MANILA (Reuters) – The Catholic Church has issued guidelines on what Filipinos should wear to mass in Manila after some parishioners complained about distracting skimpy attire.

“This is to remind people that it would be good to come in appropriate clothing because other people are scandalised,” said Peachy Yamsuan of the archdiocese of Manila on Monday.

“It is for the other worshippers who are distracted. You come to the church to pray and if your eyes wander and you see inappropriate clothes, well, it does not add to your spiritual goals.”

The majority of the Philippines’ 87 million people are Catholic and worshippers throng sweltering churches each Sunday, although some devotees attend religious services in air-conditioned malls, giving the ceremony an informal air.

But Manila’s archdiocese has issued posters advising women not to wear short skirts, revealing necklines and spaghetti-strap tops to mass, while men are warned against shorts, caps and basketball jerseys.

Instead, female parishioners are encouraged to wear dresses or long skirts and blouses and men are asked to wear shirts, trousers or jeans.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – A well-known Brazilian soccer lineswoman, already in trouble over a mistake she made during a match last month, has raised eyebrows with her decision to pose nude for Playboy magazine.

Ana Paula Oliveira, a 29-year-old brunette who also campaigns for women’s rights, signed a contract with the magazine this week and will appear in its July edition without her usual sports attire.

The Brazilian Soccer Confederation said it was not considering any sanctions against Oliveira, one of a handful of female referee assistants in Brazil, but indicated it may be bad for her career.

“If she took that decision, it’s because she must have other career thoughts,” Lance! a sports daily, quoted the president of the confederation’s refereeing commission, Edson Rezende, as saying through a spokesman.

Oliveira was banned for three games for mistakenly disallowing at least one goal during a Copa Brasil match in May, and has not been called up for any top league matches since. The mistake contributed to debate in Brazil about the presence of female officials at top games.

Fellow lineswoman Aline Lambert told the same Friday edition of the paper that posing nude “is incompatible with the profession.”

Columnist and former World Cup referee Jose Wright said it would now be difficult for Oliveira to become a referee.

But Oliveira said in an Internet chat on Futebol no Interior (Football in the Outback) Web site she was still hoping to be a referee in future World Cup tournaments. She said her mother had told her to accept the Playboy deal. Local media estimate the deal would earn her nearly $250,000.

EDINBURG, Texas – Firefighters who spent half an hour fighting a blaze in which 2,000 pounds of marijuana went up in smoke breathed so much of it that they would have failed a drug test, a fire chief said.

It took more than 35 firefighters, 1,000 gallons of water and five gallons of chemical suppressant to extinguish the warehouse blaze on Wednesday, Fire Chief Shawn Snider said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were investigating the origin of the drugs. The Hidalgo County fire marshal was investigating whether arson was the cause.

Snider said Thursday the firefighters were exposed to so much marijuana smoke that they would not be able to pass a drug test, despite wearing air packs to prevent them from inhaling toxic or hazardous fumes.

LONDON (Reuters) – Young Britons would rather give up sex than live without their mobile phones, according to a survey.

One in three people would not sacrifice their mobile phone for one million pounds or more, with women leading the way on those most likely to refuse, the survey by the Carphone Warehouse and the London School of Economics found.

Most respondents aged between 16 and 24 would rather give up alcohol, chocolate, sex, tea, or coffee than live without their mobile phone for a month.

In contrast, more than 40 percent of the those aged over 45 would give the phone simply to be able to have their favourite hot drink.

The online survey polled 1,256 adults aged between 16 and 64.

LONDON (Reuters) – A teenage schoolgirl will appeal to the High Court on Friday to overturn a ban on her wearing a “purity ring” at school to symbolize her decision to abstain from sex before marriage.

Lydia Playfoot, 16, from West Sussex, says the silver ring is an expression of her faith and should be exempt from the school’s rules on wearing jewellery.

“It is really important to me because in the Bible it says we should do this,” she told BBC radio. “Muslims are allowed to wear headscarves and other faiths can wear bangles and other types of jewellery. It feels like Christians are being discriminated against.”

Playfoot’s lawyers will argue that her right to express religious belief is upheld by the Human Rights Act.

There have been a series of rows in schools in recent years over the right of pupils to wear religious symbols or clothing, such as crucifixes and veils.

Last year, the Law Lords rejected Shabina Begum’s appeal for permission to wear a Muslim gown at her school in Luton. That case echoed a debate in France over the banning of Muslim headscarves in state schools.

Lydia Playfoot’s parents help run the British arm of the American campaign group the Silver Ring Thing, which promotes abstinence among young people.

Members wear a ring on the third finger of the left hand. It is inscribed with “Thess. 4:3-4,” a reference to a Biblical passage from Thessalonians which reads: “God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin.”

Lydia’s father, Phil Playfoot, said his daughter’s case was part of a wider cultural trend towards Christians being “silenced.”

“What I would describe as a secular fundamentalism is coming to the fore, which really wants to silence certain beliefs, and Christian views in particular,” he said.

Leon Nettley, head teacher of Millais School in Horsham, denies discrimination, saying the ring contravenes the school’s rules on wearing jewellery.

“The school is not convinced pupils’ rights have been interfered with by the application of the uniform policy,” he told the Brighton-based Argus newspaper. “The school has a clearly published uniform policy and sets high standards.”

ROME (Reuters) – An Italian town’s mayor hopes to shame men into not using prostitutes by photographing cars that pick them up and publishing the details in local newspapers.

Cesare De Martin, mayor of the northern town of San Fior near Venice, said on Friday he planned to give local police digital cameras and instruct them to photograph any cars seen stopping to liaise with prostitutes on the side of the street.

Advertisements in local newspapers with the number plates will then be published, he said.

The number of prostitutes on Italian streets has increased dramatically in recent years and the Vatican earlier this week called for new laws to punish clients of prostitution.

The mayor, however, said his reasons for tackling the issue were entirely “secular” and far more mundane.

“I think it’s more important to protect the rights of citizens who have to be at work early but are kept up at night by the sound of cars,” he told Reuters.

He is awaiting approval from lawyers on whether the plan violates privacy laws.

Clients of prostitutes are not punished in many countries, including Italy. Italian law effectively turns a blind eye to prostitution, punishing only “exploiters of prostitution”, meaning pimps.

Many of the growing number of prostitutes in Italy come from the former Soviet Union or Nigeria and authorities say many are victims of human trafficking.

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) – An India couple have been accused of trying to get their 15-year-son into the Guinness Book of World Records by allowing him to perform a caesarean operation, local newspapers reported on Thursday.

The parents, both doctors from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, screened a video recording of the operation on a 20-year-old woman to other doctors in the hope of attaining the record as the world’s youngest surgeon, newspapers reported.

Family members said the boy was only helping out in the operation, handing his father medical instruments. Indian medical authorities are investigating the case and could revoke the couple’s medical licenses.

RIGA (AFP) – Revellers will be able to streak with impunity in a Latvian town this weekend, as the community holds a naked run to mark the midsummer festival, organisers said Wednesday.

“The nude run is for everybody, no matter their gender, age or race,” Ilze Dambite-Damberga, of the city council in the western town of Kuldiga, told AFP. “One can wear shoes or sneakers, as long as they don’t go up to the armpits,” she said.

The June 24 run across the town’s 150-metre (500-foot) 19th century brick bridge marks “Jani”, the most popular holiday in Latvia.

Taking one’s clothes off, however, is not a typical feature of Jani celebrations — the most common traditions are gatherings with family and friends in the countryside, singing, drinking beer and eating cheese, as well as leaping across bonfires.

Kuldiga has been holding the run for the past seven years, however, drawing dozens of participants who are ready to streak in the wee hours — the event is held at 03:00 am (000GMT).

Police will be on hand in case “puritans” show up in protest, and the hardy runners will be rewarded with beer.

“Usually there are more watchers than runners,” Dambite-Damberga added.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Lovers seeking a private tryst may come face to face with the taxman in Honduras. In an effort to crack down on tax evasion, Honduran government officials began counting the cars outside hundreds of so-called “love motels” on Tuesday, saying the establishments earn more than they report and cheat the government out of about $40,000 in taxes each month.

Under the “Fiscal Love” operation, tax auditors were also stationed inside the lobbies of the motels.

“Love motels” that rent rooms for as little as six hours — local versions of what Americans would call a “no tell motel” — are common throughout Latin America, where many young adults live with their parents.

“We’re not interested in whether customers go into the rooms as a twosome, threesome or foursome,” said Armando Sarmiento, a spokesman for the national tax office. “We’re only counting the cars that arrive, not the people inside them.”

Scores of the hotels are located on the outskirts of the country’s two largest cities, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, charging between $15 and $45 per room.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A best-selling novelist who pretended she was a 19-year-old male prostitute sought to defend herself in court on Wednesday against claims she defrauded a film company that bought the rights to her book.

“Sarah,” about a transgender boy who works alongside his mother as a truck-stop prostitute, was published in 2000 under the name J.T. Leroy, who was described as a teen-age male prostitute. But it was actually written by Brooklyn mother Laura Albert, who is now 41 and lives in San Francisco.

Antidote International Films bought the rights to adapt “Sarah” as a movie, it said, in part because of the unique life story of its author.

Its lawyers said in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday that Albert had constructed elaborate ruses to mislead people about her identity. The company claims it was falsely induced into the movie contract and is seeking to recover $110,000.

For example, in radio interviews done by telephone to publicize the book, one of which was played for the jury, Albert pretended she was Leroy, speaking in a West Virginia accent. When Leroy needed to appear for a reading or a photo shoot, Savannah Knoop, the half-sister of Albert’s boyfriend, donned a blond wig and play the part.

Albert said in court she did not mean to trick anyone and had assumed the identity of Leroy to help cope with painful episodes of abuse in her own life.

Addressing a packed courtroom and breaking down repeatedly on the witness stand, Albert described a New York City upbringing in which she was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriends, teased mercilessly about her weight and eventually given up by her parents and sent to a home for troubled girls.

Bloomsbury Books, the novel’s publisher, has said it did not know J.T. Leroy was not real. The book was well reviewed and sold briskly in the United States and Britain.

While authors have written under pen names for centuries, Albert’s efforts to make Leroy seem real, including enlisting someone to impersonate him, were far more elaborate.

Albert repeatedly denied that Leroy was made-up but the truth came out in 2006 in a New York Times article.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A defective condom forced German police to arbitrate a brothel dispute after a prostitute and her client called for help when the contraceptive burst during sex.

Police in the central city of Braunschweig said the two telephoned for assistance after the man refused the 25-year-old woman’s request to hand over his contact details in case there were any unforeseen consequences from the condom’s failure.

Two officers arrived early on Wednesday and convinced both parties to exchange their details.

“We’d rather be on the safe side when there are rows in the red light area,” said a spokesman for local police. “Both were satisfied, and both now know exactly who they had sex with.”

Prostitution is legal in Germany.

DENVER – A 34-year-old man was charged Monday with breaking into several homes in northwest Denver and stealing women’s undergarments and other personal items.

The Denver district attorney’s office said Carlos Vigil, 34, was charged with seven counts of second-degree burglary in three separate cases.

Police said Vigil, whom they called the “Panty Burglar,” entered houses through open windows and doggie doors. They said he took clothing and photographs.

Vigil was released from jail on $75,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in Denver County Court June 28 to be formally advised of the charges against him.

A man in Colorado Springs recently pleaded guilty to breaking into houses and stealing women’s undergarments. A man in Fort Collins faces charges in the theft of more than 1,300 women’s undergarments from apartment laundry rooms near the Colorado State University campus.

NEW YORK – A woman arrested for exposing her breasts has accepted a $29,000 settlement from the city, her lawyer said.

Jill Coccaro, 27, was arrested on a topless stroll two years ago, despite a 1992 state appeals court ruling that concluded women should have the same right as men to take off their shirts.

Coccaro, who now goes by the name Phoenix Feeley, remained in custody for 12 hours before she was told prosecutors were not going to pursue charges.

Her attorney, Jeffrey Rothman, told the Daily News that his client won the civil rights settlement from the city, which did not admit or deny wrongdoing.

“We hope the police learn a lesson and respect the rights of women to go topless,” Rothman said.

Feeley told the New York Post that she was not treated well after her Aug. 4, 2005, arrest in Manhattan’s Lower East Side section. She claimed in an October lawsuit that a police officer yanked her out of a patrol car by her hair and police took her to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

She told the newspaper she had gone bare-breasted after running the 2004 city marathon without police bothering her.

“I’ve always just felt that was something natural,” Feeley said of going topless. “I’ve kind of always done it out of practicality.”

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – A Malaysian appeals court declared in a landmark ruling that mistresses have rights and should not be treated as mere chattel, news reports said Friday.

Judge Gopal Sri Ram overturned a previous court decision which had allowed a Singaporean tycoon, Goh Koon Suan, to reclaim a house that he had given to his mistress Heng Gek Kiau when they were lovers, The Star daily said.

Sri Ram said the decision was “ground breaking” as this was the first time a court of law has ruled that a mistress has rights.

“Do you think in this day and age we should apply principles relevant to society, which treat women as chattels? It would be a retrogressive step,” Sri Ram said according to the newspapers.

Goh, a 73-year old businessman from neighbouring Singapore met Heng, 56, almost 40 years ago and bought her a house in southern Johor state in 1980.

According to New Straits Times daily, Goh later demanded the house back after the relationship soured in 1988.

A Malaysian High Court ruled in his favour on grounds that Heng had merely held the house in trust for him.

“You squeezed her like a lemon and later cast her aside like an old shoe,” Sri Ram said after overturning the high court’s decision.

“Surely, you cannot use her like that and later claim she has no right,” he said, according to the newspapers.

Goh met Heng when she was a 16-year old babysitter from Indonesia. She and Goh have a son together.

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. – A police officer interrupted a couple’s weekend sex romp on top of a 100-foot construction crane, but let them go with a warning, authorities said.

Police went to the construction site to investigate Saturday night after bystanders spotted the couple climbing into the cab of the crane. An officer’s command to come down was followed by a naked foot popping over the railing, police said.

The officer noted the couple then got dressed and climbed down.

The man, who worked at the site and had keys to the crane, told officers he was photographing the city skyline.

ERIE, Pa. – A man ran naked through a school and set off a fire extinguisher, but no students were present at the time, police said. Police said they had surveillance footage of the man, who broke a window to enter and tampered with surveillance cameras. They also have fingerprints.

Central Tech custodian Mike Rossi said he confronted the man in a hallway about 6 a.m. Thursday after an alarm went off. The man had clothes in his hands and was in the school for 10 to 15 minutes before fleeing when security arrived.

He appeared to be an older teenager and police think he could have been a former student.

MADRID (Reuters) – The Miss Spain beauty contest has changed its rules to allow mothers to compete after its decision to dethrone a 22-year-old beauty queen when it emerged she had a child met with national outrage in February.

Angela Bustillo, who has a toddler son, won the title of Miss Cantabria, a region on Spain’s northern coast, in January but organisers disqualified her citing rules that contestants cannot have children.

The decision sparked widespread outrage in the Spanish press and expressions of support for the dethroned queen from feminist organisations to the head of the Cantabrian local government.

“I knew what it said in the contest conditions, but it seemed so absurd. I thought it must be something left over from the 1970s that they had forgotten to bring up to date,” Bustillo, a former supermarket worker, said at the time.

HALLE, Germany (AFP) – Spare a thought for Frenchman Marc Gicquel who went on to win his second-round tie at the ATP Halle tournament despite receiving a serve – travelling at 208 kilometres per hour – in the testicles.

The 30-year-old was in the second set of his match against German Benjamin Becker – no connection to compatriot and tennis legend Boris – when he was felled by the serve which scored a bulls-eye straight into his delicate area.

With the speed-gun showing the serve was 208 km/h, the game was stopped for ten minutes while the Frenchman had ice applied, discreetly, to his wedding tackle – in front of a 8,000-strong crowd.

In a show of brotherly solidarity, Becker went over to his pole-axed opponent to pass on his deepest – and heart-felt – sympathy.

Having won the first set 6-2, Gicquel came off the turf – to earn the respect of each and every man watching – and won the second set on a tie-breaker in what can only be described as a truly ballsy performance, which handed him a spot in the quarter-finals for his efforts.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Reuters) – As “Big Love” enters a second season Monday, the HBO series about a fictional polygamous family is inspiring emotions from pride to fury among real polygamists where the show is set in a Salt Lake City suburb.

“There’s a certain truth to it,” said Anne Wilde, a 71-year-old widow who was part of a family of plural wives for 33 years.

“Here’s a family of three wives that lives in the community and they just blend into the neighborhood, although they don’t say too much about it.”

But Wilde said she blocks her eyes when scenes get intimate and bridles at the show’s trademark sexual tension, saying it’s too racy for many of the estimated 37,000 fundamentalist Mormons who practice polygamy in Utah and Arizona.

“Big Love” centers on the struggles of Viagra-popping polygamist Bill Hendrickson to balance rival affections and demands of his three spouses — first wife and leader of the pack Barbara (Jeanne Tripplehorn); wife No. 2 and compulsive shopper Nicki (Chloe Sevigny); and wife No. 3 Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), the youngest, most pliant and most sexual.

The Salt Lake City, Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon church, has said the family in “Big Love” are not part of the Mormon church, which introduced polygamy before the Civil War but banned it in 1890.

Excommunicated by mainstream Mormons, polygamists see themselves as purists of the faith as it was practiced by founder Joseph Smith, whom historians say took more than two dozen wives. Polygamy is a felony in Utah, but polygamists are seldom prosecuted unless they commit additional crimes.

“NOT THE WAY I FEEL”

Valerie, a fashionable suburban mother with elegantly coiffed blond hair who is one of three wives in a family of 21 children, said the hierarchy depicted in “Big Love” is off the mark. The first wife, she said, is not always the most powerful and domineering of the bunch.

But like the show’s bread-winning male, played by Bill Paxton, her husband conceals the full extent of their family from co-workers, which is why she declined to use her last name in an interview.

“My husband is a professional and he has company parties, meetings with clients and sometimes wives are involved, and he can’t just take all of us. He has to pick one that is the wife that people see,” she said.

“Juniper Creek,” a fictional area where Hendrickson was raised, resembles the real-life Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), an isolated sect on the Utah-Arizona border run by Warren Jeffs.

Jeffs was arrested in August and charged as an accomplice to rape for using his authority to order a 14-year-old girl against her wishes to marry and have sex with her 19-year-old cousin.

“I watched the show for about 10 minutes,” said Enos Steed, 21, who left the FLDS in 2003. “I was just like ‘Whatever’. It’s not real accurate. It’s funny. It’s just not interesting to me, probably because I lived it.”

Ephraim Hammon, who has two wives and eight children, disagrees with some of the show.

“But I think it does open up people’s minds to the concept that it can happen and that probably makes people more accepting to some degree,” he said.

“Our neighbors get a kick out of it,” adds his wife, Leah, in the family’s home in Centennial Park, Arizona, where about 1,500 people live in polygamy.

When Hammon’s town voted on a name for a new local cafe, one of the most popular choices was “Big Love Cafe” — a verdict that caused a chuckle when it was announced in church.

But the people of Centennial Park reckoned it was legally tricky and settled on the “Merry Wives Cafe” instead. It’s been a hit with tourists since opening in January.

“I hated the name Merry Wives at first,” said manager Charise Dutson. “They had to talk me into it,”

“When we ordered our sign, they were like, ‘Oh Merry Wife’ and I was like ‘No, wives’,” she said. “I don’t think the Mormons like it very much.”

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – Health officials in western India are distributing condoms outside cinema halls screening illegal pornographic films, to promote safe sex and curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS.

Officials in Gujarat state said many of those watching the blue movies were from high risk groups such as migrant laborers or truck drivers, who spend a lot of time away from their homes and are therefore more vulnerable to casual and unsafe sex.

“The migrant population will not stop watching pornographic movies or visiting sex workers,” said H.K. Anant, a health official in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main city.

“All we want them to do is to stop unsafe sex.”

India has the world’s highest number of HIV-positive cases with an estimated 5.7 million people infected, according to the United Nations.

In Gujarat’s 800 small cinema halls, young male volunteers stand outside handing packets of condoms to audience members as they emerge after watching the movie.

“We do not want to embarrass the movie-goers by nabbing them, so the volunteers are instructed not interact or question them,” said Anant.

Gujarat is home to many large industries such as textiles and chemicals, employing more than eight million migrant workers who come from neighboring states in search of a better life.

Screening and selling of pornographic films is illegal but the law is rarely enforced.

BRIGHTON, England – With strategically placed helmets and slogans painted on bare skin, scores of people shed their clothes and rode through this seaside resort on their bicycles Saturday to promote cycling as an environmentally friendly mode of transport.

“It is time more motorists stripped off their armor plating and moved around more gently on this earth,” said Duncan Blinkhorn, 45, one of the event’s organizers.

More than 200 cyclists in various stages of undress took part in the World Naked Bike Ride in Brighton and Hove, sister cities on the southern coast of England, to promote cycling.

Cyclists met with police chiefs ahead of the seven-mile ride to seek their advice about avoiding problems or formal complaints about the nudity.

“This is a fun, if outrageous, way to make the serious point that we should not have to tolerate roads, cities and a planet dominated by the brutishness of cars that routinely foul the air we all breathe, destroy lives and impoverish the environment,” Blinkhorn said.

“Bikes and naked bodies harm nobody. Car fumes and accidents kill tens of thousands every year in the UK alone and are driving us all to climate chaos.”

Similar events took place Friday in the cities of Manchester, York and Southhampton, and were expected in other countries, too.

WATERTOWN, N.Y. – A woman who claims she was used as unknowing bait to catch a man taking photographs up women’s skirts is suing retailer T.J. Maxx. Svetlana Van Buren said store personnel surreptitiously videotaped a man taking photos up her skirt while she was shopping for coffee at the company’s store in Watertown on June 14, 2006.

It was only after the man committed the crime that store personnel told her the photos had been taken and that the act was caught on tape, said Van Buren, a psychologist who was working at a state-run facility for youths at the time and now lives in Omaha, Neb. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the Jefferson County Clerk’s office.

Officials at TJX Companies, Inc., of Framingham, Mass., which operates the T.J. Maxx chain, were not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit contends that the store and law enforcement officials knew the man “secretly stalked” female customers for the purpose of taking upskirt photos, but did nothing to prevent it from happening to Van Buren.

T.J. Maxx should have used either a private female detective, a policewoman or a female employee who consented to being photographed to set a trap for the man, the lawsuit said.

Van Buren claims the incident has caused her physical and psychological pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. She said she has experienced sleeplessness, anxiety, depression and feelings of stress and violation, prompting her to seek professional help.

She blames T.J. Maxx for, among other things, making her the victim of a crime without her consent and violating her privacy rights. She claims the store failed to provide her with a safe environment and failed to stop a crime from being committed against her when it could have.

Her suit does not specify an amount in damages being sought.

The lawsuit does not name Jeremiah Williams, a Watertown man who was arrested outside T.J. Maxx the same day Van Buren was photographed. Williams was sentenced in February to two to four years in state prison for second-degree unlawful surveillance. Police accused Williams of taking more than 700 upskirt photos of women in public places with plans to start an Internet business with the shots.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Annapolis police raided the wrong apartment Wednesday night, using flash grenades and kicking a resident in the groin before they realized their mistake, police and the family said.

Police spokesman Hal Dalton said something must have gone amiss in the briefing beforehand. “We don’t know how the mistake was made,” Dalton said.

Silvia Bernal, 30, told The (Annapolis) Capital that about 15 officers burst through the front door of her apartment while she was cooking dinner about 8:20 p.m. She said the officers kicked her husband in the groin while she fled into a bedroom and barred the door with her body.

Then she said both of them were taken to the ground and handcuffed. The Capital said a police officer went outside and realized they had raided the wrong residence.

Dalton said they were supposed to have raided a different apartment and said the incident was regrettable.

Spa Cove apartment manager Latisha Marshall says there is a large dent in the front door. And she said there are two large black stains from the flash-bang grenades police deployed after entering the apartment.

When officers and the city’s tactical squad went to the right unit, they said it was empty.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Supermodel Gisele Bundchen stepped into the debate over birth control and sexual behavior in Brazil on Tuesday, saying Church opposition to condom use was ridiculous and women should have the right to choose on abortion.

Gisele is idolized by many young women in Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, where debate over sexual issues has intensified around a visit by Pope Benedict last month.

The Pope stressed the Church’s firm opposition to abortion and contraception and railed against sex outside of marriage.

The Brazilian beauty, one of the world’s top models, told Folha de S.Paulo newspaper in an interview that when the Church made its laws centuries ago, women were expected to be virgins.

“Today no one is a virgin when they get married … show me someone who’s a virgin!” she said.

Asked about abortion, she said a woman should have the right to choose what is best for her.

“If she thinks she doesn’t have the money or the emotional condition to raise a child, why should she give birth?”

Gisele, who had just arrived from New York to take part in Rio de Janeiro’s Fashion Week, also defended condom use.

“It’s ridiculous to ban contraceptives — you only have to think of the diseases that are transmitted without them. I think it should be compulsory to use a contraceptive.”

The Brazilian government has clashed with the church over anti-
AIDS programs in which it distributes millions of free condoms and Health Minister Jose Temporao has called for a national referendum on abortion.

Other Brazilian celebrities have fallen foul of the Vatican over sex issues. Singer Daniela Mercury was banned from performing at a Vatican Christmas concert in 2005 because she took part in a campaign promoting condom use to prevent AIDS.

She denied rumors she was pregnant.

“Of course I want to have a family in the future. But not at this moment.”

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A Singapore radio station was fined for organizing a contest in which women were asked to remove their bra as quickly as possible from under their clothes.

Singapore’s Media Development Authority said state-owned MediaCorp Radio would be fined S$15,000 ($9,800) for broadcasting “exploitative and inappropriate content” in its program “No Bra Days with the Muttons” in March.

“The two DJs had made sexually suggestive comments on how fast the bras were removed, as well as the color, design and cup size of the bras, and the size of the girls’ breasts,” the regulator said in a statement late on Monday.

The Media Development Authority said the women were also asked to pose with their bras for videos that the radio station posted on its Web site and on the video-sharing YouTube Web site.

MediaCorp officials were not immediately available to comment.

NEW YORK – A man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and caused him to be hospitalized.

The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods of New York said he bought the nutrition beverage made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG at a drugstore on June 5, 2004, and drank it.

Woods’ court papers say he woke up the next morning “with an erection that would not subside” and sought treatment that day for the condition, called severe priapism.

They say Woods, 29, underwent surgery for implantation of a Winter shunt, which moves blood from one area to another.

The lawsuit, filed late Monday, says Woods later had problems that required a hospital visit and penile artery embolization, a way of closing blood vessels. Closing off some blood flow prevents engorgement and lessens the likelihood of an erection.

Woods’ lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, names Novartis Consumer Health Inc. as a defendant. A spokeswoman for the company, Brandi Robinson, said Tuesday the company was aware of the lawsuit but does not comment on pending litigation.

Woods’ lawyer did not return telephone calls for comment Tuesday.

Novartis’ Boost Plus Web site describes the drink as “a great tasting, high calorie, nutritionally complete oral supplement for people who require extra energy and protein in a limited volume,” in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian oyster farmer has hit upon a technique he believes has created the ultimate aphrodisiac — feeding his shellfish the drug Viagra.

George May said the natural qualities of the oyster, known for arousing sexual desire, combined with the best modern pharmaceutical equivalent to create a potentially multi-million dollar market.

“First of all, oysters are the greatest natural aphrodisiac, second, you lace it with Viagra, and third, it’s a laugh,” the 59-year-old told AFP on Monday.

May, who was a successful Sydney marketing executive until being diagnosed with prostate cancer late in 2006, will not be allowed to sell his oysters in Australia because they contravene strict regulations.

And he has been ordered by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which produces the anti-impotence drug Viagra, to stop using the name of their most famous product in his marketing.

But May says neither of these obstacles will stop him from exporting his specially prepared Sydney Rock Oysters around the world.

“No-one can stop me feeding Viagra to my oysters. The reason that Pfizer are jumping up and down is that I used the name Viagra,” he said.

“I’m getting calls from Macau, Hong Kong, Moscow for god’s sake. I’m getting calls from all over the bloody world.”

May, a self-described “marketing genius” from Scotland, said the idea came to him after he started “hanging around with the boys” in the small fishing village north of Sydney he retired to following prostate surgery last December.

His doctor had prescribed a small daily dose of Viagra to help his recovery and it occurred to him he should be feeding the drug to oysters to help the local farmers, many of whom had struggled after a disease swept through their crops.

May said he told them: “I’m going to feed them Viagra and zinc and every other aphrodisiac I can find.”

He has since patented the idea of feeding the oysters Viagra, magnesium, zinc and sea grass among other things after the shellfish have gone through the normal purification process.

“They are all being really well looked after because they are in beautiful filtered water and we’re actually feeding them vitamins and minerals,” May said. “We’re getting a bigger oyster.”

May now has some 10 million oysters in cultivation and says he eats one to two dozen each day without any ill effects of consuming a foodstuff containing some medication. “I swear to god. They work,” he said.

A spokesman for Pfizer said the drug company was concerned about the use of their brand name. “It’s a very ordinary trademark issue,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Here’s one more reason not to smoke — smoking may damage sperm, passing along genetic damage to a man’s children, Canadian researchers report.

A study in mice shows that cigarette smoke caused changes in the DNA of sperm cells, the researchers said in this week’s issue of the journal Cancer Research. Such mutations, know as germline mutations, are known to be permanent.

“If inherited, these mutations persist as irreversible changes in the genetic composition of offspring,” said Carole Yauk of Health Canada’s Environmental and Occupational Toxicology Division, who led the study.

“We have known that mothers who smoke can harm their foetuses, and here we show evidence that fathers can potentially damage offspring long before they may even meet their future mate.”

Yauk and colleagues studied the stem cells that produce sperm in mice exposed to cigarette smoke for either six or 12 weeks. All male mammals continuously produce sperm.

They found 1.7 times as many DNA mutations in the cells of the smoke-exposed mice as in those of the unexposed mice after 12 week, and 1.4 times as many mutations after six weeks.

“This suggests that damage is related to the duration of exposure, so the longer you smoke the more mutations accumulate and the more likely a potential effect may arise in the offspring,” Yauk said.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Dozens of women posed naked on their bicycles on a bridge over one of Amsterdam’s historic canals Sunday — a unique sight even in a city famed for its relaxed attitude toward nudity and sex.

They were among 2,000 men and women who participated in a series of four nude group photos in the city in the early hours of the morning as part of the latest project of U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick.

The first and largest composition was in a decidedly prosaic location: a parking garage on the outer ring of the city.

But what the location lacked in romance, it made up for in style. Participants lined the railings of the garage’s twin circular towers, creating a pattern of multicolor stripes against the white building and an overcast sky.

The women on bikes were selected from the larger group and posed with their chins pointed triumphantly upward toward the sky.

Other compositions included a group of men posing together near the parking garage and a mixed group of men and women on another bridge.

Tunick, from Brooklyn, N.Y., has become famous for photographing thousands of naked people in public settings worldwide, from London and Vienna to Buenos Aires and Buffalo. He set a record for naked photography with a photo of 18,000 people in the buff in Mexico City last month.

Photos from Sunday’s session were to be exhibited at an Amsterdam club later Sunday.

NEW FRANKEN, Wis. – A Catholic priest has removed his church’s organist and choir director from her duties saying her sale of sex toys was not “consistent with Church teachings.”

Linette Servais, 50, played the organ and sung with the choir for 35 years. Much of her work as choir director and organist was done without pay. When her parish priest asked to meet with her, she thought it was to say thank you.

Instead, she was told to quit her sales job with company known as Pure Romance or she would lose her position in the church.

Pure Romance in Loveland, Ohio, is a $60 million per year business that sells spa products and sex toys at homes parties attended by women. It has 15,000 consultants like Servais.

She said her decision was not hard: She began working with Pure Romance after a brain tumor and treatment left her sexually dysfunctional. The job allows her to help other women who have similar problems.

“After I got over the initial shock, I prayed over this a long time,” she said. “I feel that Pure Romance is my ministry.”

The Rev. Dean Dombroski felt differently, removing her from the choir loft just before Thanksgiving and gradually taking away other church duties. Servais can no longer take pictures during First Communion services or lead the committee planning St. Joseph’s annual late-summer picnic.

Dombroski said he couldn’t discuss the situation because it involves personnel. But in a letter to his rural congregation, he wrote: “Linette is a consultant for a firm which sells products of a sexual nature that are not consistent with Church teachings. Because parish leaders are expected to model the teaching of our faith … she could stay on as the choir director/organist or she could continue to be a consultant but she could not do both.”

Servais responded with her own three-page letter to church members, saying she felt compelled to help other women, especially those suffering from problems caused by cancer.

Many choir members quit in support, she said, and some have gathered at her home on occasional Thursdays to sing hymns.

“Father Dean made it sound so sinful,” she said. “There is so much more to this business than toys.”