TWW'S CRAZY NEWS STORIES

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Bishop Calls for PM's Excommunication

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Bishop of Calgary says that if it were up to him, he would consider excommunicating Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin for his plan to legalize same-sex marriage.

Bishop Frederick Henry said that Martin's politics clash so severely with his religion that the two cannot possibly be reconciled.

"You're either with the (Roman Catholic) Church or you're not," said Bishop Henry during an interview with a Toronto radio station on Tuesday.

Bishop Henry has previously said that former Prime Minister Jean Chretien should be excommunicated for his role in bringing same-sex marriage to the forefront of Canadian politics.

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's Office said on Wednesday that Martin is "deeply into the separation of church and state."

"His faith is a personal matter and it is very important," said Amy Butcher. "But he also believes deeply in the Charter of Rights and, as prime minister, he will act to uphold all rights, including the rights of religious institutions to practice their beliefs."

Martin has vowed to press ahead with legislation to permit same-sex marriage nationally, with a vote in Parliament expected later this year. Courts in seven of the 10 provinces and in one territory have already ruled that denying gays the right to marry is unconstitutional.

The federal legislation would grant gays and lesbians the right to full civil marriages, but religious officials would not be required to marry same-sex couples.

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Rangers Have Man-Eating Croc in Sights

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - South African rangers are to hunt down a man-eating crocodile that killed a fisherman on its Indian Ocean coast earlier this week.

"It has shown aggression toward people in the past. It is an old crocodile and very large," said Maureen Zimu of KZN Wildlife, the conservation body for KwaZulu-Natal province.

"We will hunt and shoot it this week. It has been identified," she said Wednesday.

The man-eater attacked and killed a 75-year-old fishing on Monday night in the estuary of Lake St. Lucia, a large marine lake that is home to many crocodiles.

Like many wild predators, crocodiles tend to seek easy prey when they get older -- and humans are easy targets.

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Camilla Vs Diana: No Contest at the Souvenir Stall

WINDSOR, England (Reuters) - The Charles and Camilla tea towels are on order for the big day but nothing can ever match the popularity of the Princess Diana silver spoon.

"Diana stuff always sells -- even now," said souvenir stallholder James Toomey, reflecting on how differently people react to the two women in the heir to the throne's checkered love life.

Pointing to the decorative spoons lined up on his stall outside Windsor Castle, he said: "Diana always comes top with the customers, followed by the Queen Mother and the Queen. Charles is always bottom -- even behind his sons."

Who buys what silver spoon may not qualify as the most scientific of opinion polls but it highlights how tough it is for Charles to win public acceptance of his long time lover Camilla Parker Bowles before their marriage on April 8.

At every gift shop in this picturesque town on the banks of the River Thames, the iconic image of Diana stares out from dozens of mugs and postcards, sandwiched between the tacky Union Jack thongs and Queen Elizabeth calendars.

The contrast between Charles' two marriages could not be more stark.

In 1981, adoring crowds cheered Diana the virgin bride at her wedding in London's grandiose St Paul's Cathedral before a worldwide television audience of 800 million people.

Following her death in a Paris car crash in 1997, the worldwide television audience almost trebled for her funeral.

This time, things are rather different.

After a farcical mix-up over the granting of marriage licenses, Charles' wedding to Camilla has been switched from the grandeur of Windsor Castle to the more prosaic Windsor Town Hall -- yards away but worlds apart.

Queen Elizabeth, who has never warmed to her eldest son's long affair, will not be popping over to the town hall for the civil ceremony. Conscious of the dignity of monarchy, she will remain within the ramparts.

But she will be watching -- her portrait hangs in the town hall chamber where Charles will finally marry the love of his life, forever vilified as the woman who destroyed his marriage to the fairytale "People's Princess."

The first thing the newly-weds will see when they step out of the town hall is the two Ladies and Gents public lavatories flanking its entrance on Windsor High Street, home to a string of pubs, burger bars and pizza parlors.

On their short journey back to Windsor Castle for the wedding reception, they will pass the somber statue of Queen Victoria, who points her scepter at the ground with haughty disdain.

Down the street at McDonald's, the Windsor branch of the fast food giant has no plans to lay on Camilla Burgers or Charlie fries.

"But we hope to have fun and create a bit of theater with color-in tiaras," said a spokeswoman. "The doormen will be dressing up in morning suits."

And what of Charles future loyal subjects here, 40 km up the river from London?

Diana may forever win the hearts of the two million tourists who pour into the town every year but the people of Windsor appear in forgiving mood toward the happy couple.

Leslie Grout, a tourist guide in Windsor for the last 25 years, said: "Charles and Camilla are allowed a decent life together. Leave them alone. They could do with a bit of peace."

At The Three Tuns pub behind the town hall, manager Chris Wilks wholeheartedly agreed: "We all lead our own lives. Why shouldn't they?"

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Boy Sets Off for School at Dead of Night

BERLIN (Reuters) - Astonished German police picked up an 8-year-old boy at 3 a.m. who had accidentally set off to school thinking he was late, authorities said Thursday.

"He seemed to have got into a panic he was late and went off to school by himself with his rucksack," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Aachen. "You'd think the parents weren't looking after him, but that wasn't the case here."

Police found the boy as he was heading home after he discovered the school was still closed.

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You're a Pain, But Let's Get Married Anyway

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singaporean couples may not be happy with their partners but they will still marry them anyway, a global survey on relationships shows.

The poll of 716 couples who planned to wed showed that 39 percent were unhappy in their relationships, the highest proportion of nine societies surveyed by a U.S.-based marriage and family therapy organization.

The poll is the latest unflattering survey of ardor in a wealthy population that chases what is known in local parlance as the Five C's: career, condominium, club, credit cards and cars.

Birth rates hit a record low in 2004 and an annual survey by condom-maker Durex has ranked Singapore for three straight years near the bottom of its list of sexually active nations.

In the latest survey, only 14 percent of Singaporeans described themselves as "very happy" with their partners, the lowest of the regions surveyed and compared with 48 percent in the United States.

The polls were conducted as part of a U.S.-based program known as PREPARE (Premarital Personal and Relationship Evaluation) led by David Olson, a retired University of Minnesota professor and author of several books on family therapy.

Other regions surveyed were Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany and New Zealand. But Singapore's results stood out sharply, said Olson.

"I'm surprised so many premarital Singaporean couples are not as happy with their relationships but are still planning to get married," Olson told Reuters after releasing the findings at a conference in Singapore.

Among those in the survey who consider themselves unhappy, most cited disagreements with their partners on a number of issues, or said they disliked their partners' personality or that there were problems communicating effectively.

In contrast, U.S. couples ready to tie the knot painted a far more blissful picture with nearly half of 1,000 surveyed indicating they were very happy in their relationships.

Olson said couples in Singapore -- an island of 4.2 million people -- may be suffering because of a reluctance to speak their minds about problems to avoid confrontation.

"They are afraid to say what they think and are afraid to disagree," he said.

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Tiny Early 'Hobbit' Human Was Smart, Skull Shows

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tiny pre-humans who lived on an Indonesian island until about 12,000 years ago had brains so surprisingly sophisticated that the creatures may represent a previously unrecognized species of early humans, or hominids, scientists reported on Thursday.

CAT scans of the inside of a skull -- among the bones of eight individuals found in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores -- suggest brains that would have allowed advanced behavior such as toolmaking, the international team of researchers said.

They said further study of the skull of the creature, nicknamed "the Hobbit" after a literary character, showed it clearly was a normal adult of its species, not a mutant or diseased specimen, as some critics have alleged.

"I am bowled over," said Dean Falk of Florida State University, who studied CAT scans to make a virtual cast of the inside of the creature's skull.

"I thought we were going to see a little chimpanzee-like brain and I was wrong. Nothing like this has been seen before," she told a telephone briefing.

Falk saw features that would have allowed the "Hobbit" to have made the tools found in the Indonesian cave, to use fire and to hunt as a group.

"I never thought I would see it in a brain this small," she said.

Homo floresiensis stood only about 3 feet (one meter) tall and had a brain about a third the size of modern adult humans. It had long arms and would have walked upright.

"We know from the record that these little humans, these little meter-high humans, were hunting things like pygmy elephants, were making fire and were making stone tools," said Mike Morwood of the University of New England in Australia, who led the initial mission that uncovered the bones.

NOT A DWARF

The discovery, announced last October, was met with surprise and some skepticism. Critics said the bones in fact represented some sort of dwarf or perhaps something suffering from a condition called microcephaly and not a unique species of early human.

But, writing in the journal Science, the team of U.S., Australian and Indonesian researchers said their unusual study of the inside of the "Hobbit's" brain case showed it was related to Homo erectus, which lived from 2 million years ago to about 25,000 years ago.

"However, it was not like a little miniature Homo erectus brain. It was different," Falk said.

The particular skull discovered on Flores had clear impressions left by the creature's brain that allowed Falk and experts at Washington University in St. Louis to trace important structures.

For instance, there are two expanded areas in the frontal lobe, Falk said. "I have not seen anything like this before," said Falk, who compared "Hobbit's" skull to images of 10 human skulls, 18 chimpanzee skulls and five Homo erectus skulls.

"In humans this is a relatively large area," she said. "It is known to be involved in planning ahead."

Hobbit had "fat" temporal lobes, she said. "People don't have fat ones but big ones," she said.

"In humans the left temporal lobe has things that are important for understanding speech. The temporal lobe also some memory function. It processes emotions. It is important for identifying objects and people and putting names to people and objects."

Especially interesting was a fissure near the back of the Hobbit's brain that Falk's team identified as a lunate sulcus, a structure seen in humans that is pushed forward because of an expanded association cortex.

It shows the little pre-humans were tiny but not stupid. "I almost fell over seeing this feature in something so small," Falk said.

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The Good Samaritan, 2005

BERLIN (Reuters) - An apparently friendly motorist in Germany stopped to tow a broken-down car, stranded the owners as he sped away, crashed their car into a gas station and then drove off, police said Thursday.

"After attaching it, the man sped off so fast that the two hadn't even got into the car -- and were left gesticulating wildly," said police in Aachen. The man then drove toward the gas station, swerving his own car at the last minute.

"But the trailing vehicle went straight on and smashed into the air pump," police said. "The station attendant was roused by the noise and saw a man uncoupling his car from the battered vehicle before departing without further ado."

Police said there was no trace of the reckless driver.

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Woman Impaled in Tub for Six Hours

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 92-year-old Harlem woman who fell in her bathtub became impaled on the cold water tap and screamed for help for more than six hours before she was rescued, the fire department said.

After falling on Wednesday, Thelma Riley banged on walls and shouted for help for hours, said Lt. James McCluskey. "The neighbors at first thought it was a plumber," he said.

Neighbors finally used a key to get into the apartment, finding Riley with the four-pronged knob stuck in her lower back, the Daily News reported.

Firefighters cut the metal tap with bolt cutters and took her to Harlem Hospital where it was removed. "It was in there pretty good," McCluskey said.

Riley was resting at the Harlem Hospital on Thursday.

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Less Swearing on TV, Demands Former Sex Pistol

LONDON (Reuters) - "Wanna be an anarchist?"

At least one of the Sex Pistols, now middle-aged and a father of two, no longer does.

Former Pistols Bassist Glen Matlock has called for swearing on television to be curbed, nearly 30 years after the provocative punk rockers sent shockwaves through Britain by using derivations of the dreaded "f"-word on live TV.

In 1976, the volley of abuse, chiefly from the punk band's Steve Jones, catapulted the group into a media firestorm that ended the career of TV interviewer Bill Grundy.

"It's pathetic when people swear for the sake of it," Matlock told a television show to be broadcast Sunday. "Something ought to be done about it."

Matlock, 48, also told "X-Rated: The TV Shows They Tried To Ban" that he hated it when his young children heard obscenities on the airwaves.

As a teen-ager, Matlock co-wrote some of the Pistols' most enduring anthems like "God Save The Queen" and "Anarchy In The UK." He left the group early in 1977 and was replaced by Sid Vicious.

Matlock was taking part in a Channel 4 program which looks at how attitudes toward swearing and censorship have changed to the point where profanities are broadcast nearly every night of the week.

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Get Into Biz School? Hacker Offers Crystal Ball

BOSTON (Reuters) - A computer hacker helped applicants break into records at some of the most prestigious U.S. business schools to see if they were acce`ted weeks before official offers were sent out, officials said on Friday.

A person who applied to Harvard Business School posted instructions on how to check the application status at several business schools, including Stanford, Duke and Dartmouth, on Business Week's online technology forum this week.

Roughly 100 people who applied to Harvard followed the directions, but many did not learn their fate sijce decisions had not been entered into the computer yet. Harvard's next batch of acceptances will be sent out later this month.

"The school views this as electronic breaking and entering, and regards this as a very serious breach," Harvard Business School spokesman Jim Aisner said. The school has identified all people who tried to check their stat5s, Aisner said. He did not say whether those applicants were accepted or rejected.

The schools all use ApplyYourself, a Fairfax, Virginia-based company that manages Web pages used by students to apply to roughly 300 universities. The schools also use the company to tell applicants if they got in.

ApplyYourself Chief Executive Len Metheny said the company made immediate modifications to its systems and applicants did not obtain information about anyone but themselves.

"The person who did this reverse engineered a way to access the decision page for his own record and then told others how to do it," Metheny said.

The Harvard Crimson, which first reported the story, said the hacker wrote: "I know everyone is getting more and more anxious to check (the) status of their apps to (Harvard Business School). So I looked around on their site and found a way." The notice has been removed from the Busi.

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Rangers Have Man-Eating Croc in Sights

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - South African rangers are to hunt down a man-eating crocodile that killed a fisherman on its Indian Ocean coast earlier this week.

"It has shown aggression toward people in the past. It is an old crocodile and very large," said Maureen Zimu of KZN Wildlife, the conservation body for KwaZulu-Natal province.

"We will hunt and shoot it this week. It has been identified," she said Wednesday.

The man-eater attacked and killed a 75-year-old fishing on Monday night in the estuary of Lake St. Lucia, a large marine lake that is home to many crocodiles.

Like many wild predators, crocodiles tend to seek easy prey when they get older -- and humans are easy targets.

hope they get it soon

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Man Facing 26 Years for Lying Wins Hearing

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California man sent to prison for 26 years for lying on a driver's license application won a new hearing on Friday in a case that revived debate over the state's "three strikes" law, which imposes lengthy terms on repeat offenders.

Santos Reyes was convicted of perjury for filling out a driver's license under a cousin's name in 1997. Convicted of burglary in 1981 and armed robbery in 1987, he was sentenced to 26-years-to-life. Reyes appealed, arguing such a sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco ordered the case returned to a lower court to review Reyes's previous crimes.

"But for Reyes' armed robbery conviction, Reyes would appear to have a plausible case for relief," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote. "Unfortunately, the circumstances under which Reyes committed the robbery are not sufficiently developed in the record for us to determine whether the offense was a 'crime against a person' or involved violence."

The case is the latest in a heated debate over California's "three strikes" law, which imposes prison terms of 25 years to life on those convicted of a third felony. Opponents of the law say large sentences for minor crimes unfairly target small-time criminals and overburden the prison system.

California's prison population has grown fourfold over the past 25 years amid stiffer sentencing. Yet voters in November rejected a proposal to soften the three-strikes law.

In its decision, the court cited a 2004 ruling that found a Californian sentenced to at least 25 years in prison after stealing a $199 video recorder was unfairly punished.

One of the three judges hearing the Reyes case dissented, saying the sentence was justified and further consideration of the case was not necessary.

"Reyes does not present an 'extraordinary' rare case; he is a career criminal," Richard Tallman wrote. "Between 1981 and 1997, he committed six crimes and spent almost seven years behind bars, five of which were passed in state prison."

"His criminal history reflects the very type and degree of recidivism the Supreme Court recognizes Three Strikes laws were properly intended to address."

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Breakfast Fracas Lands Chess Master in Solitary

TOKYO (Reuters) - Chess grand master Bobby Fischer was placed in solitary confinement at a Japanese immigration detention center for four days after a fracas with guards at breakfast, his fiancee and ex-bodyguard said Monday.

The former world chess champion is fighting deportation from Japan to the United States, where he is wanted for violating sanctions against Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992. He has been in custody in Japan since he was arrested last July for traveling on an invalid U.S. passport.

Fischer's fiancee, Miyoko Watai, a four-time Japan women's chess champion who last year announced plans to marry Fischer, said he told her during a meeting Monday morning that he had been in solitary confinement from last Wednesday to Sunday morning at the detention center in Ushiku, northeast of Tokyo.

"There was a bit of trouble with some of the staff," Watai told a news conference.

Watai said Fischer became involved in a dispute with guards when he asked for an additional boiled egg at breakfast. The dispute escalated to a scuffle, leading Fischer to be placed in solitary confinement.

"Both psychologically and mentally, he is reaching his limits," she said.

An official at the detention center declined to comment, citing privacy and security reasons.

Watai and other Fischer supporters, including a longtime Icelandic friend who came to Japan last week in hopes of taking Fischer back to Iceland, said last week that they and Fischer's lawyers had been prevented from meeting him since Wednesday.

Iceland, the site of the match where Fischer won the world chess title in 1972 in a classic Cold War encounter with Soviet champion Boris Spassky, offered Fischer a home late last year.

In February, it agreed to issue him a special passport that would allow him to travel through 15 West European countries in what is known as the Schengen Zone, thereby avoiding deportation.

Icelandic Ambassador to Japan Thordur Oskarsson told Reuters that the passport has been issued and is being held at the embassy in Tokyo pending Fischer's release.

"Our instruction is only to release it to him when the Japanese authorities release him from detention," he added.

It remained unclear, however, whether Japanese immigration authorities would agree to let Fischer go to Iceland rather than deport him to the United States.

Friday, Fischer formally applied to Japanese immigration authorities for voluntary departure to Iceland.

"I believe that all the conditions for him to leave for Iceland have now been satisfied," said Masako Suzuki, one of Fischer's lawyers, Monday.

Fischer's longtime Icelandic friend Saemundur Palsson, who met the chess great when he was his bodyguard during the 1972 match, said he was unhappy with Japan's handling of the case.

"I am very disappointed in the Japanese people for taking part in this because I thought they were one of the best and most polite people I had ever met," he said.

In the latest twist in the case, a Japanese daily reported on Sunday that Fischer might be indicted by U.S. authorities for tax evasion, after which the U.S. government might ask for him to be handed over by Japan.

Fischer's lawyers declined to comment on the report, however, saying they still had to verify details.

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Sleepless in Asia...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - People in Asia burn the midnight oil, sleeping later than most Americans and Europeans and then waking up earlier, a global survey on sleep habits has found.

The poll of 14,100 people in 28 countries and regions -- from Asia to Europe and the United States -- showed 40 percent of people in Asia only go to sleep after midnight, compared with 34 percent in the United States and 32 percent in Europe. Asia is also the earliest to rise, the survey by market research firm AC Nielsen showed, with the Japanese the most deprived of sleep. "There is evidence all around us that people are pushing back their bed times," said Vicky Santos, executive director of AC Nielsen's Singapore office, citing distractions ranging from late night entertainment to all-night shopping and the Internet.

Portugal boasts more night owls than any other country with three-quarters of those polled still up after midnight, the poll, conducted over the Internet in October, showed.

But seven of the top 10 nocturnal places were in Asia -- led by Taiwan, where 69 percent said they only nod off after midnight, the second-highest proportion after Portugal.

Half of the 10 places with the most early-risers were in Asia, led by Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation where 91 percent said they are out of bed by 7 a.m.

The Japanese got the least sleep, with 41 percent managing six hours or less each night.

In contrast, Australians nodded off the earliest and got the longest hours of beauty sleep.

Twenty-four percent of Australians polled said they went to bed by 10 p.m. and 31 percent said they average more than nine hours of sleep a night.

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Renovations Uncover Century-Old Murder Confession

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A letter confessing to a murder committed more than a century ago has been uncovered during renovations to a home near the South Australia state capital Adelaide, sparking a police hunt for human remains on Monday. "A letter was found by residents at the house. It may point to the confession of a supposed murder," a police spokeswoman told Reuters.

She said police were searching an area of Birdwood, around 35 km (22 miles) north of Adelaide, for human remains.

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A Scary Sign of the Times

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Airports have them; government buildings have them. Now buses in Brazil's crime-hit Rio de Janeiro state may get metal detectors to ward off gun-toting criminals.

More than 1,600 bus robberies occurred in the state last year. The route between the city of Rio, the neighboring town of Niteroi on the other side of the scenic Guanabara Bay and nearby beaches is considered to be one of the most dangerous.

In what would be the world's first such effort, a prototype of the device will be tested over the next few weeks, a Rio state transport spokeswoman said on Friday.

"The president of the department requested the detector in order to reduce the number of holdups," she said.

If approved, the device will be compulsory on more than 1,000 interurban lines run by more than 100 companies.

Buses are regularly robbed and sometimes hijacked and burned in this seaside tourist destination, where rich and poor rub shoulders and drug gangs rule in the hilltop shantytowns.

Most tourists use the fleet of cheap yellow taxis and tourism-class buses.

In one of the bloodiest attacks, last November a gang pumped rifle fire into a bus going to Rio from a city in the state's interior in a bid to kill a rival drug trafficker. Two people were killed and 15 were wounded.

Buses are already being equipped with security cameras and cell phones.

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Aging Singers Hit Wrong Note with Fans

BERLIN (Reuters) - Two aging German pop stars, known for their sentimental style, kitsch songs and dating younger women, are under attack for calling their fans brainless and being disparaging about older women's sexual appetites.

Udo Juergens, 70, was called "just a stupid singer" by Bild newspaper columnist Franz Josef Wagner Monday for an interview in which the crooner, proud of his young mistresses, said: "Women's interest in sex drops sharply in their late 30s."

Juergen Drews, 59, recently admitted he was afraid of former fans threatening to beat him up after the singer known as the "King of Majorca" criticized them in a recent interview as "idiots" who have "had their brains amputated."

Juergens, who before the comments was especially popular with middle-aged women for his 1976 hit "Aber bitte mit Sahne" (But with cream please), was also criticized by sexual researchers who said he didn't know what he was talking about.

"His remarks are a smack in the face for women over 40," sexual therapist Christine Baumanns told Bild. "Here is a man who is likely trying to distract from his own fading sexuality." Drews, fired by the Majorca club for his remarks, has since apologized to the German vacationers who lined up to be serenaded by him.

"I was the one with the amputated brain," said the singer who is best known for his 1974 hit "Ein Bett im Kornfeld" (A bed in the corn field). Drews said he was nevertheless forced to hire two bodyguards after getting death threats.

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Casino Company Buys 69-HH Stripper's Implant

MIAMI (Reuters) - A former stripper once cleared of battering a customer with her enormous breasts sold one of her silicone implants on eBay to the same company that recently bought a grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary.

Internet casino company GoldenPalace.com won the bid for the infamous implant at $16,766 on Saturday, according to the eBay Web site and the seller, known professionally as Tawny Peaks. She advertised a 69-HH bra size before her implants were removed in 1999.

There was no word yet on what the online gambling company planned to do with the implant.

Last year GoldenPalace paid $28,000 for a 10-year-old, partly eaten grilled cheese sandwich with an image many likened to the Virgin Mary. The company sent the sandwich on a national publicity tour, encased in clear plastic.

Peaks has retired from the entertainment business, and put one of the implants up for auction last week. She said she was overwhelmed and exhausted by the flood of e-mailed bids.

"It's over and I'm happy," said Peaks, now a homemaker living in the Detroit area.

She won fame in 1998 when a patron at the Diamond Dolls nightclub in Clearwater, Florida, sued her, claiming he suffered a whiplash injury when she swung her breasts into his face. He said they were "like two cement blocks."

The case went to arbitration on "The People's Court" television show and the judge, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, ordered a female bailiff to examine Peaks in private.

The bailiff found the breasts to be "soft" and to weigh about 2 pounds (0.9 kg) each. Koch ruled they were not dangerous and refused to award damages.

Peaks said she has since become "kind of a recluse."

"My old fans don't really know what I look like now," she said.

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Dog to Go Under the Knife of Governor

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Georgia's budget-slashing governor, Sonny Perdue, is preparing to unsheathe his knife once again, but this time it is a pooch and not a program that will feel the loss.

Perdue, a licensed veterinarian, has agreed to personally neuter a 9-month-old Rottweiler-Labrador retriever mix at an Atlanta animal clinic on Thursday, the Atlanta Human Society said on Monday.

The society invited the Republican governor to perform the 30-minute procedure to highlight responsible pet ownership. The dog, named Nelson, will be offered for adoption afterward.

"We want to draw attention to the need for spays and neuters in our state," said Sherry Greenblatt, a spokeswoman for the society, which is marking its 132nd anniversary. Between 3 million and 4 million unwanted cats and dogs are euthanized every year in the United States.

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Let's Leave Some Little Hamster Magazines, Too...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who went on holiday left his stereo and lights on so that his pet hamster would not feel lonely in the empty apartment, a police spokesman said on Monday after breaking into it over fears the man may have died.

The spokesman for police in Bremen said police broke open the door after being alerted by neighbors that loud music was playing non-stop for five days and the lights were left on. No one answered the door when they knocked, police said.

"There was a fear the occupant might have been disabled or dead," a police spokesman said. "All we found was a pet hamster. The occupant was away on holiday. A friend of his arrived and said he left the music on so the hamster wouldn't feel lonely."

The spokesman said the friend of the occupant, who is still on holiday and not reachable, told police she visited every few days to feed the golden hamster food and provide water. She promised to turn the music down and come by more often.