to the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases,” the China Daily quoted Zhang Feng, a family planning official, as saying at the fourth Guangzhou Sex Culture Expo at the weekend.

“Neither the sex forum nor the expo should provide a platform for advertising bold and unacceptable views to the public.”

Zhang’s comments echoed the views of other speakers but contrasted the views of Li Yinhe, a sociologist who last year said that wife-swapping was a “normal kind of entertainment” and that “all couples should have the right to do it.”

“There is only a meager amount of couples who accept Li’s views, as most people still have more traditional and moral attitudes about sex,” Zhu Mingxi, a provincial sexology official, told the paper.

Themed “building moral sexual attitudes,” the expo’s opening day Saturday attracted 60,000 visitors, 10,000 more than last year.

“As China is undergoing the so called ‘sexual revolution’, we are attaching great importance to promoting traditional moral ideas about sexuality,” the paper quoted an expert identified only as Duan as saying.

“China has a totally different attitude toward sex from many countries. We should not only promote a bold, open attitude, as in Western countries, but also preserve healthy, traditional views on sex.”

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Nearly two-thirds of young Indian men expect the woman they marry to be a virgin, but nearly half have had sex with prostitutes, according to a poll.

The survey of more than 2,500 men aged between 16 and 25 conducted by India Today magazine across 11 cities found that 49 percent claimed to have had sex with a sex worker while 37 percent said they had had a homosexual experience.

But 63 percent of young men in conservative India said they expected the women they married to be a virgin.

The average age of their first sexual encounter appears to be falling — to 18 years from 23 in a similar survey two years ago, but condom use is on the rise, the report said. More than half of the men surveyed said they always used a condom.

Fourteen percent of those surveyed said they had had sex with a member of their own family.

SEOUL (Reuters) – Hot pants and miniskirts will soon be legal in South Korea.

The country is in the final stages of revising an indecency law that prohibits people from wearing revealing outfits and was once enforced by ruler-wielding police during authoritarian governments in the 1970s, officials said.

“The law for excessive exposure does not match our current society,” said Kim Jae-kwang, an official with the Korea Legislation Research Institute.

Under authoritarian rule, police could arrest or fine women for their fashion choices. They also took scissors to men whose hair they felt was too long and tossed people in jail for unauthorized dancing.

The rules stayed on the books as South Korea moved to an open democracy in the late 1980s, but were no longer enforced.

Now miniskirts are about as common as traffic jams in the capital of Seoul and police have long given up on measuring the distance from knees to hemlines.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – No shirt, no service? What about no clothes at all? A couple that began squabbling in a motel room Friday morning carried their dispute over to an adjacent Waffle House restaurant in the nude, police said.

The woman, who was not identified, told officers she was staying in a room with Larry Boyd when he took a hit of cocaine, started trashing their room and choked her.

She ran in the buff to the nearby restaurant and locked herself in the bathroom. Boyd, also naked, followed her into the restaurant and then fled in a car.

He was arrested — still naked — after a short chase by police and was charged with driving under the influence and felony evading arrest, among other charges. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney.

NEW YORK – A detective suspended after testing positive for drugs says his wife served him meatballs spiked with marijuana because she wanted to keep him out of harm’s way by forcing him into retirement.

An administrative judge believed him, and recommended this week that Anthony Chiofalo be reinstated.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has yet to decide what to do.

“We can’t comment because the matter will still come before the police commissioner for a final determination,” said spokesman Paul Browne.

Chiofalo, a 22-year-veteran assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, was suspended without pay last year after a random drug test found marijuana in his system. The officer denied ever using drugs and demanded a hearing.

During an investigation, his wife said she had substituted marijuana for oregano in her meatball recipe in hopes of forcing him to leave police work.

The detective’s lawyers also presented evidence that she had passed a lie-detector test, and offered testimony from a toxicologist that the excuse was valid.

HELL, Mich. – Catherine Greene was admittedly a little nervous when she said “I do” to fiance Nicholas Doubleday during a Halloween-themed wedding ceremony in this unusually named hamlet. “It was her idea,” Doubleday said. “When I asked her to marry me, she said she wanted the wedding in Hell.”

The couple live near San Diego and are planning to relocate to Michigan. They haven’t ruled out moving to Hell, which has about 250 people and is 45 miles west of Detroit.

The bride, a registered nurse, was dressed in black and wore vampire teeth during Tuesday’s nuptials. She walked down the lantern-lit, pumpkin-lined aisle in cadence with a funeral dirge instead of the “Wedding March.”

The groom, who hopes to become a history teacher, was a knight clad in 80 pounds of armor.

“I will have these wonderful memories forever,” Greene told The Ann Arbor News.

It was the second such ceremony at John Colone’s Hell Village Chapel, a tiny building that stands behind his Screams Ice Cream & Halloween Store.

“This is great,” Colone said. “I love the joy and the laughter we can bring into people’s lives.”

The maid of honor, Terri Dunham of Oceanside, Calif., was dressed as an angel in white. Greene’s bridesmaids were dressed as medieval princesses.

“Having the wedding here totally makes sense,” Dunham said. “I’ve known Cathy since we were in sixth grade and she’s always been extreme and offbeat.

“Everyone wants a special and unique wedding. This will be a great story to tell to their grandchildren.”

Greene and Doubleday met in 2003 in Alaska, where she was going to college and he was in the Air Force. Their ghoulish wedding day was their third trip to Hell together.

MUMBAI, Nov 2 (Reuters Life!) – Indian police have an unusual undercover surveillance job this week, scanning the ramps and observing models at a top fashion show to check that no one intentionally displays too much flesh.

Police in plain clothes mingled with India’s cigar-chomping, crystal-clinking class at the Lakme Fashion Week, after busting zippers and slipping bustiers at the show’s last edition sparked a morality debate in the conservative country.

“We are keeping an eye on each show. We don’t want any bad example to be set,” said Sanjay Mohite, deputy commissioner of police in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital.

In March, a series of “wardrobe malfunctions” at the show saw models exposing their breasts and buttocks, sending newspapers and television channels into a frenzy of excitement.

Indian police even launched an investigation into the incidents, but later concluded that the clothes had come undone by accident.

This time, police have issued a 28-point guide for the organizers and designers, including a directive that models wear nipple tape so that they don’t show through flimsy dresses, and that lights be switched off if clothes come off.

Police said they reserved the right to cancel a show if their guidelines were violated.

“We have a set of guidelines to follow. I think everyone is happy about it,” said Anil Chopra, vice-president of organizers Lakme.

The Lakme Fashion Week, which ends on Saturday, is being attended by top buyers such as Browns, H&M and Saks Fifth Avenue, and is parading the creations by 47 young or famous designers.

Talk of sex in public is considered rude in India, while even holding hands or kissing in public is frowned upon and can draw jeers.

Officials even declared war on Mumbai’s traditionally risque nightlife last year, shutting hundreds of popular dance bars on the grounds they bred crime and prostitution.

Some hardline Hindu groups are part of a growing band of cultural vigilantes opposed to what they see as increasing mimicry of the West, especially by teenagers.

Such groups have in the past stopped young people from celebrating
Valentine’s Day and prevented the screening of controversial films dealing with homosexuality, saying they denigrated India’s ancient traditions.