Jacqui Goddard
The TimesMon, 26 Feb 2007 03:41 UTC
When an image of the Virgin Mary appeared on one of their pizza pans on Ash Wednesday the dinner ladies at Pugh Elementary School in Houston knew that it had to be more than just the cheese and pepperoni talking. This had to be a message from God.
Guadalupe Rodriguez, 59, who had scrubbed at the greasy stain to no avail, hastened to the head teacher for a second opinion. Indeed, the principal confirmed, the school kitchens seemed to have been singled out for divine intervention.
Within hours the apparition had become the talk of Houston and the pan a focus for pilgrims. One woman arrived at dawn the next day to seek healing for her disabled grandson; another prayed for God's blessing on her eight-year-old's forthcoming hospital operation. Throughout the weekend worshippers flocked to the home where the pan is now on display to pay their respects. "I see an image of the Blessed Mother. It's a sign that something is going to happen," one visitor, Vincent Santiago, said.
A 5,000-year-old golden artificial eye that once stared out mesmerisingly from the face of a female soothsayer or priestess in ancient Persia has been unearthed by Iranian and Italian archaeologists.
The eyeball - the earliest artificial eye found - would have transfixed those who saw it, convincing them that the woman - thought to have been strikingly tall - had occult powers and could see into the future, archaeologists said.
Roman Catholics in Australia have been ordered to keep funeral Mass eulogies short and to steer clear of tales of sex and drunkenness, after a reported increase in "inappropriate" statements.
In new guidelines, Cardinal George Pell, the country's most senior Catholic, has imposed a five-minute deadline and deemed some areas of a person's life off limits.
"On not a few occasions, inappropriate remarks glossing over the deceased's proclivities (drinking prowess, romantic conquests etc) or about the Church (attacking its moral teachings) have been made at funeral Masses," Cardinal Pell's guidelines say.
The city of Clifton is not going to the dogs. At least not if the City Council has anything to do about it.
Later this month, the council is expected to introduce an ordinance setting a limit on how long dogs can bark.
Noisy canines will be defined as those that bark for more than 30 minutes on two consecutive days.
The city already has nuisance and "noise laws that can be used to address annoying and disturbing noises such as constant barking." But officials said those laws are sometimes difficult to enforce.
You could never flip it, pop it into a vending machine or jangle it in your pocket.
The Royal Canadian Mint's newest coin will weigh 100 kilograms - that's 220 pounds, or nearly as much as a linebacker - and will be the size of a party pizza.
The non-circulating, pure gold coin will have a face value of $1 million, but at current bullion prices will be worth a staggering $2 million.
Rumours of the new coin, which would be the highest denomination in the world, have been circulating since early this month when cabinet approved the project in a short announcement.
But the mint had been keeping mum on details of its plans until Wednesday, when it posted a regulatory notice on a government website.
WEATHERFORD, Texas - Perhaps his $24 billion electric bill will teach Richard Redden not to leave the heat running. Thanks to a printing error, Redden and more than 1,300 Weatherford utility customers this week received billion-dollar electric bills marked as late notices.
Irving-bases DataProse, which prints customer bills for Weatherford Electric, said the company was embarrassed by the error.
Large crowds gathered yesterday around a mobile phone mast in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu after locals spotted Jesus Christ atop the structure, Kampala's The Monitor reports.
Witness Eric Odongo, who claimed he "first saw clouds on top of the mast and that Jesus appeared to be standing amidst clouds", told the paper: "I saw Jesus standing on top of the mast. He was standing between two people and was putting on a white cloth. His hair was black."
She duped the literary world into believing that she fled Jordan with a fatwa on her head after her best friend was murdered in an "honour killing". Now Norma Khouri is the star of a film that tries to help her to clear her name, but ends up painting her as a compulsive liar.
Khouri's "memoir", Forbidden Love, published in 2003, sold half a million copies in 15 countries. The book, which recounts the fatal love affair between her Muslim friend Dalia and a Christian army officer, tapped into the apparently unquenchable appetite for "confessional" autobiographies.
AFPThu, 22 Feb 2007 07:18 UTC
Hong Kong restaurants have come up with a novel way to cut down on waste from food leftovers -- threatening to fine diners who don't eat up.
A number of restaurants in the Chinese city alert customers that they will charge them between five and 20 Hong Kong dollars (0.64-2.5 US dollars) if they leave any food on their plates, the South China Morning Post reported.
It said a handful of restaurants serving do-it-yourself hotpots, sushi and buffets had set up the system.
Men in parts of Tanzania's main city, Dar es Salaam, are living in fear of a night-time sex attacker.
A BBC correspondent says the attacks are being blamed by some on a demon called "Popo Bawa" meaning winged bat.
