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.

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Two Austrians and a German were fined for cycling naked along the banks of the River Danube in Serbia where a heatwave has sent temperatures soaring.

“Police arrived after being alerted by passers-by,” said police spokesman Stevan Krstic in the northern city of Novi Sad.

Temperatures in Serbia and other parts of the Balkans have hovered stubbornly for the past week at around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

The there men were brought to a magistrate on charges of disrupting public peace and order and were fined 10,000 dinars (125 euros) each.

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont (Reuters) – A Vermont town that is gaining national attention for brash displays of nudity — from teens in the buff to naked elderly people — awoke on Wednesday to an emergency ban on nakedness in most public places.

Officials in Brattleboro voted 3 to 2 on Tuesday night for a temporary 30-day ordinance prohibiting people from going about in the nude.

Public nudity made headlines last summer when the weather grew hot and a couple of dozen teens took to holding hula hoop contests, riding bikes and parading past stores wearing only their birthday suits. The disrobing has resumed this summer.

But many locals say it has gone too far. Some cite a case in which a senior citizen from Arizona strolled through the center of town wearing only a waist pack and sandals.

“We’ve received quite a number of complaints on this,” Assistant Town Manager Barbara Sondag said. “This was brought up last summer … and kind of died down. Then a couple of incidents again this summer have got the issue to resurface.”

Vermont has a live-and-let-live tradition, allowing skinny-dipping and nude sunbathing. Brattleboro, the first permanent English settlement in the state in 1724, is home to a community of writers, artists and musicians as well as transplanted entrepreneurs from Boston and New York.

Although skinny-dipping and nude sunbathing will stay legal in the state, doing the “full monty” in the middle of this town has now become taboo. A violation can cost $100.

The topic is hotly debated at Harold & Son’s Barbershop, where Heather Birmingham, 30, cuts and colors hair.

“(Nudity) does rub some people the wrong way,” she said.

“Some people say ‘to each his own’. But some of the older people say ‘be respectful’.”

She disagrees with the ban. “This whole town is about peace and about being your own person. So if it is, then why isn’t nudity accepted?”

Caleb Morris, 15, said he wasn’t surprised by the town’s tough response because outsiders could find the nudity offensive, but he added that Vermont has always been unique.

“It’s a lot more free-spirited than some other states. We don’t have a lot of laws banning things here.”

The ban covers nudity in the main part of town and near schools and churches and is part of a broader anti-nudity proposal that is likely to be decided next month. Breast feeding in public will still be allowed.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – A 20-year-old Syracuse woman who left children in her care to go pose for nude photos is facing several charges of endangering the welfare of a child.

Police say Michelle Rendino was supposed to be watching four young girls yesterday when she left them alone and went into the woods near Syracuse’s Inner Harbor to have a man take nude photos of her.

A man fishing saw the children crying and called police. When police arrived, the oldest girl — a six-year-old — told police that “Aunt Michelle” went into the woods to take “nasty pictures.”

Rendino says she asked the man to take nude photos of her so she could get back at her ex-boyfriend.

The children were returned safely to their mother.

NEW YORK – A bidet company’s advertising plans in Times Square are too cheeky for the pastor of a nearby church.

Rev. Neil Rhodes, pastor of the interdenominational Times Square Church, is asking a state court to block a billboard company from posting huge ads that feature naked buttocks with smiley faces on them. The display is to go up on two sides of the Broadway building that houses Rhodes’ church, its Bible school and day-care center.

“You walk into a church building, you have naked bodies before your eyes, how are you going to close your eyes and seek God?” Rhodes told the New York Post in an article published Sunday.

The ads promote the Washlet, a bidet-toilet seat that uses warm water and air. They were to go up for 30 days beginning July 1, but the church asked the state Supreme Court to block the displays, saying they would interfere with the church’s religious mission.

Adam Silverstein, a lawyer for the advertising company, Van Wagner Communications, told the newspaper that he did not wish to trivialize the church’s objections, but that “this is Times Square. It’s the billboard capital of the world, and it’s home to some of the most sensational advertisements in the universe.”

A ruling was expected Monday.

PAMPLONA, Spain (AFP) – Hundreds of animal rights activists took part in a “Running of the Nudes” Thursday to protest the traditional running of the bulls ceremony in the Spanish town of Pamplona.

The demonstrators ran stripped to their underwear and sporting plastic horns, as well as the traditional red bandana worn by those who take part in the famous Spanish event.

The running of the bulls involves the release of bulls every morning into the streets of the city in northeast Spain.

Daredevil revellers, including many foreigners, run ahead of the stampeding bulls as they are herded down the narrow streets towards the city’s bull ring.

Runners are sometimes caught and either gored or trampled by the running bulls and 14 people have been killed in the event since 1911.

The bulls that run in the morning are used in bullfights the same evening.

Thursday’s protest was organised by the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), which said people from more than 30 countries took part.

Thousands of tourists are expected to attend the week-long festival of the bulls, which starts on Friday.

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.

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.

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.

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia’s worst drought in memory has had many weird side-effects — but a nude carwash has to be one of the oddest.

The “big dry” has driven snakes into towns in search of water and sent thirst-crazed wild camels rampaging through outback camps.

In Brisbane, capital of the “Sunshine State” of Queensland on the east coast, it led to water restrictions, including a ban on residents washing their own cars.

The result was a boom in professional carwash services, a phenomenon which caught the eye of strip club entrepreneur Warren Armstrong.

He set up “Bubbles ‘n Babes”, where customers can have their cars washed by a topless woman for 55 dollars (45 US), or a nude woman for 100 dollars.

Armstrong told the City News newspaper this week the operation was above board.

“I’m just trying to make an honest dollar — simple as that,” he said.

Police said no complaints had been received and, as the washing took place out of public view, no criminal offence was being committed.

Acting State Premier Anna Bligh said the operation was running on recycled water and therefore did not break water restrictions — but neither she nor the government fleet would be using it.

“It seems to me a pretty weird and wacky way to get your car washed,” she said.

ROME (Reuters) – A 40-year-old office clerk made a splash at Rome’s Trevi fountain when she went for a swim, naked, in the Renaissance masterpiece in front of a crowd of tourists.

“The water is everyone’s. I was hot,” Roberta, who did not give her last name, said, as snapshots of her appeared in all Italy’s major newspapers on Monday.

The Trevi featured in the 1960 classic film “La Dolce Vita” in which screen diva Anita Ekberg went for a dip in the fountain wearing a skimpy black dress.

But swimming in the fountain is prohibited and Roberta, from Milan, now risks a hefty fine for public indecency.

In 1995, German supermodel Claudia Schiffer also waded into the fountain for an advertising campaign for designer Valentino.

NEW DELHI (AFP) – Indian airports have ditched high-powered X-ray surveillance that offers near-naked images of passengers amid fears of protests over privacy abuse, officials said.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which guards Indian airports, said a single Backscatter X-ray device imported from the United States in November had been mothballed after its results shocked security personnel.

“It was quite unnerving … terribly embarrassing actually,” a CISF commandant who trained on the equipment, told AFP.

“Only one machine was brought to the Indira Gandhi International airport (in New Delhi) four months ago for trials, but we found the images were too revealing,” a senior CISF official told the Times of India.

“Using the backscatter machine would have become very sensitive here,” the official said.

Backscatter uses high-energy X-rays that can penetrate clothing. It is unlike X-rays used in medical applications, which pass through human tissues but bounce off bones or metal parts.

Security at most Indian airports is usually tight due to fear of attack by Kashmiri guerrillas fighting Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory since 1989.

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – Blame global warming. An Albany, N.Y., man is accused of riding nude in a gondola at Stratton Mountain Resort on Dec. 15. William N. Barrett III, 46, pleaded not guilty to felony lewd and lascivious conduct and misdemeanor marijuana possession Tuesday in Vermont District Court.

A witness reported to lift attendants that Barrett was nude and touching himself inappropriately while riding the lift.

Barrett, who was fully clothed when he reached the bottom of the hill, denied being nude. He told police he had taken off his jacket and shirt because of the nice weather.

He also was charged with marijuana possession. Police found a glass pipe and film canister containing marijuana in his pocket when they arrested him, authorities said.

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.’

COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. – A teen accused of ordering from at least three fast food drive-thrus nude faces an indecent exposure charge. David Gatton, 18, of Columbia City, was found in the parking lot of a McDonald’s by a sheriff’s deputy after police received a call that the teen had been nude when he ordered from his car at the Arby’s drive-thru, police said.

“Maybe it was a way to enjoy the last of the warm weather,” joked Capt. Brian Anspach of the Columbia City Police Department.

Sgt. Mike Engle of the Whitley County Sheriff’s Department passed the car Tuesday night in Columbia City, 20 miles west of Fort Wayne. Engle said he turned around to stop the car and saw that Gatton had driven into the McDonald’s lot.

When Engle got to the car, Gatton was putting his clothes back on. Police said Gatton had a clothed male passenger in the car and the pair had been making the stops as part of a joke. Gatton faces a misdemeanor charge.

No telephone listing was available for Gatton in Columbia City.

DES MOINES, Iowa – A man has been ordered to pay more than $13,000 to former neighbors he spied upon while sitting naked in his house.

A jury on Thursday ordered William Andrianse, 59, to pay damages to Julie Weissinger, 40, who said she and her family were so upset they had to move away.

Andrianse pleaded guilty in 2004 to harassment and public exposure. After the Weissingers filed their lawsuit, he countersued, claiming his neighbors violated his privacy by videotaping him with a night-vision camera they borrowed from police.

Court records show that Andrianse claimed Julie Weissinger provoked his actions by “walking around in the house wearing a black teddy and bending over.”

The police report said Andrianse thought it was a mutual act and that he did not know Weissinger was “an unwilling participant.”

Weissinger denied such behavior, saying the event was traumatic, causing sleepless nights, prompting her to seek therapy and raising concerns for her family’s safety.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not everyone agreed.

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

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

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

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont (Reuters) – Some have appeared naked in a downtown parking lot. Others rode their bicycles or simply strolled the streets in the nude.

Teenagers in the quaint Vermont town of Brattleboro are raising eyebrows this summer with brazen displays of nudity.

So far they haven’t been arrested or ticketed: public nudity isn’t illegal in the town of 13,000 people, unless it’s done to arouse sexual gratification.

Vermont has a live-and-let-live tradition, allowing skinny-dipping and nude sunbathing. Brattleboro, the first permanent English settlement in the state in 1724, is home to a community of writers, artists and musicians as well as transplanted entrepreneurs from Boston and New York.

When the weather grew hot this year, a couple of dozen teens took to holding hula hoop contests, riding bikes and parading past the shops wearing only their birthday suits.

Nobody, including the police, seemed to take offense until one local, Theresa Toney, went before the town government in August to complain about a group of youngsters naked in a parking lot.

“The parking lot is not a strip club,” she said. “What about children seeing this?”

Town officials asked their attorney to draft an ordinance to ban such displays for the Select Board to vote on in September. When the teens heard about it, some staged a nude sit-in.

“I don’t see why it’s such a big deal,” said Alec McPherson, a recent high school graduate as he sat at a coffee shop table, browsing a thick volume of artwork from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Everyone’s naked in this book.”

His companion, Jeremiah Compton, a high school junior who plays in a local metal-and-punk band, agreed. “It’s just that we’re bored and expressing our right,” he said.

“We have a nuclear power plant a few miles away and a ridiculous war in the Middle East, countries getting bombed,” said Ian Bigelow, a 23-year-old who had gathered with some of his friends outside a bookstore. “So why’s it such a big problem if we chose to get nude?”

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – A parade of 30 topless porn stars riding motor bikes down the main street of New Zealand’s biggest city will go ahead, officials said Monday.

Auckland City Council Monday gave the “Boobs on Bikes” parade the green light, saying there was no legal reason to stop it despite concerns by some councilors that granting it a permit would add legitimacy to the event.

The parade, part of an “Erotica Expo” organized by local entrepreneur Steve Crow, will proceed down Auckland’s Queen Street from midday Wednesday.

Police earlier said they did not regard the parade of leather-clad porn stars as indecent.

“In the opinion of the police, given the standards of decency observed in this day and age, a female being topless in a parade on a weekday in Queen St will not in itself constitute an indecent act,” police inspector Rob Abbott wrote in a letter to The New Zealand Herald newspaper Monday.

However, the behavior of the participants during the parade might still attract the attention of police, he warned.

TAIPEI (AFP) – Members of a Taiwanese conservation group will stage a nude protest next week in the hope of pressuring the government to cease construction work on a nuclear power station, its spokesman said.

“We demand the government stop building the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to preserve the Fulung beach,” said Ho Tsung-hsun, secretary general of the Taiwan Enviromental Protection Union.

The protest, titled “Rather Nude than Nuke,” is set to take place Monday at Funlung beach in northern Keelung county where the plant is under construction.

Ho said 25 people, including 22 men and three women, had signed up for the event to form the English words “No Nuke” with their bodies.

Construction of the island’s fourth nuclear plant has been mired in controversy due to strong opposition from environmentalists and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) before it took government in 2000.

Abolishing the project was one of President Chen Shui-bian’s major policy platforms during his campaign for the March 2000 presidential election, which he won.

In October 2000, the DPP scrapped the partly built 5.6-billion US dollar plant without consulting parliament, as required by Taiwan’s constitution, plunging the island into months of political turmoil.

The government reinstated the project in February 2001, having added billions of dollars to its cost from delay compensation and extra expense.

The plant is scheduled to be completed in five or six years with its two reactors carrying a combined capacity of 2,770 megawatts.

OWATONNA, Minn. – A sheriff’s deputy is accused of exposing himself to a woman during a birthday party at a local bar.

Deputy Scott Ringhofer is charged in Steele County District Court with fifth-degree sexual misconduct and indecent exposure related to the May 4 incident.

According to a criminal complaint, a woman sitting at a table with Ringhofer at the party said Ringhofer exposed himself after she dared him in jest. Another deputy who was sitting at the same table confirmed the details of the complaint, according to court records.

Ringhofer, who was placed on paid administrative leave, was slated to appear in court Aug. 18.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – A marriage-minded man ran naked through his neighborhood, trying to show his hesitant girlfriend that taking risks is important. He got more than he bargained for when he ended up being chased and shot at.

“Just when you thought you had heard everything,” Ann Arbor police Detective Sgt. Jim Stephenson told The Ann Arbor News.

The couple were discussing marriage early Wednesday when the woman said she wasn’t sure if she was ready, according to Ann Arbor police reports. The man responded that taking risks is an important part of life and, to prove his point, jumped out of a first-floor window and ran naked across the street.

Before he could return, he spotted a couple walking and hid in some bushes to avoid them. A 28-year-old man noticed the bushes rustling and bare feet underneath, then drew a .40-caliber handgun and ordered the naked man out, police said.

The naked suitor ran away, but the armed man gave chase and threatened to shoot, police said. The gunman fired a shot and the naked man fell to the ground, suffering minor injuries.

A resident called police, who arrested the gunman on charges of aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon. He was taken to the Washtenaw County jail but released following further investigation, police Sgt. Patrick Hughes told The Associated Press.

The naked man was not arrested and didn’t want to pursue charges, Hughes said.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – A sheriff’s deputy who is accused of going topless at a campground has been fired and charged with indecent exposure and disorderly conduct.

Dawn Rene Roberson, 38, of Royal, was fired Wednesday after she turned herself in on the misdemeanor charges.

According to incident reports, a marine patrol deputy and a park ranger told a topless Roberson to cover up in separate encounters Sunday.

Later, authorities received a complaint that a woman without a top was in view of children.

One report said a grandmother complained that the topless woman became “loud and disorderly” after she told the woman to cover up. Another camper told authorities the woman became belligerent when confronted.

In both instances, the topless woman said she was a law officer, according to the reports.

The next day, one of the people who complained identified Roberson in a photo of members of the jail staff, officials said.

A July 18 court appearance was set for Roberson. She could face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine on the exposure charge and up to 30 days in jail and a $100 fine on the disorderly conduct charge.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – The head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association urged the government Saturday to take action against a sherpa who reportedly stripped on top of Mount Everest.

The Himalayan Times had reported Friday that the Nepali climbing guide, whose name it gave as Lakpa Tharke, stood naked for three minutes in freezing conditions on the 29,035-foot summit of the world’s highest peak.

If confirmed, he would be the first person known to have stripped atop Everest, considered by Nepali Buddhists as a god.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, head of Nepal’s top mountaineering body, said he could not confirm that the incident had happened.

“But if he did it, it is very shocking because Sagarmatha is the goddess mother,” he said, using the mountain’s Nepali name.

“The government must enforce strict ethics for climbing.”

Authorities have yet to comment.

But the climb’s organizers seemed happy enough with Lakpa Thaeke’s strip.

“We are planning to file his extraordinary feat for the Guinness Book of World Records,” the paper quoted an official of the hiking group that employs Tharke as saying.

At least 1,345 people have climbed Everest since 1953 from either the Nepali or Tibetan side.

LONDON (Reuters) – Around 100 animal rights campaigners stripped naked in central London on Sunday to protest the use of traditional bearskin hats worn by military guards on ceremonial parade.

Wearing nothing but bear masks and carrying placards saying “Bears Slaughtered for the Queen’s Guards — Indefensible”, the group gathered to call on the Queen and the Ministry of Defence to end use of the foot-high bear pelt hat known as a busby.

“The Ministry of Defence has blood on its hands while it allows bears to be slaughtered for ceremonial caps when beautiful synthetics are available”, says PETA’s Anita Singh.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said they were looking for alternatives to the Canadian bearskin used for the hats but that it was proving very difficult.

The ministry told the BBC three years ago that skins for the hats are a by-product of bear culls by the Canadian government.

Soldiers wearing the hats can be seen all year outside the Buckingham Palace, where the changing of the guard is a popular tourist attraction.

Wearing bearskins is thought to have been a tradition of some regiments since 1815 when the monarch granted the right to don the head gear in recognition of the defeat of Napoleon’s bearskin-wearing Imperial Guard at the Battle of Waterloo.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A court decision clearing the way for harsher penalties against streakers who disrupt soccer matches by running on to the pitch was welcomed by Germany’s World Cup organising committee on Saturday.

Horst R. Schmidt, the committee’s vice president, said Friday’s court ruling upholding a 10,000 euro (6,874 pound) fine against a streaker would serve as a deterrent.

“We’re certain that this ruling will have an effect during the World Cup and are delighted to have the appropriate legal means at our disposal now,” he said in a statement. “It has been made quite clear that these are not simply misdemeanours.”

A state court in the northern city of Rostock upheld a 10,000 euro fine for damages against a streaker claimed by Hansa Rostock for an incident in 2003.

Rostock had been fined 20,000 euros by the German Football Association (DFB) for lax security in 2003 when three streakers ran on to the pitch in two separate incidents during a home match against Hertha Berlin.

The club, in turn, demanded the damages from the streakers, including a maximum of 10,000 euros from one man who ignored warnings after the first two had dashed on to the pitch.

There have been calls in Germany to clamp down on streaking after four spectators evaded stadium security and ran on to the pitch bearing messages on their bodies and clothing during last year’s Confederations Cup.

The World Cup organising committee has tightened security and urged tougher penalties against offenders that exceed the 600 Swiss francs (263 pounds) faced by last year’s violators.

OAKLAND, Calif. – A carpenter who keeps his clothes clean by working in the nude was arrested after a client returned home early and found him building bookcases in the buff.

Percy Honniball, 50, was charged with misdemeanor indecent exposure this week for the October incident.

He told officers he stripped before crawling under the client’s house to do electrical work because he didn’t want to soil his clothes, police said.

Honniball said Thursday that working in the nude gave him a better range of motion and that a skilled craftsman can work clothing — and injury — free.

“In certain situations such as demolitions where you are smashing rock you want to be clothed and protected because this rock can harm you,” he said.

Honniball was caught working naked in Berkeley three times in the last six years and put on probation for violating a city ordinance. Honniball said he doesn’t plan to do work in his birthday suit again.

Police said he apologized to the startled homeowner, but was fired. The homeowner paid Honniball for the finished work, but deducted $200.

“He kept out that amount to change his locks,” Oakland Police Officer Jesse Grant said.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A red-faced Australian nudist who tried to set fire to what he thought was a deadly funnel web spider’s nest ended up with badly burned buttocks, emergency officials said Monday.

The 56-year-old man was at a nudist colony near Bowral, about 60 miles southwest of Sydney, Sunday when he spotted what he believed to be a funnel web spider hole.

Ambulance workers, including a helicopter crew, were called to the scene after the man poured petrol down the hole and then lit a match in an attempt to kill the offending arachnid.

“The exploding gasoline fumes left the man with burns to 18 percent of his body, on the upper leg and buttocks,” the NRMA Careflight helicopter rescue service said in a statement.

It said the man’s lack of clothing probably contributed to the extent of his burns.

“The fate of the bunkered spider was unknown, although other guests at the resort thought it was probably a harmless trapdoor spider and not a deadly funnel web,” the statement said.

NRMA Careflight said it was called to a property in the same area in January when another man kicked a spider that was crawling up the wall of a friend’s cabin. The man broke his leg in two places, it said.