PARIS (Reuters) - She may have been defeated by Serena Williams at the French Open Sunday, but Ashley Harkleroad claimed a more glamorous coup over her American rival — by appearing on the pages of Playboy magazine.

The 23-year-old Harkleroad found herself kicking her heels earlier this year when she was recovering from surgery to remove a cyst from her ovaries.

While others would choose to convalesce on a relaxing vacation or just lounge in front of the television, Harkleroad chose to accept the offer of posing nude for the world’s most famous glamour magazine.

“I was just laying there for three weeks, and, you know, an offer came to me,” the woman from small town Georgia told goggle-eyed reporters.

“I thought, well, I’m not really doing anything right now so I thought about it and it was something that I did. I’m proud of my body. I was representing a female athlete’s body.”

REFRESHING CHANGE

She said she would be the first tennis player to appear in the magazine, August’s edition the male journalists furiously noted, and that it had been a refreshing change to the treadmill of the women’s tour.

“It was hard work, but, you know, it was just a completely different experience. It was fun. I think it comes out July 13th. It’s the August edition. So you’ll see for yourself.

“I stay in shape and try to stay fit, so like I said, I’m just trying to represent a female athlete and her body. That can be sexy too, you know.”

Serena was full of admiration for Harkleroad’s naked ambition when she was told about the Los Angeles photo shoot.

“I’m just surprised that she beat me to it,” Serena, no stranger to the camera lens herself, joked with reporters.

“I’m happy for her if that’s what she wanted to do. It takes a lot of courage. And whether I’m courageous enough, I don’t know, but that’s great for someone to be so courageous and tough.”

Would Serena be following in the footsteps of Harkleroad, U.S. swimmer Amanda Beard and volleyball player Gabrielle Reece and bare all for Playboy?

“I can’t say right now it’s in any thought of my mind to be in that mag. I do appreciate that mag. I think (Playboy owner) Hugh Hefner is a great businessman.”

BERLIN (AFP) - If you thought cycling home after the pub was a good idea, think again. A German court ruled Wednesday that inebriated cyclists could forfeit their right to drive a car.

The country’s highest administrative court was ruling on the case of a man near Berlin whose license was taken away after he was caught cycling with a blood-alcohol level four times the legal limit.

Medical tests found he was a heavy drinker and probably often in no state to cope with road hazards. The council appealed when a local court overruled the decision to revoke his license.

Meanwhile other offenses now look set to attract significantly stiffer sentences after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet approved a raft of new measures aimed at reducing road deaths.

A government spokesman confirmed that drink drivers could from 2009 face fines of up to 3,000 euros (4,720 dollars), double the current maximum, and a penalty of 2,000 euros for jumping a red light.

The tougher laws, which also include higher fines for speeding, still have to be approved by parliament. There is no change planned though to the lack of speed limit on many autobahns.

TOKYO (Reuters) - One of the travelers who arrived at Tokyo’s Narita airport over the weekend may have picked up an unusual souvenir from customs — a package of cannabis.

A customs official hid the package in a suitcase belonging to a passenger arriving from Hong Kong as a training exercise for sniffer dogs Sunday, but lost track of both drugs and suitcase during the practice session, a spokeswoman for Tokyo customs said.

Customs regulations specify that a training suitcase be used for such exercises, but the official said he had used passengers’ suitcases for similar purposes in the past, domestic media reported.

“The dogs have always been able to find it before,” NHK quoted him as saying. “I became overconfident that it would work.”

Anyone who finds the package should contact Tokyo customs as soon as possible, the spokeswoman said.

TUESDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) — Gene therapy may be a way to treat erectile dysfunction in men who do not respond to pills such as Viagra, researchers report.

Maxi-K gene therapy is a gene transfer that improves erectile dysfunction. Two studies using the gene were presented Tuesday at the American Urological Association’s annual meeting, in Orlando, Fla.

“Gene transfer technology has the potential for long-term improvement for erectile function,” lead researcher Dr. Arnold Melman, a professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said during a morning teleconference Tuesday.

“The market for erectile dysfunction is quite large,” Melman said. “And medications such as Viagra don’t work very well in 40 percent of men.”

Melman noted that a recent survey showed that 50 percent of urologists would consider switching their patients from their current medications to gene transfer treatment. “So, we think this will be well-accepted by physicians and patients,” he said.

Results of a phase I trial testing gene transfer in 11 men with erectile dysfunction who had failed other therapy showed that gene transfer was safe and also had restorative effects. Four different doses were tried during the trial. Men receiving the highest dose showed improvement for up to six months, Melman said.

“These men had normal sexual function for six months and then went back to the way they were,” Melman said. He added that two doses a year would be enough for most men to maintain their normal sexual function.

During two years of follow-up, none of the men reported any abnormalities after the gene transfer. The procedure was safe, and no adverse effects were seen, Melman said.

Based on these findings, Melman’s group is moving on to new trials and hopes to have a product on the market within two years.

In another trial, four monkeys were fed a high-fat diet, which reduced their sex drive. After the monkeys received a Maxi-K gene transfer, they became friskier.

In addition, the number of partial and full erections increased about fivefold, the researchers found. Also, the frequency of ejaculations increased among the monkeys that received the gene transfer. Moreover, the gene transfer affected how the monkeys behaved with female monkeys.

“The most fascinating thing is there was the increased socialization,” lead researcher George J. Christ, a professor of urology and head of the Program in Cell Tissue and Organ Physiology at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said during Tuesday’s teleconference. “After receiving a gene transfer and regaining sexual function, they felt better about themselves.”

MELBOURNE (AFP) - Protesting pensioners brought traffic to a stand still in Australia’s second largest city on Friday when some stripped to demand more money from the government.

The scantily-clad seniors braved the autumn weather in a 150-strong protest against this week’s federal budget, which offered them little despite a 21.7 billion dollar (20 billion US) surplus.

Most at the “Fair Go for Pensioners” rally at the intersection of two major streets in downtown Melbourne kept their clothes on, but several threw convention to the wind and stripped to their underwear.

As bemused police looked on, a bespectacled man stripped to his briefs and socks, while a couple of lively ladies whipped off their tops and paraded in their bras.

Other women wore hot pink bras over their clothing.

The leader of the minority Family First party, Senator Steve Fielding, who took off his shirt in solidarity with the seniors, said the country’s 3.5 million pensioners were “overlooked Australians.”

“Pensioners have no voice and are left to survive on a meagre allowance each week that most people would never manage on,” he said. “They are buckling under the pressure of higher petrol and grocery prices.”

Patricia Reeve from the Fair Go for Pensioners Coalition said people wanted to make the point that it was impossible to live well on the pension.

“The country’s doing well, we want a fair share,” she said.

But the antics failed to move Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who said while he understood it was difficult to make ends meet living on a pension, no increases would be considered until a review was completed.

Last month, hundreds of Melbourne cabbies succeeded in winning safety concessions from the state government after a lengthy sit-in at the same intersection during which dozens threw off their shirts.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysia’s government is worried that high school graduates may not know enough about sex.

Authorities in the conservative, Muslim-majority nation are considering teaching sex education to teenagers when they undergo national service after leaving school, Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil, director general of the National Service Department, said Wednesday.

Ng Yen Yen, the minister who announced the proposal, was quoted by the national news agency, Bernama, as saying that sex education, including lectures about preventing AIDS, could shield youngsters from unhealthy activities. Ng’s aide confirmed the minister made the comments Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of boys and girls who are typically 17 or 18 years old are selected at random each year to participate in the government’s national service training.

The three-month mandatory program aims to instill discipline and patriotism through community service, military-style physical training in jungle camps and other activities.

Sex is often a sensitive subject in Malaysia, where unmarried couples can be fined for kissing and hugging in public.

The Cabinet approved guidelines to teach sex education in schools two years ago, but activists say it has not been implemented. Officials had suggested teaching students how to protect themselves from sexual predators, reckless behavior and sexually transmitted diseases.

Adeeba Kamarulzaman, president of the Malaysian AIDS Council, said Wednesday that students receive inadequate information about sex in public schools, which generally only teach basic facts about reproduction during science courses.

Sex education classes in national service could prove useful because many school teachers are too embarrassed to expound on sex-related topics, she said.

“Better late than never,” Adeeba told The Associated Press. “It’s a good opportunity. They are at the right age to be receiving this kind of education.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A pilot’s nighttime romp in the woods with a flight attendant has ended with both suspended and under arrest, police said.

Jeffrey Paul Bradford, 24, and Adrianna Grace Connor, 24, both employees of Pinnacle Airlines Inc., were at a diner on Sunday night before they apparently decided to take a walk, police said.

“They told the officer they wanted to go do it in the woods, essentially,” said Lower Swatara Township Police Sgt. Richard Brandt. “That’s the best answer they had.”

Things went awry when people who live in the neighborhood summoned police around 9:30 p.m., saying they had seen a naked man and an intoxicated woman.

A helicopter with heat-seeking equipment was called in, and Bradford was discovered hiding behind a shed shortly before midnight.

His only attire was a pair of flip-flops and a wristwatch.

Bradford, of Pittsburgh, was charged with indecent exposure, public drunkenness and other offenses. Connor, of Belleville, Mich., was charged with theft, public drunkenness and other offenses; police said she took a flashlight from a neighbor’s vehicle.

The office of District Justice Michael John Smith, where Bradford and Connor were arraigned, said they were not represented by lawyers. Telephone listings for them could not be located by The Associated Press.

A spokesman for Pinnacle Airlines said the two were suspended while the company investigates.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Road workers in a small New Zealand town got their wish granted when a woman stripped saying she was fed up with their wolf-whistles.

The Israeli tourist was about to use an ATM in the main street of Kerikeri, in the far north of the country, when the men whistled, the New Zealand Press Association reported.

She calmly stripped off, used the cash machine, before getting dressed and walking away.

The woman told police she didn’t take too kindly to the whistling from the men repairing the road.

“She said she had thought ‘bugger them, I’ll show them what I’ve got’,” Police Sergeant Peter Masters told NZPA.

“She gave the explanation that she had been … pestered by New Zealand men. She’s not an unattractive looking lady,” Masters said.

“She was taken back to the police station and spoken to and told that was inappropriate in New Zealand.”

BERLIN (AFP) - Despite being fully booked by naturist s wanting to take off and strip off, a German travel company said Thursday it has decided to scrap a special nude flight that had been scheduled for this summer.
ADVERTISEMENT

The July 5 flight was due to be the first of many and was aimed at east Germans nostalgic for the naturism that was authorized and extremely popular under communist rule.

But OssiUrlaub.de, the firm organizing the service to a picturesque Baltic Sea island, said it has had second thoughts after “moral objections” in the media and from visitors to its Internet portal, a spokesman said.

The 50 people with tickets would have boarded the flight in the eastern city of Erfurt fully clothed, but once on the plane would have been free to undress and enjoy the rest of the journey as nature intended.

They will now receive a full refund as well as a voucher for other products offered by the company, whose core business caters to holidaymakers who keep their clothes on, it stressed.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A New Zealand man had a novel idea when he found himself in a queue at a service station counter with no money, could he pay with marijuana instead?

Unfortunately he didn’t get a chance to discover whether the attendant would accept his offer, as the person behind him in the queue was a police officer, the Dominion Post newspaper reported.

The man’s attempt to buy two packets of M&Ms and a packet of potato chips to satisfy his “munchies” was caught short when he was arrested.

He must have been hungry, as he failed to notice the police patrol car sitting on the station forecourt being filled with petrol, the paper reported.

The 28-year old mechanic from the small North Island town of Carterton pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis in the Masterton District Court and was remanded for sentencing.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Clients of prostitutes in the Netherlands may soon need to check for a sex license.

The Dutch cabinet said on Friday it wanted to crack down harder on the country’s sex industry, in particular unlicensed sex operators, as part of efforts to combat human trafficking.

“That is why the cabinet wants to make it an offense to use the services of a sex operator without a license or a non-registered independent prostitute,” the government said in a statement .

Prostitutes have plied their trade in the narrow alleys of the old centre of Amsterdam for centuries. While they used to attract sailors and merchants in the city’s heyday as the heart of a global trading empire, they are now a huge tourist draw.

The Dutch cabinet officially legalized prostitution in 2000.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian woman woke up to a real-life nightmare, discovering that the naked man who had slipped into her bed in the middle of the night was a thief, not her husband, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old housewife was asleep when the thief, noticing that her husband was fast asleep on the couch, quietly stripped off and lay down beside her, the Star newspaper said, quoting a police report filed in the eastern state of Terengganu.

The dozing woman’s suspicions were raised when she spoke to him and his voice sounded strange, the paper said.

“She then went to another room and found her husband fast asleep on the couch. That’s when she screamed, causing the thief to flee by leaping out the window together with the stolen items,” it added.

DARWIN, Australia - An Australian man has been fined after buckling in a case of beer with a seat belt but leaving a 5-year-old child to sit on the car’s floor, police said Tuesday.

Constable Wayne Burnett said he was “shocked and appalled” when he pulled over the unregistered car Friday in the central Australian town of Alice Springs.

The 30-can beer case was strapped in between two adults sitting in the back seat of the car. The child was also in back, but on the car’s floor.

“The child was sitting in the lump in the center, unrestrained,” Burnett told reporters Tuesday.

“I haven’t ever seen something like this before,” he said. “This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child.”

The driver was fined 750 Australian dollars — about $710 — for driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle and for failing to ensure a child was wearing a safety belt.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A 45-year-old Indonesian maid admitted having sex with her Hong Kong employer’s 14-year-old son after watching Internet porn together, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

A court heard how the maid, a divorcee and mother of two, had sex with the boy in a relationship that lasted five months, the South China Morning Post reported.

The boy tried to end the affair, but she refused, the paper reported. The teenager eventually confessed to the relationship to the leader of a Christian group he belonged to and the maid was arrested.

The maid, Suwartin, had worked with the boy’s extended family for 11 years and pleaded guilty to five charges of committing an indecent act with an under-age partner, the Post reported.

She later apologized and said she “would live with the shame of what she had done for the rest of her life”, the paper reported.

“She had acted out of loneliness,” the paper quoted the maid’s lawyer as saying.

She will be sentenced in two weeks’ time.

Maids from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are often the subject of court cases in richer neighbors such as Hong Kong and Singapore, but usually as victims of abuse rather than offenders.

VIENNA, Austria - The man behind the camera had three requests for his subjects: no sunglasses, no smiling, and no underwear.

The latest work by New York photographer Spencer Tunick gathered 1,840 people, baring it all in Austria’s Happel Stadium on Sunday.

“Stay very still. Don’t move,” the Austria Press Agency quoted Tunick as telling the crowd as he went to work.

Much of the hours-long photo shoot had little to do with soccer, with naked volunteers assuming different poses at the behest of the artist. But at least one of the photos had them with the ball, men first and then the women.

The stadium will host seven of the Euro 2008 soccer championship matches being staged by Austria and Switzerland, including the June 29 final.

Tunick has made a name for himself with his works featuring hundreds of naked people at unusual venues. He described Sunday’s shooting on his Web site as combining “the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures.”

VILNIUS (Reuters) - The Austrian national rugby team tried to get over their 48-0 defeat by Lithuania by staging a mass striptease in the capital Vilnius late on Saturday, only to find they had been caught on video and put on the Internet.

The video, put out by a blogger on social community website and then taken up by the Lithuanian news portal Delfi, showed a group of 20 men singing and stripping off their clothes on a street in central Vilnius, while people in a nearby bar clapped and cheered.

“Yes, these were the men we played against on Saturday … I guess the defeat could have prompted them to do that,” Lithuanian rugby federation President Aleksandras Makarenka told Reuters.

Delfi quoted the Vilnius police chief as saying stripping in public could be considered an act of hooliganism — but by then the Austrian team had gone home.