DE SOTO, Mo. – The naked truth: Three eastern Missouri men were willing to go to extreme lengths to get some beer.

That’s the accusation after an incident in the early hours of August 18th at Fish’s Quick Stop in De Soto. Store clerk Vicky Gaines says a masked man walked in and began doing the hula dance.

Police say the plan was for the naked dancer to create a distraction while another man took a case of beer from the store. It didn’t work.

Gaines called police. As the naked man and his accomplice joined a third man in a car, a customer got their license plate number. All three were caught a few days later.

The men, ages 19 to 23, face charges of shoplifting and indecent exposure.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s health department said Tuesday it has recalled 20 million potentially defective condoms approved by an official accused of taking bribes from a manufacturer.

Unsafe sex is especially risky in South Africa, which has one of the world’s highest HIV infection rates with an estimated 12 percent of its 47 million people infected with the virus.

There are up to 1,000 AIDS-related deaths in South Africa every day and free condom distribution is a crucial part of the government’s efforts to combat the spread of the epidemic.

“An official of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), has put millions of people at risk by illegally passing millions of condoms, which had not met the quality assurance requirements,” said health department spokesman Sibani Mngadi.

Mngadi said even though only a batch of 7 million condoms was affected, the department decided to recall all 20 million condoms supplied by the manufacturer since last year, and will no longer be dealing with that company.

The SABS official accused of taking bribes and two directors of the manufacturing company have been arrested and are out on bail, said the spokesman. They will be appearing in a Pretoria court on September 10 to face charges of corruption and fraud.

LEGAL ACTION

The condoms did not meet several standard tests for strength, pressure and lubrication, said Mngadi.

The SABS Web site alerted the public, saying the faulty condoms were distributed by brand names including Ultramour, Randy Rat and Positions.

SABS said it had instructed Latex Surgical Products (LSP) to recall the condoms and that it would take legal action against the manufacturer.

The Health Department is also recalling condoms produced by LSP from its national HIV/AIDS supply chain.

LSP was not immediately available to comment.

Besides a struggling health-care system characterized by a lack of doctors and nurses, many of whom have left the country for better pay abroad, the fight against AIDS has been hampered by conflicting messages from senior government officials.

Researchers, scientists and health-care workers said in a conference in South Africa in June that they were encouraged by the government’s fresh approach to the crisis and improved weapons to protect those most at risk of infection.

But fresh controversy over the government’s AIDS policies has erupted.

President Thabo Mbeki sacked Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge this month for insubordination, sparking an outcry from AIDS activists who strongly backed her policies and critics who say she was fired for political reasons.

Madlala-Routledge had clashed with Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, dubbed “Dr Beetroot,” who had horrified

AIDS activists with her advocacy of garlic, lemon and African potatoes over conventional anti-retroviral drugs.

The health department said it does not know how many of the defective condoms have been used, and it is urging the public to return them.

SMYRNA, Tenn. – A man who authorities say used his computer to make fake $100 bills to buy lap dances at a strip club has pleaded guilty to counterfeiting charges, federal prosecutors said.

Strippers at Deja Vu in Nashville were suspicious of the bills and called police after Damon Armagost spent $600 of the fake money April 16, authorities said.

When officers arrived, Armagost first told them he got the money when he sold gold coins for $1,400 to an unidentified person.

U.S. Secret Service agents later determined that counterfeit bills with the same serial number had been passed in other parts of the country. When they went to Armagost’s Smyrna home, about 20 miles southeast of Nashville, a family member told agents that an image of a $100 bill had been on a computer there.

Armagost then acknowledged that he had downloaded the image from the Internet and printed 14 of the bills, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty Friday to manufacturing and passing counterfeit currency and has a sentencing date of Nov. 5.

PORTLAND, Oregon – A group of campers tied a peeping Tom suspect to a tree, keeping him bound until police arrived.

Richard H. Berkey, 63, was charged with private indecency, a misdemeanor, by sheriff’s deputies who were called to the Big Fan Campground near Bagby Hot Springs last weekend, according to Clackamas County Detective Jim Strovink.

Campers told deputies they recognized Berkey from a similar incident at the campground last year and wanted to make sure he did not get away.

The 2006 incident was reported to police but did not result in charges.

“Last year, we took down his license plate number and turned it in to the sheriff, but there wasn’t a lot they could do really,” said Jason Dugan, one of the campers. “This year, that wasn’t happening.”

Dugan and another camper, Michelle Brandow, said several friends were playing chess, eating and relaxing last Saturday, when they heard rustling in an area the women used as an open latrine. Dugan went to investigate, saw a man running from the area and tackled him.

With help from two other campers, Dugan led Berkey to the group’s campsite and tied him to a tree. Another camper left to call police.

Berkey told KGW-TV in Portland he was surprised by the response. “I just didn’t think it was that big of a deal,” he said. A phone call to Berkey’s house in Beaverton was not immediately returned Friday.

Berkey is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 18.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Not content with banning “vulgar” reality TV shows, China’s culture guardians have added transsexuals and plastic surgery patients to the burgeoning hit-list of proscribed content on the country’s airways.

China’s broadcasting watchdog, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), has outlawed shows featuring “public participation” in sex-change operations and plastic surgery.

“All levels of television broadcasters must not plan or produce sex change or plastic surgery programs involving public participation (including news, specials or interviews), effective immediately,” SARFT said in a notice posted on its Web site Friday.

“(Such programs) currently being screened or in production must stop at once,” it added.

The order follows the axing of controversial “Beautiful Makeover,” a reality show produced by a TV station in China’s southern province of Guangdong, showing scenes of plastic surgery operations.

China’s broadcast watchdog has moved to crack down on the country’s increasingly freewheeling TV broadcasters, urging them to imbue “socialist” values in their programming, instead of using “vulgarity” and “weirdness” in the pursuit of ratings.

Last week, SARFT pulled Chongqing TV’s popular talent show “The First Heartthrob” from the air-waves, citing vulgar content among a raft of other transgressions.

“Happy Boys Voice,” China’s male-only take-off of U.S. talent show “American Idol,” cut scenes involving contestants in tears, with wild hair or singing “unhealthy” songs in its first season to comply with the watchdog’s demands.

LONDON (AFP) – A robber who held up a British betting shop with his girlfriend’s sex toy was jailed for five years on Monday.

Nicki Jex, 27, concealed his partner’s “Rampant Rabbit” vibrator in a plastic bag during the raid on a Ladbrokes shop in Leicester, east central England, on December 27 last year.

The city’s crown court was told that he pointed the sex aid at a cashier and forced her to hand over more than 600 pounds (883 euros, 1,118 dollars) in cash.

Jex, who lives in the city, pleaded guilty to robbery, which was captured on the shop’s closed circuit television cameras.

Sentencing him, Judge Philip Head said: “It’s right to record that you did not have a firearm but you pretended you had and intended that those you confronted believed that you did, and it must have been truly terrifying for them at the time.”

The court was told that qualified chef and engineer Jex was a drug addict who had a string of previous convictions, while his lawyer said his client was in a “fragile” state of mind because of his battle with narcotics.

“He had some of his girlfriend’s items and has taken the final step towards self-destruction by committing this offence. One can be thankful that the item he had wasn’t a firearm,” Phil Gibbs said in mitigation.

“Frankly, he didn’t care less what happened to him at that time. He was falling into the abyss and that’s the root cause of drugs.”

SHIRLEY, N.Y. – Male drivers who paid $5 for a topless car wash ended up getting hosed. Young women held up signs along a parkway advertising the car wash on Sunday and telling the drivers where to go. But hidden behind a big blue tarp, it was shirtless male firefighters who were washing the cars.

“A little bit of a bait-and-switch,” Assistant Chief Donald Prince admitted. “All the guys back there are all topless.”

Female drivers didn’t seem to mind the shirtless firefighters. Male drivers, though, felt they were getting burned.

Mike Matias was hugely disappointed when a man soaped up and rinsed his car. But he said at least his $5 went to a good cause: All the money raised will benefit school booster clubs and charities, the Brookhaven fire department said.

NEW WINDSOR, N.Y. – A Florida fugitive was captured Monday after authorities found him skinny dipping in the Hudson River, police said.

An officer found a car Sunday night at a park site in upstate New York that closes at dusk. Police spotted clothing and a wallet in the car and began a search, eventually moving to the water.

“Our guys thought for sure we had a drowning,” said Orange County Deputy Chief Rick Hovey.

David Rogers, 31, was found just before 3:30 a.m., about 200 yards offshore.

“He was kind of floating on his back, resting,” Hovey said. “He claims he swam all the way across and back. … He was naked when they got him out of the water.”

Rogers was charged with trespassing for being in the park after hours. Swimming is not allowed at the park.

Rogers was released from the Orange County jail Monday evening. New Windsor police said he will likely be extradited to Florida, where he is wanted on a felony traffic warrant.

Corrections officials did not know whether Rogers had an attorney.

JAKARTA (Reuters) – A plan to carry out virginity tests on female high school students in a district in Indonesia’s West Java province has been dropped after a public outcry, media reports said.

The head of Indramayu district, Irianto Syafiuddin, is reported to have made the proposal for virginity tests after a video showing two high school students having sex circulated via mobile phones.

“Because many people oppose it, we cancelled (the plan),” Syafiuddin was quoted as saying by online news service Detik.com.

Syafiuddin could not immediately be contacted, but according to media reports he will look for an alternative way to prevent students from engaging in pre-marital sex.

Students, parents and activists viewed the planned virginity tests on thousands of high school students in the district as a violation of human rights, the Jakarta Post said.

“We can’t accept this idea. It’s unfair as the porn video was just an isolated case,” a female student, Gita, was quoted as saying by the Post.

Many in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, place high value on virginity, although pre-marital sex is not uncommon among the younger generation.

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Matt Virtue, who works as a consultant at a Washington law firm, says he spends more than $10,000 a year to attend conventions, hotels and clubs where he and his girlfriend can have sex with other partners.

“Any other hobby that I was into at 40 years old is going to cost me $10,000,” he said from a hot tub he was sharing with his girlfriend and a couple with whom they had been intimate the night before. “Dude, I’m addicted to it, there is no doubt about it.”

Such enthusiasm has turned what were once private passions into a multimillion dollar business. Lifestyles Organization, the nation’s largest swinger services company, has annual sales of about $15 million.

Swingers also bring in millions of dollars to specialty clubs and hotels in the United States as well as Jamaica, Mexico, France and elsewhere.

“We’re talking about a lifestyle, but in reality we are also talking about a business,” Robert McGinley, 73, the president of Lifestyles Organization, said during its annual convention in Las Vegas, which attracts about 900 couples.

Lifestyles Organization caters to a middle-class demographic who want to meet like-minded couples and who typically want to hide their passions from what they call “vanillas” (conventional couples).

Efforts to meet such couples outside those circles often fail, giving tour, club and convention organizers steady business.

Terri, 48, attending the convention from Boise, Idaho — who asked that her last name not be published — said she and her husband of 21 years spend as much as $8,000 a year on several weeks of swinging vacations and club visits.

At this year’s event, Anaheim, California-based Lifestyles Organization contracted out an entire hotel near the Las Vegas Strip and organized seminars and parties for middle-aged couples.

The most exhibitionist of those gathered in open hotel rooms after midnight to have sex as others watched or joined in. Some couples made small talk as they were engaged in sex, including one man who boasted that his son was in medical school.

“The other night I looked up and there were five or six people looking,” said Terri, who retired from the U.S. Air Force two years ago. “I’m glad I was giving them a good show.”

“I’ve had three (lovers) in the past 24 hours.”

Leading sex researchers say they do not know the number of swingers in the United States, so it is difficult to pinpoint how much business the subculture represents overall.

Rick Conner, a swinger and author of an advice book for such couples, estimates there are 100,000 U.S. swingers, of whom 20,000 are particularly active. Other swingers have suggested the number is in the low millions.

PLEASE, NO SEX IN THE RESTAURANT

Despite the unusual focus of the convention, McGinley shares the bottom-line concerns of many businessmen.

“In business there is risk and you have to decide is it a reasonable risk or not,” he said. “Behind the scenes there is a lot of planning that goes into this and a lot of going over financials, financials of the past and what is the current situation.”

He said couples paid a registration fee of $690, out of which $200 covered costs, leaving an overall profit of more than $400,000. Couples pay additionally for hotel rooms and flight costs.

Lifestyles Organization faced a few unusual incidents. His staff had to halt one couple from engaging in a sex act inside the Tuscany Suites restaurant.

Conventions bring Lifestyles $4 million in annual sales; their travel business booking swinging guests into resorts such as Hedonism II in Jamaica or Desire in Mexico bring in another $10 million to $12 million a year, McGinley said.

“We relax our already liberal rules to accommodate the Lifestyles Organization and make the entire resort clothing-optional,” explained Richard Bourke, general manager of Hedonism II.

He said Lifestyles Organization books $2 million of rooms a year over six contracted weeks. Hedonism II staff are barred from intimate relations with the guests and some have been fired for violating the edict, Bourke said.

“You have resorts with big-name resort companies that are catering to it,” McGinley said. “They’re not into swinging at all, but they are into making money, and we’re the ones that provide the clients for them.”

Desire Resort and Spa in Los Cabos, Mexico opened in November with a focus on the swinging market. About half of the guests are active swingers, according to Jesus Prado Leal, a receptionist.

Several hundred clubs nationwide also cater to swingers. Jeff James, who works for Club Freedom Acres in San Bernardino County east of Los Angeles, said 225 to 260 couples visit on a typical Saturday night, paying $85 each, with a similar number on Fridays paying $65. “It’s doubled in daily attendance in the last three years,” he said.

Swinging also boosts ancillary services such as breast enhancements and erectile dysfunction drugs. “Viagra is definitely part of the adult scene,” said Deborah, a 52-year old aesthetician grandmother from Dallas, Texas, who asked that her last name not be used. “Instead of four stars before, it’s probably five stars now.”

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – When a woman enters menopause, her sex life and that of her partner may suffer, according to a survey in which more than half of the women reported a decrease in sex drive and in the amount of sex they were having since entering menopause.

Overall, 46 percent of menopausal women surveyed reported having sex less than once per month and most women felt that this was hurting their relationship.

“Menopausal women are having less sex and it’s impacting our relationships,” Karen Giblin noted in a telephone interview with Reuters Health. “Frankly, through the Red Hot Mamas menopause education programs, I have heard that a lot of women would rather go shoe shopping than have sex, and that concerns me.”

The survey, including more than 1,000 women, 35 years or older, who were just beginning, just ending, or in the middle of menopause, was conducted between June 20 and July 2, 2007.

“We are the baby-boom generation who is now entering menopause; we are the women who lived through the sexual revolution in the 60s and now we are having our own sexual revolution, of a different kind,” said Giblin, the founder of the Red Hot Mamas organization (www.redhotmamas.org), which commissioned the Sex and Menopause Survey. The survey was sponsored by Duramed Pharmaceuticals and conducted by Harris Interactive.

Four hundred sixty nine of these women — about 44 percent — reported suffering from vaginal symptoms such as vaginal atrophy (vaginal narrowing or shrinkage), which can cause vaginal dryness and painful sex.

Eighty-eight percent of women experiencing vaginal atrophy said it was causing them problems and 47 percent said that they have avoided, made an excuse, or stopped having sex altogether because of physical discomfort during intercourse.

Vaginal dryness, in particular, plagued more than half of menopausal women surveyed and this resulted in two thirds of them having less sex. “Seventy percent of the women did not know that therapies are available to relieve vaginal dryness,” Giblin noted.

“There are over-the-counter products to combat dryness and your physician has a treasure chest of prescription medications to relieve vaginal dryness,” she added.

Giblin believes men need menopause education just as much as women. “It’s not only important that a woman have a thorough understanding of the menopause process.” Men should also because the symptoms of menopause “can be very hard on relationships,” Giblin said.

“If a partner sees a decrease in sex with their partner, often times the partner becomes resentful and feels that the woman has lost interest and it isn’t necessarily true,” Giblin said. “It’s very critical for women and their significant other to stay really connected during menopause.”

EUGENE, Ore. – A man hoping to score some meth asked the wrong person for the drug. The Eugene police vice narcotics unit had searched an apartment on Monday night and were questioning the tenant when a man came by and asked to buy drugs, Sgt. Jerry Webber said.

As detectives stood around with their badges hanging from their necks and latex gloves on their hands, the man asked the tenant, “Can you hook me up?” Webber said.

The tenant was seated on the couch with handcuffs around his wrists. A detective was writing him a citation.

The tenant said, “I don’t think I can help you,” Webber recalled, but the visitor persisted. He then allegedly turned to a detective and asked him for meth.

The detective told the visitor, James Wilkinson, 34, of Eugene, he was under arrest for attempted possession of methamphetamine.

Wilkinson tried to run, but officers grabbed him, Webber said.

They found a small amount of marijuana in his possession, Webber said.

Officers cited the tenant, Gary Puckett, 58, for possessing meth and for endangering the welfare of a 15-year-old girl who was in the apartment.

They also arrested a man who walked into the apartment carrying seven baggies of meth, Webber said.

A fourth man showed up at the apartment carrying an illegal butterfly knife, Webber said. He told police he had come to tell Puckett not to sell drugs to his girlfriend. He left with a citation for carrying a concealed weapon.

After that, police stopped answering the door, Webber said.

LONDON (AFP) – A British police officer who had sexual relations while on duty was acquitted in court because he was in constant radio contact due to the earpiece he was wearing during his sex romp.

Police transport inspector Massoud Khan, 41, found his 43-year-old partner on the Internet dating site uniformdating.com.

He conducted his illicit encounter in a room at the police station at Gatwick Airport, near London, it was reveaLed during the trial on Wednesday.

The jury quickly came to a unanimous verdict as the policeman proved he was able to respond to all emergencies as he was equipped with an earpiece tuned in to the police radio frequency.

“If there was a call for me, I would have answered it and I would have dealt with it,” he told the court, according to the Times newspaper.

His lawyer Kevin Baumber believes that the inspector certainly misbehaved, but his bad decision is not a crime.

“This is a criminal court, not a moral court. It’s doubtful that this case would have been brought if he had taken an extended lunch break or gone for a game of golf,” he said.

The inspector still may face disiplinary action.

ALETSCH GLACIER, Switzerland (Reuters) – Hundreds of people posed naked on Switzerland’s shrinking Aletsch glacier on Saturday for U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick as part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of global warming.

Tunick, perched on a ladder and using a megaphone, directed nearly 600 volunteers from all over Europe and photographed them on a rocky outcrop overlooking the glacier, which is the largest in the Alps.

Later he took pictures of them standing in groups on the mass of ice and lying down. Camera crews were staged at five different points on the glacier to take photographs.

Glaciers are sensitive to climate change and have been receding since the start of the industrial age but the pace of shrinkage has accelerated in recent years.

The environmental group Greenpeace, which organised the shoot, said the aim was to “establish a symbolic relationship between the vulnerability of the melting glacier and the human body.”

The Aletsch descends around the south side of the Jungfrau mountain in the Upper Rhone Valley.

The volunteers walked for several hours in the mountains to reach the glacier before taking their clothes off briefly for the shoot in temperatures of around 10 degrees Celsius (50.00F).

Alpine glaciers have lost about one-third of their length and half their volume over the past 150 years. The Aletsch ice mass has retreated by 115 metres (377 ft) in the last two years alone, said Greenpeace.

Tunick has staged mass nude photo shoots in cities across the world, from Newcastle, Britain, to Mexico City, where a record 18,000 people took off their clothes in the Mexican capital’s Zocalo square in May.

Speaking to Geneva’s Le Temps newspaper in an interview published before the shoot on Saturday, Tunick said his photographs were both works of art and political statements.

“I will try to treat the body on two levels. On an abstract level, as if they were flowers or stones. And on a more social level, to represent their vulnerability and humanity with regard to nature and the city and to remind people where we come from.”

Switzerland has about 1,800 glaciers and almost of them are losing ground.

Greenpeace said if global warming continues unabated, most glaciers will disappear from the Earth by 2080.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – A 52-year-old man prosecutors called a “career flasher” was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison after pleading no contest to charges he exposed himself to a woman on a commuter train.

Police arrested Kenneth Ray Burton of San Francisco last year after he allegedly began masturbating in front of a woman on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train.

Prosecutors sought the lengthy prison sentence because Burton already had two prior convictions for indecent exposure and a previous conviction on six counts related to sexual assault, San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.

The sentence of 13 years, four months in state prison was handed down Wednesday in San Mateo County Superior Court after Burton agreed to plead no contest to five felony counts of indecent exposure. He originally faced a maximum sentence of 25 years to life.

“Our concern was, ‘Are we being too lenient? Are we adequately protecting the public?’” Wagstaffe said. “We have a person here who has done this for many, many years. And with all likelihood, he will be doing it again.”

LONG BEACH, N.Y. – A man who decided to go for a late night swim in the buff was found hours later by rescue crews, hiding under a pier not far from where he jumped in the water, authorities said Sunday.

Neal Mello, 37, of Brooklyn, was found around 5:30 a.m., and appeared to be in good physical condition but was “without the benefit of a swimsuit,” the Coast Guard said in a release.

“Mr. Mello’s modesty may have been harmed, but he could have done himself worse by not swallowing his pride and showing himself to rescuers when he did,” Lt. Douglas Miller said.

Mello had stripped off his clothes and went in the water around 9:20 p.m. Saturday, the U.S. Coast Guard said. When he was still gone at 10 p.m., a friend called for help, and rescuers were dispatched.

The search extended about 5 miles offshore and involved boats and a helicopter.

Mello’s clothes, wallet and cell phone were found on the shore near where he entered the water in Long Beach, a city that boasts an expanse of oceanfront within 30 miles of Manhattan.

BANGKOK, Thailand – Mr., Mrs. or Ms.? Thailand may soon let people who have had a sex change officially alter their title, too.

A proposal which would allow transgender men or women to choose how they are addressed is being considered by the country’s National Legislative Assembly to support an anti-discrimination provision in the draft constitution, Thai newspapers reported.

Wiroon Tangcharoen, an assembly member who is also rector of Srinakharinwirot University, said he supported the move and did not believe it would affect room assignments in university dormitories, where students are segregated by sex, The Nation newspaper said.

Students wishing to live with members of their adopted gender would have to produce medical certificates proving they had undergone sex-change operations, he said.

“The university has nothing against male transsexual students staying in female dormitories on the campus,” he was quoted as saying.

Even though Thailand is widely tolerant of gays, transvestites and transsexuals, many face family pressure, social prejudice and domestic violence.

Three years ago, a college in the northern province of Chiang Mai designated a bathroom for the exclusive use of the school’s 15 cross-dressing students. The transvestites — who had to wear male attire at school but were allowed to sport feminine hairdos — had annoyed female students when using the women’s bathrooms, and faced harassment in the men’s facilities.

CANBERRA (Reuters) – An Australian men’s magazine offering readers a “boob job” breast enhancement for their girlfriends will be investigated under laws barring cosmetic surgery prizes, authorities said on Tuesday.

Zoo Weekly, a magazine which regularly features pictures of skimpily-dressed women, offered readers A$10,000 (4,165 pounds) for “a boob job for your girlfriend”.

But the competition drew the ire of New South Wales state Gaming and Racing Minister Graham West, who ordered an investigation into whether the magazine had broken Lotteries laws forbidding the offer of cosmetic surgery as a prize.

“We have asked the state charities office to investigate if there’s a breach,” a spokesman for the minister told Reuters.

Magazine editor Paul Merrill told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper the competition was legal because it was simply offered cash, rather than a breast enhancement operation.

“If they choose to spend it on surgery they can. We’ve checked out all the legals,” he said.

Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons President Howard Webster said any doctor who provided an operation under the competition faced being struck off the medical register.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Two Dutch news bloggers caught filming under women’s skirts in a car park in order to warn the public of the intimate views afforded by see-through stairs must appear in court, according to their blog.

A court spokesman in Alkmaar, where the pair have been called to appear in October, said they had been charged with filming people without permission after someone complained. The bloggers say the women knew that they were being filmed.

The subterranean car park in the northern Dutch town of Heerhugowaard has a transparent ceiling in its stairwell, allowing people to look up at shoppers passing above.

The Geen Stijl blog said they were only filming to see whether the local council had done anything about the transparent ceiling after the issue was brought to their attention several months before.

The two bloggers could face a two-month prison sentence, according to Dutch news agency ANP.

MONESSEN, Pa. – A high school art teacher who went on a date with a porn star after winning a satellite radio contest has resigned.

Jaison Biagini traveled to St. Petersburg, Fla., last month after winning the date on the Sirius satellite radio show “Bubba the Love Sponge.”

The school board voted Tuesday to accept his resignation.

Biagini, who taught art for 14 years at Monessen High School, said he entered the contest because he wanted to win the free trip and visit the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg. He described the date as being “all fake and staged.”

Biagini, who uses a wheelchair, was interviewed on the radio show after returning home, and told the Valley Independent in Monessen that he was ridiculed for his disability.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Green Bay police are again looking for a naked man who has been running through yards wearing only a ski mask to cover his face. Police in Green Bay and nearby Appleton have investigated about 60 similar reports over the past two years. They believe the same man is responsible.

The most recent incident happened just after midnight Thursday on Green Bay’s east side.

A 29-year-old woman said she had been sitting in her living room working on her laptop when she noticed a naked man outside her window. She went to see if her door was locked and the man ran off, police said.

The man has been described as thin and white.

Police said the incident might be connected to one that happened Wednesday night in Allouez.

Three children in a home reported seeing a man wearing only a bandanna outside their glass patio door about 11 p.m., police said.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – A grandmother taking a leisurely swim in a Swedish river ended up in the hospital after a beaver attacked her with its tail, regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda reported Wednesday.

Police sources said it was the second time a beaver had attacked humans at the beach on the banks of the Bottenaa River, around 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Stockholm, the newspaper reported.

“The beaver attacked the grandmother. She was seriously hit by the animal’s tail and received a number of bites and scratches,” an officer told the newspaper.

The authorities have decided to kill the dozen or so beavers living near the beach to eliminate any further risk to local bathers.

Let this be a lesson, what can happen when beavers get out of control.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – When conventional medical professionals refused to remove a 62-year-old local man’s testicles, police said he turned to mysterious “professionals” to relieve what he called chronic pain.

Now police want to find the fly-by-night surgeons.

“I have never in my life seen anything quite like that,” said St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed Monday, the man complained of chronic pain and turned to conventional medical personnel to remove his testicles.

When they refused, the 62-year-old man said he hired other “professionals” to do the surgery. He would not tell officers who they were, saying he didn’t want to get them into trouble.

Police said a couple of weeks ago, two or three people operated on the man in his home. He was unconscious. When he woke up, his testicles were gone. So were his “professionals.”

His groin area was bleeding heavily, so he called his daughter. She called for help.

Police found an improvised operating room in the man’s house, with bright lights, an apparent operating table, a camera and various medical supplies and equipment. There was also blood in several rooms of the house.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Concertgoers at a festival in the Dutch city of Lichtenvoorde were treated to an unusual sight Friday: A pink hot air balloon 127 feet high, shaped exactly like a condom, drifting lazily across the sky.

The balloon, with the words “Vrij Veilig” — Dutch for “Safe Sex” — was launched by the public health service in the eastern district of Gelre-Ijssel, near the German border.

The director of the health service, known by its Dutch acronym GGD, said the festival was an ideal opportunity to reach young people. More than 80,000 are expected to attend the three-day Zwarte Cross event — a combination motor-cross race and hard rock concert, with Dutch gothic metal band “Within Temptation” headlining.

“This is a playful way of asking for attention to the problem of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and AIDS,” said Laurent de Vries.

Nurses on the concert grounds also handed out educational material and free condoms as part of the campaign, he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A 22-year-old man who was “not fully clothed” jumped the north fence into the White House grounds on Sunday and was immediately apprehended, the U.S. Secret Service said.

Justin Manuel Arrieta, of Cocoa Beach, Florida, was arrested for unlawful entry and taken for processing to the District of Columbia police department, Secret Service spokeswoman Kim Bruce said.

She said Arrieta was only on the grounds of the White House for a matter of seconds and there were no reports of injury. She declined to say what he was wearing.

LONDON (Reuters) – A British man who pinched the bottom of a television presenter live on air has been cautioned, police said on Thursday.

Sue Turton, who described the incident as “humiliating” and a “public goosing,” was reporting on floods in Oxford last week on Channel 4 when a shaggy-haired Rufus Burdett strolled past and pinched her.

Distracted for just a moment, Turton maintained her composure and completed her report.

A video clip of the bottom-pinching has been viewed nearly 500,000 times on the Web site YouTube.

Police used the footage to identify Burdett and gave him a caution. They had considered imposing an 80 pound ($162) fine for a public order offence but decided against it.

Turton, who told police she did not want to press charges, said she found “the matter quite humiliating and somewhat disrespectful to the plight of those I was reporting about.”

Two bouts of flooding, the worst in Britain in 60 years, killed at least nine people, damaged houses and destroyed crops, potentially costing the country about 3 billion pounds, according to insurers.

Turton also said the bottom pinching reflected a gender bias in society.

“Male reporters would never be treated to a public goosing,” she said. “Should the women of my profession not expect the same respect?”

ROME (Reuters) – A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son’s house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late.

Tired of her son’s misbehavior, the retiree in the central Sicilian city of Caltagirone turned to the police to “convince this blockhead” to behave properly, La Sicilia, one of Sicily’s leading newspapers, reported on Thursday.

The son responded by saying his mother did not give him a big enough weekly allowance and did not know how to cook.

“My son does not respect me, he doesn’t tell me where he’s going in the evenings and returns home late,” the woman was quoted as saying. “He is never happy with the food I make and always complains. This can’t go on.”

Police helped the squabbling duo make up and the two returned home together, with the son’s house keys and daily allowance restored.

Most Italian men still live at home late into their 30s, enjoying their “mamma’s” cooking, washing and ironing.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German workaholics may be suffering from a lack of sex, according to a university study published on Friday.

A survey of 32,000 men and women by researchers at the University of Goettingen found over 35 percent of those reporting unsatisfying sex lives tended to use hard work as a diversion.

Some 36 percent of men and 35 percent of women surveyed for the “Apotheken Umschau” newsletter said they were likely to put in extra time at the office and volunteer for extra assignments.

The hard work ethic was even more pronounced among those who reported having no sex — 45 percent of men and 46 percent of women said they voluntarily took on more responsibilities.

“These findings are worrying,” the leader of the study, Ragnar Beer, was quoted as saying.

RALEIGH, N.C. – If someone offers you frilly women’s lingerie on the street, call police. Thieves have stolen almost $35,000 worth of underwear, perfume and other merchandise from Victoria’s Secret stores in the Raleigh area since March, police said. Law enforcement officials have no suspects and said it’s unlikely the thieves are stealing for personal use.

A store in the Triangle Town Center in Raleigh reported nearly $20,000 in missing merchandise between March and June, while stores in Durham and Cary reported losses of almost $13,000 and $4,000, respectively.

The thieves seem to work in groups of three, with one person distracting a store clerk while the other two stuff bags with bras, underwear and other items, police said.

WELLINGTON (AFP) – They say you are what you eat, and growing numbers of vegans are shunning sex with meat-eaters because they see them as “a graveyard for animals”, a New Zealand researcher says.

These vegans not only refuse to eat meat or animal products but refuse to have sexual contact with meat-eaters because their bodies are made up of dead animals, the researcher was reported saying in The Press newspaper on Tuesday.

Annie Potts, co-director of the New Zealand Centre of Human and Animal Studies at New Zealand’s Canterbury University, said she coined the term vegansexuals during her research.

She discovered the vegansexuals while interviewing 157 vegetarians and ethical consumers for a study.

“It’s a whole new thing — I have not come across it before,” said Potts.

One vegan said while she found non-vegans attractive, but would not want to be physically close to them.

“I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance,” she said.