He dozed off while watching a porn film in a sex shop the night of Mar. 4; when the young Frenchman finally woke up - in the middle of the night - he discovered the shop was locked and the owner had left for the weekend. Police managed to rescue him after he called them - the following afternoon, when his interest in the, ahem, materials at hand, finally expired.
VALLETA, MALTA - Maltese vanity plates containing the spelling S-E-X are now banned by the country's vehicle licensing department. Malta's transport minister brought the news to Parliament March 6, in reply to a Labor politician who asked how many vehicles had such plates and whether the department banned the arrangement of letters that could be interpreted "wrongly." Reuters says twelve vehicles had received vanity plates with S-E-X in them before the ban was imposed.
RIO DE JANEIRO - The world famous Carnival was topped off by the topless - as bare-breasted muses dominated samba schools on the last day of the parades. Several of the women dancing down the Sambadrome's runway evoked plumed Indian princesses who dominated colorful floats. The samba schools thus honored the Carnival theme of the 500th anniversary of Portuguese explorers arriving in Brazil. \n While most spectators cheered, the first March 6 parade seemed likely to get the archbishop of Rio hot, as it featured semi-nude dancers attending a mock Mass. According to a report on Entertainment Tonight, the Unidos da Tujuca school had already received pre-parade attention after grappling with the Catholic Church over a giant cross and a painting of the Virgin Mary on its parade floats.
CHARLOTTE, NC - It's no jail for a California doctor and a New Jersey businessman who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 14-year-old girl whose mother arranged the trysts by way of an Internet chat room. San Francisco based epidemiologist David Mark Stier received 24 months probation; Princeton fertilizer sales firm owner Jonathan DeRochi received 12 months probation. They'll also perform 72 hours community service. \n The mother, whose name wasn't released to protect her daughter's identity, was sentenced to 15-27 months in prison, followed by 60 months probation, for her guilty plea to felony child abuse. She posed as a 17year-old girl in Internet chat rooms and arranged the trysts, but instead sent her daughter, who then told her mother about the encounters. \n The woman's attorney says the sentence is unfair considering the men get no jail time, but the prosecution says the sentence was fair because she was the "driving force" behind the crimes.
--- Compiled by Humphrey Pennyworth
