SYDNEY, Jan 30 (Reuters Life!) – An Australian psychologist charged with indecently assaulting a patient told a court on Tuesday that forcing his female patient to wear a dog collar and call him master was within a psychologist’s ethical guidelines.

Psychologist Bruce Beaton, 64, pleaded not guilty in the Western Australia District Court to four charges of indecently assaulting a 22-year-old woman in 2005, local media reported.

Beaton was arrested when police, who had been secretly video recording the session with the woman, heard whipping sounds, reported Australian Associated Press from the court.

Beaton told the court he resorted to master-servant treatment with his bulimic patient because other methods had failed. He said he thought forcing the woman to wear a dog collar and call him master would build a more trusting relationship.

He said such treatment was allowed by the Australian Psychological Society. “It is right within the ethical guidelines,” Beaton told the court.

“I am not saying it would be all right if I hit her. I did not hit her,” he said. The trial continues.

BEIJING, Jan 29 (Reuters Life!) – Treadmills are run-of-the-mill — Luo Lan wants the Chinese masses to pole dance instead.

As manager of Beijing’s first pole dancing school, Luo says she is trying to make exercise fun — and not morally corrupt anyone in a country where this kind of dancing is associated with seedy bars and sex is still a taboo topic.

But she admits she has had a tough time convincing people that pole dancing, which has a celebrity following said to include pop star Britney Spears and heiress Paris Hilton, is great for your health.

“When I first started people would only come furtively, and not tell their boyfriends or husbands,” Luo told Reuters in the apartment she has converted into a dance studio with poles bolted to the floor and roof.

“But over the last year, people have started to hear more about pole dancing, and they know it’s purely for keeping fit,” she added, as one of her students in black hotpants writhed around a shiny steel pole.

“Now people come and say, oh, my husband let me sign up. This progress is very obvious,” she added. “The more and more people do it the wider the acceptance will be. They’ll see that it’s normal and natural.”

Luo started her pole dancing school, located in a fashionable part of Beijing, last July after realizing that nobody in the city was offering classes in what had become a fashionable way to shape up and lose weight in the United States and Europe.

“Lots of girls love pole dancing, but like me could not find a place to learn. So I spent a lot of time doing research, watching DVDs,” Luo said.

“It’s not hard like ballet. It’s very easy to do.”

Gym membership has become increasingly popular with China’s newly affluent middle class, who are keen to shape up in a country where obesity levels have risen with incomes over the last few decades on the tails of an economic boom.

Luo now runs up to three classes a day, for a maximum of seven students, who pay 110 yuan ($14.15) a session.

“I love the feeling, just like flying,” said Xiao Wei, demonstrating a recently learned move. “My legs were quite fat before, and the results have been very obvious.”

Another student, Yuan Xi, dismissed concerns that pole dancing is just for bar girls or strippers, adding that her love of the pole had nothing to do with sex.

“China is a very conservative country, and many people cannot accept this,” said the 22-year-old. “Some men seem to think it’s only about sex, but it’s not. It’s about dancing.”

HANAHAN, S.C. – A former city firefighter fined $200 after he and a girlfriend had sex in an unfinished house now has been charged with arson for setting fire to the structure.

Paul Joseph Sloan, 26, of North Charleston, is charged with second-degree arson, Hanahan Police Sgt. Matt Woodall said.

Sloan is accused of starting fires Aug. 24 in the attic and master bedroom of an upscale three-story house, according to an affidavit from a State Law Enforcement Division investigator.

Sloan, a Hanahan firefighter at the time, was off duty when he reported the 3 a.m fire. The fire damaged the roof of the house, which was about 70 percent finished, and delayed completion of the home.

The fire started when someone lit a cardboard box filled with door molding in the attic and a piece of floor molding that was pushed into insulation in the master bedroom.

Sloan earlier told investigators his DNA would be found inside the house because he and his former girlfriend had sex in several places there earlier.

He pleaded guilty in November to unlawful entry and was fined $200.

SARATOGA, Calif. – Who was that undressed man? That’s the question startled hikers, bikers and horseback riders are asking about a jogger seen streaking through an open space preserve wearing nothing but sneakers, glasses and a black tam hat.

“He passed me and said `Good evening,’” said equestrian Sue Bowdoin, who spotted the naked man, middle-aged and sporting a pale paunch, while riding her horse, Randy, on a trail in Fremont Older Open Space Preserve last summer. “I thought: Ugh!”

Although numerous park users have reported seeing the exhibitionist over the last year-and-a-half, rangers have been unable to identify and arrest him for exposing himself, said Gordon Baillie of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.

By most accounts, the man is polite and does nothing other than run in the buff.

A woman who saw him said he looked scared and backed away after she cornered him with her horse and told him he was offending people.

People who use the park regularly have not reported recent sightings in the cold weather, but they theorize he may be incognito because he is clothed. With dark hair, sweaty red skin and lack of body hair, he is easily recognizable, Bowdoin said.

“He’s frumpy. Plain. Not in good physical shape,” Bowdoin said. “It’s not a pretty sight.’

PARIS (Reuters) – The powerful fashion federations of France, Italy, the United States and Britain have decided to address the controversy over ultra-thin models, the French body said Thursday.

The fashion industry has been widely attacked for promoting the kind of stick-thin images which critics say contribute to eating disorders in young women and some countries have taken cautious measures to bring more weight onto the catwalks.

Spain barred models below a certain body mass from Madrid fashion shows in September and organizers of New York’s fashion shows this month issued guidelines to tackle the problem, although stopping short of banning them.

“All actors concerned must get involved in the matter of information,” France’s fashion federation said Thursday, adding delegates from Italy’s, Britain’s and America’s fashion bodies had discussed the issue jointly at talks Wednesday.

“La Federation de la Couture, la Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the British Fashion Council … decided to participate in this reflection, in liaison with respective public authorities.”

The federation did not give any details on the form of cooperation.

The French industry group had agreed to hold talks with the French health ministry on the issue, it added.

The head of the French fashion federation, Didier Grumbach, said earlier this week Paris would not take extra measures to ban ultra-skinny models from catwalks because its rules on their health were already strict.

“We must be attentive and inform young women but not regulate even more,” Grumbach said on the sidelines of an haute couture show in Paris Monday.

France’s health minister has said he wants a working group to assess the impact that images of skinny models have on young women.

The fashion world has been debating the issue of ultra-thin models, with many designers and models shrugging off concern that they encourage eating disorders in girls and young women.

Italy’s government and its fashion chiefs have signed a pact aimed at keeping models who appear sickly thin off the catwalk by requiring them to prove they are in good health.

Brazil has also launched a campaign to ban underage, underweight models from its catwalks in response to the death of a Brazilian model from complications due to anorexia.

HONG KONG, Jan 25 (Reuters Life!) – An evocative exhibition of gay art has brought out the prudes in fast-living Hong Kong.

Even before it opened this week, the In/Out Hong Kong Tongzhi, or gay, exhibition was already causing a stir because of a lesbian love poem that was controversially yanked after authorities deemed it obscene.

The short poem, written in rhyming colloquial Cantonese, details a flirtatious SMS phone exchange between two women.

But with lines like “I’d like to pinch your thighs” and “I’ve no choice but to touch myself,” the poem was classified as a “Class II article” by Hong Kong’s Obscene Articles Tribunal, making it unsuitable for anyone under the age of 18. The exhibition’s organisers were also told to remove it.

“I think it’s a ridiculous ruling,” said Perspex Wai, one of around 30 gay artists with works displayed at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Lobby. “These rulings normally apply to photographs or very graphic scenes. Not a poem!

“Many (newspaper) editors decided to print the offending lyrics the next day anyway. It’s laughable,” she added.

Despite calling itself Asia’s “global” city, cosmopolitan Hong Kong’s gay artists say they often have to remain in the closet — a reality reflected in the pseudonyms they use at the exhibition that include Vice, Bearity and Perspex.

A recent TV documentary on gay marriage was labelled “unfair, partial and biased towards homosexuality” by the Broadcasting Authority after complaints from the public and Christian groups.

Although the city’s attitudes to homosexuality are far more tolerant than in some other Asian countries, many gays say their government could do a lot more to encourage debate on the rights of sexual minorities and to ease social stigmas.

“There seems to be a concerted effort within the government to clamp down on whatever developments gay and lesbian groups can get,” said Roddy Shaw, a gay rights campaigner.

“It’s very worrying and it has to be exposed,” he added.

The exhibition’s self-stated aim is to “encouraging Hong Kong’s tongzhis to explore issues of identity, gender and sexuality” and — with the exception of the poem — it has largely managed to escape the censor’s wrath.

Works on display include a collage of a dancing queen entitled “Pure Lesbian” with a caption declaring “I’m born to love women.”

Other works suggest themes of concealment and struggle, including a black and white photograph of a Chinese man slicing off a mask with scissors, while another photo-montage depicted a slim lesbian superhero in dark wrap-around shades punching out at an unseen foe with bright yellow boxing gloves.

The exhibition runs until January 28.

TRENTON, N.J. – New Jersey has warned squirrel hunters near a toxic waste dump about consuming the critters because they could be contaminated with lead.

It is the first time the state has cautioned Ringwood residents _ many who are members of the Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe who hunt and fish in the area _ about their squirrel intake, said Tom Slater, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Senior Services.

A lead-contaminated squirrel was found in the area two months ago, prompting the agency, along with the state Department of Environmental Protection, to send out letters advising that adults eat squirrel no more than twice a week and even less for children and pregnant women.

Lead, which is harmful in small amounts, can damage the nervous system, red blood cell production and the kidneys.

“We’ve known for a long time something was wrong here, we just didn’t know what it was,” resident Myrtle Van Dunk said.

Residents and many environmental activists believe the lead comes from toxic waste, including paint sludge, dumped in the area by the Ford Motor Co. during the 1960s and early 1970s, from its now-closed car manufacturing plant in Mahwah.

Ford is removing thousands of tons of waste from a 500-acre former mining property in the Ringwood area. The site was recently relisted on the federal Superfund list, a ranking of the country’s worst environmental dump sites, after multiple cleanups failed to remove all the sludge.

I’m still trying to figure out who would go hunting near a toxic waste dump in the first place, let alone that you have to warm them not to eat what’s running around there.

SINGAPORE, Jan 25 (Reuters Life!) – Add a spark to your day — and nights — with lingerie that lights up.

A U.S. firm is selling bras and camisoles trimmed with colourful light-emitting diodes (LEDs), as well as sequins and feathers, that literally put your cleavage in the spotlight.

“Light-up bras make a popular addition to any outfit, and will definitely bring you attention,” the company, Enlighted, says on its Web site (www.enlighted.com).

The California-based company custom-makes lingerie, including hot pink bras trimmed in marabou and lights and “wearable art” bras that have LEDs and sequins arranged in geometric patterns. It also puts LEDs on clothes, shoes and hats.

Enlighted says the clothing is safe and comfortable, despite all the wiring and the battery needed to power the lights.

“Our electronics are lightweight, flexible and concealed within fabric linings. Seriously, you’d forget about the lights if you didn’t have so many people staring at you!” it said.

NEW YORK (AFP) – Former Hollywood wild child Drew Barrymore likes nothing more than ripping off her clothes and running naked through the fields — although apparently only in Ireland, according to a recent interview.

“I’ll drive in Ireland and park my car and run out into the field and rip all my clothes off and just run in the wheat fields naked,” the actress says in an interview with Parade magazine due to appear Sunday.

The star also recalls another naked incident, when she flashed talk show host David Letterman live on network television in 1995.

“I’m so glad I was so free at one point in my life,” she says.

She adds that she is aware the idea might raise a few eyebrows.

“I think it alarms people, because I’m so responsible now that when I do do it, it’s almost surprising rather than, ‘Oh, that’s just her doing her thing again.’”

After appearing in Steven Spielberg’s box office hit “E.T.” at the age of seven, Barrymore dabbled in drugs and alcohol before she was even a teenager.

She returned to cinema after surviving a troubled adolescence and beating her addictions, but she maintained her bad-girl image, posing for Playboy magazine and appearing nude in several films.

The scion of one of Hollywood’s great acting dynasties, Barrymore has appeared in several hit films, including “Poison Ivy,” “Scream,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “50 First Dates” and “Fever Pitch.”

Her latest film, the romantic comedy “Music and Lyrics,” opens next month.

CANBERRA (Reuters Life!) – An Australian man who for four years used a tiny camera hidden in the toe of his shoe to film up women’s skirts on commuter trams has been arrested by police.

The man used the device, hidden in a pair of black sneakers, to film women’s underwear, while a second camera disguised as a music player captured images of their faces to later match.

The man, in his 20s, was arrested after one woman became suspicious of his behavior on a commuter tram in Melbourne, a city of around 4 million, and spotted the hidden lens, Australian newspapers reported on Thursday.

Searching the man’s home, police later seized photographs and recording equipment showing the man had been secretly filming up female dresses for at least four years.

He is to be charged for stalking and being a public nuisance, carrying a maximum 10-year jail term.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – As the rich and slim flocked to waterfront convention centre for Rio de Janeiro’s glitzy biannual fashion show, prostitutes in a downtown square took to a cobblestone catwalk for a show of their own.

Sex service workers from Davida, a Brazilian organisation that defends the rights of prostitutes, strutted through the streets wearing their new line of fall/winter clothes.

The brand’s name is Daspu, is a play on “Daslu,” one of Brazil’s most expensive and exclusive fashion names being displayed across town by top models like Gisele Bundchen.

Gabriela Leite, a founder of Daspu, said it was no mistake that her show was running on Fashion Rio’s biggest night.

“This fashion show today makes up part of our fall/winter collection that is not on the official agenda of Fashion Rio because we were never invited. Once again, social responsibility does not appear where it should appear,” Leite said.

According to organizers, the new 2007 fall/winter line draws from the deep well of artists inspired by prostitutes, from Toulouse Lautrec and Pablo Picasso to Madonna and Sting.

Hired models and prostitutes walked a makeshift catwalk in an alleyway in Rio’s red-light district, throwing condoms to an animated crowd of hundreds.

There were spartan and utilitarian shirts with black and white blocks, colorful prints and plenty of eye-catching incarnations of the staple of the industry: the miniskirt.

An eclectic group of spectators – including deserters from Fashion Rio looking for something different – ended the evening dancing samba to a live drum troupe.

THE HAGUE (AFP) – Amsterdam’s red light district is reportedly to receive a bronze statue dedicated to prostitutes around the world.

According to the Dutch agency ANP, sculptress Els Rijerse made the statue at the request of a former prostitute Mariska Majoor, who a decade ago founded a centre on prostitution in the Dutch capital.

Majoor was quoted as saying by ANP that the statue would be a first of its kind and that it had received the blessing of the city authorities.

The statue represents a self-assured woman, her hands on her hips, looking sideways towards the sky, and standing on a doorstep, ANP said.

The precise place where the statue will be laid and its title have not yet been announced, it said.

HONG KONG, Jan 19 (Reuters Life!) – Forget chocolates or roses this
Valentine’s Day — a gift of musical condoms is bound to be more entertaining.

Hong Kong’s Ondo Creation, which makes designer condoms, hopes its Idom sheathes will put a more romantic spin on safe sex — and reduce the risk of a slap on the face that a pack of six might elicit among some conservative Asians.

The Idom itself doesn’t sing — but the mint, strawberry, chocolate and banana flavoured condoms come in an attractive package with a music CD to get you in the mood for love.

“We create an environment for lovers who would like to try a different experience,” said Victor Tsang who runs Ondo Creation.

“We try to create products that are not embarrassing, but very trendy and hip. It’s a lifestyle product,” he added.

Cynics may scoff at the marketing gloss, but the 18 month start-up’s products sell across the world. The firm also won a bronze medal in the Industrial Design Excellence Awards run in conjunction with BusinessWeek magazine, which said Ondo had managed to “revitalise the image of condoms”.

Tsang, a former IT executive, says his product was inspired by a desire to promote safe sex and to provide a fun, relaxed alternative for what he calls “more conservative” customers.

The brand eschews regular prophylactic distributors, instead peddling its wares in bookstores, record shops and trendy nightspots in a long list of cities that includes Hong Kong, London, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Singapore.

“We’re targeting more lifestyle stores, rather than 7-11′s and pharmacies,” said Tsang.

“There’s a market gap in the condom industry that we may be able to make fun — and also penetrate,” said Tsang who expected a 30 percent surge in sales ahead of Valentine’s Day.

The Idom’s Exotica, Chocotasy and Loveberry brands come with CD compilations of chillout, acid jazz and dance music.

“The music starts slow, then medium, then becomes fast before getting slow again,” said Jack Wong, who helped with the music.

He shrugs off the fact that the CDs run for exactly 18 minutes: “Whether this is long enough or not, really depends on the individual.”

DETROIT, United States (AFP) – Philanderers beware: spouses caught cheating in Michigan could end up spending the rest of their life in prison.

And not the emotional kind.

The state’s appeals court recently ruled that extramarital flings can be prosecuted as first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in jail.

“We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today,” Judge William Murphy wrote in a unanimous Court of Appeals panel, “but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion.”

“Technically,” he added, “any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I,” the most serious sexual assault charge in the state’s criminal code.

Michigan still lists adultery as a felony, although no one has been convicted of the offense since 1971.

Nobody really expects prosecutors to go after cheating spouses. But the ruling has the local legal community twittering about its genuine intended target.

One theory floating around the courthouse is that the judges were taking a jab at the state Supreme Court, which has decreed that judges must interpret statutory language adopted by the Legislature literally, whatever the consequences.

Many other states allow judges to reject a literal interpretation if they believe it would lead to an absurd result.

Judge Murphy wrote that he encouraged “the Legislature to take a second look at the statutory language if they are troubled by our ruling.”

A spokesman for the attoney general, who publicly admitted to adultery in November, declined to say whether they would press for legislative amendments to make it clear that only violent felonies involving an unwilling victim could trigger a first-degree CSC charge.

“This is so bizarre that it doesn’t even merit a response,” Rusty Hill said.

The appeals court decision involved a man convicted of trading prescription painkillers for sex.

In an attempt to increase his jail time, prosecutors used an obscure provision of the state’s criminal law to charge him with criminal sexual conduct, which occurs whenever “sexual penetration occurs under circumstances involving the commission of any other felony.

OMAHA, Neb. – Two things made Christopher Willever’s drunken theft of a Tobacco Hut even worse as he crawled across the store floor, a lousy belt and his camera-loving backside.

Omaha’s bare-bottom bandit was sentenced to three to five years in prison Friday for his March crime that earned him the fitting distinction.

“You were an ass in every true sense of the word in this crime,” Douglas County District Judge Thomas Otepka told the 22-year-old Willever.

Tired of being poor, Willever drank a fifth of rum and decided to rob the store, said his public defender, Kelly Steenbock.

He was drunk enough not to realize that his pants had fallen down, exposing his bottom to cameras that eventually fed the surveillance to TV shows across the country.

“He was pretty humiliated and embarrassed,” Steenbock said. “He showed his bottom to whoever turned on the TV.”

Steenbock pleaded the judge to sympathize with Willever’s youth, no prior felony charges and participation in an alcohol treatment program.

Otepka said Willever was an adult who is still supported by his mother and does not have a high school diploma. He also said Willever denied encounters with out-of-state authorities until presented with the cases.

Willever was arrested again later in the year for receiving stolen property from another burglary, while still facing charges in the bottom-baring case.

Willever could be eligible for parole after 18 months; he must also pay $1,100 in restitution to the store.

CORAOPOLIS, Pa. – An elderly woman unknowingly gave a bank robber a lift, according to the woman and police.

Juanita Bland, 75, was stopped near a post office in Coraopolis shortly before noon Monday when the electric sliding door of her minivan became stuck. The van is equipped with a motorized door and ramp for her wheelchair.

“I couldn’t get out of the van, so I waited a few moments hoping somebody would walk by who might be able to help,” said Bland. “Then I saw this fellow walking my way, so I beckoned him over and asked if he could please help with the door.”

The man, according to police, had just robbed a PNC Bank branch.

The man slid the door closed, and then got into the passenger seat and asked for a ride, Bland said.

“He didn’t seem threatening or anything, so I said ‘OK’ and drove off,” she said. He exited a few blocks later, got into a white sedan and drove off.

Bland said a friend called her concerned that she had been abducted because another acquaintance heard on a police scanner that the suspect had gotten into her van.

“When I think back now of what could have happened, I feel blessed that I’m OK,” Bland said.

FORT PAYNE, Ala. – A Geraldine man who allegedly stole a Fyffe woman’s undergarments has been charged with property theft. Joseph Edward Reaves, 44, was arrested after he turned himself in Wednesday morning and has been released from the DeKalb County Jail on $500 bond.

Investigator Rhonda Jackson said the woman had hung some of her undergarments outside to dry in mid-December when several items of clothing, including about four pairs of underwear and four bras, were stolen.

Jackson said Reaves has confessed to the crime, and admits he has a problem.

She said he went to an outlet store in Boaz and bought four bras and three or four pairs of underwear to replace the stolen items. He wrapped the new undergarments in Christmas wrapping, then left the package for the victim.

Jackson said Reaves has been arrested for the same type of offenses in the past.

She said Reaves, who has a fetish for women’s undergarments especially bras, was being very cooperative.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Britney Spears and Paris Hilton have been named the worst dressed celebrities of 2006, according to an annual list from US fashion critic “Mr. Blackwell.”

The poison-penned arbiter of style described newly single Spears and celebrity socialite Hilton as “two peas in an over-exposed pod! Style-free and fashion deprived.”

Spears and Hilton have been regularly photographed together enjoying nights out on the town in the wake of Spears’ decision to file for divorce from husband Kevin Federline.

Next on the list was Camilla Parker-Bowles, the wife of the future king of England, Prince Charles, dubbed by Blackwell as “The Duchess of Dowdy.”

Party-loving teen idol Lindsay Lohan was next, with Blackwell saying her dress sense had gone from “adorable to deplorable.”

Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Paula Abdul, Sharon Stone, Tori Spelling, Sandra Oh and Meryl Streep rounded out the list.

Blackwell did have some kind words, however, praising British actress Kate Winslet, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce and Katie Holmes for their sense of style.

Fashion critic Blackwell has issued his “ten worst-dressed women of the year” awards annually since 1960.

WENGEN, Switzerland – Rainer Schoenfelder lost a bet Wednesday, and paid for it by skiing nude down the Lauberhorn. The 29-year-old Austrian skier, who hurt his neck and back in a crash last week, lost a bet with his physiotherapist, who had been treating his injuries. Schoenfelder had vowed to ski naked if his pains had lessened by Wednesday morning.

Schoenfelder skied wearing only yellow boots and an orange helmet and gloves, and a photographer snapped a shot of the skier that has been circulated on the Internet.

“Somehow I didn’t notice the photographer,” Schoenfelder said. “It was an internal bet and of course the whole thing wasn’t planned for the public.

“I am happy, though, that the pains have eased up and that it was not cold when I honored my debt.”

Schoenfelder had been in pain since his crash in Adelboden last week. After little success treating the pain, his physio performed a “special” treatment on Tuesday and Schoenfelder said he woke up the following morning without pain for the first time since an accident in Turracher Hoehe, Austria, a day before the World Cup races in Adelboden.

Austria head coach Toni Giger said he did not think Schoenfelder would be sanctioned for the stunt.

“I have no problem with nudity in general,” Giger said. “I haven’t seen the pictures but no one was hurt. … This was typical Schoenfelder behavior.”

Schoenfelder has had a run of bad luck recently.

In the giant slalom at Adelboden, he was disqualified for committing a rare rule violation — he kicked out of the start hut four seconds too early.

World Cup racers have a 10-second window in which to push open the starting wand. They are warned by a succession of beeps when they can go, but Schoenfelder pre-empted the start.

WATERBURY, Conn. – A criminal defense attorney has been arrested on a disorderly conduct charge involving kissing as a crime.

Ralph Crozier, 55, of Southbury was arrested Thursday for kissing a female judicial marshal at Waterbury Superior Court on Dec. 22.

Crozier said state police investigators told him the marshal did not invite him to kiss her, which was why criminal charges were filed.

“This is the biggest baloney I’ve ever seen in my life,” Crozier said Thursday. “How many tens of thousands of people in Connecticut wished their co-workers and friends `Merry Christmas’ the day before Christmas?”

The incident was captured on security video.

Crozier said the video will prove he meant nothing sexual by the kiss, which he described as a peck on the cheek. He says the incident is an example of political correctness run amok.

“It was a Christmas greeting. I had no intention to annoy or harass anybody,” Crozier said. “Every one of us knew we were on camera. This was a peck on the cheek. That was the extent. There was nothing here that was weird or sexual.”

The arrest warrant affidavit is sealed until Jan. 24, when Crozier is scheduled to be arraigned at the Waterbury courthouse. He is free on a $10,000 bond.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German retiree who wired up a high-voltage cable to try to wipe out the moles digging up his garden killed himself instead, police said Thursday.

Uwe Werner, police spokesman in Stralsund north of Berlin, said the 63-year-old retired construction foreman was found dead in the garden of his weekend house in Zingst next to a 380-volt cable and metal spikes rammed into the ground.

“The moles survived,” Werner said, noting the voltage was enough to run a cement mixer or heavy-duty power saw. “It was in any event an unorthodox method to try to get rid of moles.”

CAPE CORAL, Fla. – A man who tried to keep bees off his property accidentally set fire to his house instead, causing at least $500 damage.

Franklyn Pigott Jr. set his home ablaze Wednesday while attempting to destroy a nest of bees that had formed outside the home, the Fort Myers News-Press reported Thursday.

When Pigott, 38, mixed a product called Real Kill Indoor Fogger with WD-40, it became a “flame-thrower” and melted the home’s vinyl siding, according to a police incident report.

LAGOS (AFP) – Samuel Akinbode Sadela, Nigeria’s oldest preacher at 107, said he derived his strength from God after marrying a 30-year woman.

“The Lord is my strength. I am very strong and energetic,” they quoted him as saying after the wedding in Lagos.

Sadela, founder of Gospel Apostolic Church, has been on the pulpit for 75 years.

Sadela first got married in 1934, and the marriage lasted for 21 years, but none of the couple’s seven children lived beyond their infancy.

A second marriage, consummated in 1965, was blessed with four children, but only two survived. His second wife died in 2001.

And then he met the new woman of his life, 77 years his junior.

The marriage with Christiana Sadela is “a fulfilment of the scripture and worthy of thanksgiving and appreciation to God”, his church said in a statement.

“Nothing is impossible for God,” it said.

Ya we know where and how he got his strength, dont we..;)

TEHRAN (AFP) – An Iranian man has filed for divorce on the grounds that his wife used to be a man who had sex change operation, a press report said Sunday.

The man, identified as Farhad, told the court he had learned only after marriage that his wife Mina was a transsexual, but tried to “cope with it” in the four years they have been married, the Etemad newspaper reported.

But, infuriated by Mina’s recent complaint to the court to claim her dowry, the man sought to annul their marriage.

“I asked around and learned our marriage is null and void,” he said.

Mina said she does not want a divorce but only her dowry of 40 million rials (4,300 dollars).

Iranian law allows transsexuals to have sex change operations and legally change their identities. Society, however, is hostile towards people with “confused sexuality”

VIENNA (AFP) – An Austrian couple have had their marriage postponed for 10 weeks because the bride said “no” as a joke when the registrar asked during the civil ceremony whether she would take this man to be her husband, a newspaper reported.

Despite the entreaties of the bride, who said immediately she had just meant it in jest, the officiating registrar at once broke off the heavily attended ceremony in the town of Steyr, said the newspaper Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten.

Austrian regulations stipulate that there must be a postponement of at least 10 weeks should one of the parties respond in the negative when asked during the ceremony whether he or she consents to the union.

The newspaper explained that this was to ensure that a non-consenting party did not withdraw the reply “no” and consent to the union under pressure from his or her family, the newspaper explained.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A woman watching New Year’s Eve fireworks from a picnic table found out that her bra can do more than lift and support: It also slowed a falling bullet.

The .45-caliber bullet struck Debbie Bingham, 46, after someone fired a gun into the air about 20 minutes before midnight. She still needed stitches, but the wound might have been much worse except for the bra strap, police spokesman George Kajtsa said.

Bingham, who was in town from Atlanta, said she is thankful for the undergarment, which she said was “very cheap.”

“I’d love to have a couple more of those bras,” she said.

Bingham said she was listening to music and enjoying the fireworks with her daughter and son when she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder.

Then Solanda Bingham, 30, noticed blood seeping through her mother’s white shirt, and they found the bullet lodged halfway into the gold-colored bra. The other half was barely breaking the skin, Bingham told WTSP-TV.

Kajtsa described the wound as a “big scratch with bruising.”

St. Petersburg police were searching for the shooter to determine if the shooting was intentional, Kajtsa said.

PORTLAND, Maine – It’s a bit late for the holidays, but the state’s beer sellers are now free to let Santa’s Butt Winter Porter sit on their shelves.

The Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement had blocked a beer importer from selling the brew, along with two beers with labels depicting bare-breasted women. Those decisions were reversed after the state attorney general’s office determined that the company probably would win the lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed on its behalf last month.

Chris Taub, an assistant state attorney general, said Friday a court probably would find the beer labels in question to be protected under the First Amendment.

State officials had barred the English-made Santa’s Butt out of concern its label might appeal to children. It depicts a rear view of a beer-drinking Santa sitting on a “butt,” a large barrel brewers once used to store beer.

The other previously banned beers feature paintings of bare-breasted women on their labels. One of the paintings hangs in the Louvre — Eugene Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” — and the other was commissioned by the importer, Belchertown, Mass.-based Shelton Brothers.

The company was notified of the reversal in a letter dated Dec. 22, but owner Dan Shelton was out of the country and didn’t learn of it until this week.

Shelton, whose company has challenged similar bans in other states, said Thursday he has no plans to drop his lawsuit because state law still allows officials to deny applications for beer labels that contain “undignified or improper” illustrations. About a dozen beer and wine labels, out of 10,000 to 12,000 reviewed, are rejected each year on such grounds.

“You can’t have a law based on propriety and dignity. It’s too vague,” Shelton said.

Taub said his office is reviewing the rule about undignified or improper illustrations but declined to comment further.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A U.S. college student imprisoned for three weeks for trying to take flour-filled condoms onto an airplane has settled her lawsuit against Philadelphia for $180,000 (93,000 pounds), a city spokesman said on Friday.

Janet Lee, 21, a student at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport in 2003 after police and security officials thought the flour was an illegal drug.

She was held in Philadelphia on drug-trafficking charges and released only when tests proved the substance in the three condoms was flour.

The condoms, which are sometimes used to smuggle drugs, were a joke among the students, and Lee was taking them home to Los Angeles.

Her civil rights case against Philadelphia, which had been set to go to trial on Thursday, was settled for $180,000 , said Ted Qualli, spokesman for Philadelphia Mayor John Street.

YORK, Pa. – A man who proposed to his girlfriend at a New Year’s party allegedly knocked her out with a steering wheel lock just hours after she said yes, police said.

Stephen Mujerm, 40, of Lanham, Md., and new fiancee Victorine Taboh began arguing about 6 a.m. Monday as they drove home from the party in northern York County.

Taboh, of Laurel, Md., and another passenger were complaining that Mujerm was driving recklessly, police said. He then stopped the vehicle beside Interstate 83 in Springfield Township, where he and Taboh got out and began to argue.

As the confrontation escalated, Taboh began breaking the windows of Mujerm’s car with a steering wheel lock, police said. Mujerm then punched Taboh and hit her in the head with the lock, knocking her unconscious, said police.

Emergency medical workers took Taboh to a hospital, where she was treated and released, police said.

State police charged Mujerm with aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangering and driving while under the influence of alcohol.

A phone number for him could not be located.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A thirsty German sold his 6-year-old step-daughter’s pet beagle to the owner of a bar to pay for beer, the Bild newspaper reported Friday.

The unemployed man offered to take the dog for a walk and then stopped at a bar where he convinced the owner to buy the 3-year-old dog for 40 euros ($53).

The man spent the proceeds quenching his thirst for beer. The bar owner has now returned the dog to its owner.